Austinmer Otters Winter Swimming ClubPrint Page

Now celebrating its 50th year, the Austinmer Otters club has a healthy membership of more than 70 men and boys, ranging in age from 12 to 80. The club is four years younger than the oldest South Coast swimming club, the Wollongong Whales, but has a history every bit as inspiring.

Mechanical engineer Joe McGarity started swimming with the Whales in its second year, but eventually tired of the travel and decided to form a local club. "I thought 'there's a perfectly good pool at Austinmer'," he said. So he called a meeting of his surf club mates and, on the first Sunday after Easter in 1963, a small group of men met at the Austi pool for the inaugural swim. They haven't stopped since.

Handicapped races are held over 50 yards - there and back - and organised so that everyone would touch the concrete at the same time. If anyone beats their personal time by two seconds or more, they are disqualified from the race but their handicapped is adjusted nonetheless.

"It stops anyone cheating," McGarity said.

The Illawarra is a hot-bed of winter swimming with eight clubs that make up the South Coast Winter Swimming Association - the Bellambi Blue Bottles, Bulli Sea Lions, Coledale Oysters, Corrimal Marlins, Stanwell Park Sea Eels, Wollongong Whales and Woonona Ockies.
Excerpt from Illawarra Mercury(NSW), August 2012. 

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