There were tears in many eyes at the International Women's Day swim at Portobello beach today – and not just because of the bite of the cold. The last time we had waded into the North Sea as a mass, like this, had been in 2020, for the International Women's Day swim and fundraiser, dubbed IWD Swimrise. It took place weeks before the first lockdown of the pandemic. Hugs then had been cautious. Now, we were plunging in there as a crowd, carrying with us thoughts of what had happened in the two years that had passed, and what was taking place in the world now.
Jeff Mitchell/Getty, IWD Swimrise 2022, Portobello, Edinburgh
The women lost to Covid, the vigils for Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa, the domestic abuse that rose during lockdown, a time when victims had no escaoe, the loss of Alice Byrne, local woman, who was last seen going into the sea on this beach, and more recently, the way the conflict in Ukraine is impacting on both those who stay and those who flee as refugees... all of these were thought about in a moment's silence held on the beach.
Jeff Mitchell/Getty, IWD Swimrise 2022, Portobello, Edinburgh
The annual International Women's Day swim is a recent tradition, started in 2018 at Wardie Bay, Edinburgh, that has swelled the size of its crowd, partly due to the rise in popularity of wild swimming over the pandemic. Many take place around the country, but the swim at Portobello is the original and biggest. In February 2020, around 300 people joined the swim. This year the crowd had doubled, to more like 700, with many thousands of pounds already raised for charity - and the Just Giving pages are still collecting.
IWD Swimrise at Portobello, copyright Lee Simpson
The chief chosen charities for this year's swim were local women-focused organisations, Edinburgh Rape Crisis, Edinburgh Women's Aid, and the baby loss charity Held in Our Hearts. These were chosen in part as recognition of the ways the pandemic has affected women, the isolation it has caused and, the flip side of that, the way it has trapped abuse victims with their abusers.
Jeff Mitchell/Getty, IWD Swimrise 2022, Portobello, Edinburgh
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