Paula Mulcahy

Here the water is 14 degrees.

You can give about up to two minutes on top of that.

So half an hour is about right at this time of the year in this temperature.

So knowing the temperature, knowing what your limits are, not going out beyond your depth.

at all until you are an absolute competent swimmer.

So staying where you're comfortable, having access to the shore and then, you know, comfort in terms of what you're wearing, the wetsuits, the booties, the gloves.

And depending on how you manage the cold,

having the right equipment so that it's not a terrible affair altogether.

But yeah, I was in the other lake last night in Lough Lane and while I was coaching, one person I turned around and two of the others in the water, adults, were just laid in a starfish motion on top of the water looking up at the skies.

That's why we do it.

There comes a point after you have got into the lesson, maybe 15 or 20 minutes, when you suddenly realize where you are.

You're in open water.

It totally immersed in nature.

Nothing allows you to immerse quite like being in water.

And you get a moment to take it all in.

And that's a real step away from the normal run of the mill, kids, house, job, traffic, the franticness of life to actually suddenly find yourself laying in a lake, looking up at the sky going, this is something very special.

So it's quite heady in that way.

Once you build confidence and you can access the lake and do all of that, then it's just fantastic.