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- Ria’s Iceberger Profile extracted from The Iceberger News edition 2nd September 2021 ”September - Official Newsletter of the Brighton Icebergers ICEBERGER PROFILE – RIA BLEATHMAN Joined Icebergers: June 2018Early days: my formative years were spent in the Steppes in Tasmania’s Central Highlands, so-named after the Russian Steppes with both areas sharing the climatic extremes of hot airless summers and marrow-freezing winters.Learnt to swim: in the inland water holes of … Continue reading Ria’s Iceberger Profile extracted from The Iceberger News edition 2nd September 2021
- They Cried for Their Mothers – Explanatory Note ”May - The words in my poem They Cried for Their Mothers, which appeared in the Iceberger News on 15th April 2021, are an evocation of my personal connections to Gallipoli and explained as follows: My Great, Great Uncle Herbert Hare and his brother Charles ‘I think of all those farm-boys’ landed at Gallipoli with the Mediterranean … Continue reading They Cried for Their Mothers – Explanatory Note
- Covid Days – Messaging ”May - With Melbourne in lockdown and the consequent de-peopling of the city, I have developed a heightened awareness of messaging from strangers, unknowns, equals, about how we are being affected by these isolating times. Like sending a radio beam into the wide expanse of the universe, or putting a message in a bottle and throwing it … Continue reading Covid Days – Messaging
- Running on Empty ”April - Living and working in Melbourne during the current pandemic lockdown means our vibrant city has effectively ground to a halt. Emptiness is an all-pervading descriptor. I now walk through once-busy arcades and renowned laneways, past eateries and across boulevards and thoroughfares and bear witness to a barren, empty streetscape. I recall the stark, post-apocalyptic images … Continue reading Running on Empty
- Pandemics and Hope ”April - During these disruptive times, history provides both precedents and hope for what we are experiencing. In 1666 England was wracked by the Great Plague, The Great Fire of London and the destruction of the English Fleet by the Dutch during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. But it was also the year a young Isaac Newton, during … Continue reading Pandemics and Hope
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Open Water |
Swim The Planet – Freedom Swim 2020 January 25, 2020 - Despite passing some wonderful swimming milestones last year, they did not extinguish my burning desire to complete the Freedom Swim in South Africa, so frustratingly cancelled by organisers on the eve of the event last year. I once read that a distinguishing attribute of open water swimmers is that, when they see a stretch of … Continue reading Swim The Planet – Freedom Swim 2020
Swim The Planet – Hellespont / Dardanelles Strait September 11, 2019 - This historic body of water is called the Hellespont in Greek and the Dardanelles in former Turkish times. In modern-day Turkey it is known as the Strait of Çanakkale. The Strait separates both the Asian and European land masses and has been a natural barrier for invading armies for millennia, including King Xerxes I of … Continue reading Swim The Planet – Hellespont / Dardanelles Strait
Swim The Planet – Swim NYC August 28, 2019 - Inasmuch as New York is the city that never sleeps, it is also the city that, possibly due to all this ‘unsleeping,’ seemingly never swims. I could find just one Olympic-sized swimming pool in Lower Manhattan. It was the aptronymically named Hamilton Fish Pond, so-called after former local luminary Hamilton Stuyvesant Fish. The ‘Fish Pond’ … Continue reading Swim The Planet – Swim NYC
Swim The Planet – Memphremagog Marathon August 26, 2019 - On 15th August 2019 I completed The Lake Memphremagog 11.3 kilometre marathon swim which is part of the week-long Kingdom Games in North Eastern Vermont. Twenty eight swimmers started the race at 9.30am with an average water temperature of approximately 21C and air temperatures around 22C. The breeze was minimal and the water conditions were … Continue reading Swim The Planet – Memphremagog Marathon
Swim The Planet™ – Swim the Kingdom August 13, 2019 - On August 15, 2019 I will be participating in a marathon swim with the North East Kingdom Open Water Swimming Association in the pristine mountain lake called Memphremagog between Vermont and Quebec. The lakes of The Kingdom are a mecca for open water swimming and the Association hosts the annual Kingdom Games with swims conducted in these … Continue reading Swim The Planet™ – Swim the Kingdom
Swim The Planet – Rockin’ It August 10, 2019 - This morning our intrepid group of 28 swimmers set out from St Francis Beach at 9.15am in San Francisco Bay for the 14th annual Swim Around The Rock. The thick fog had lifted just enough for us to sight the northern point of Alcatraz as we set off. We swam with a waning flood tide … Continue reading Swim The Planet – Rockin’ It
Swim The Planet™ – Rock Around the Rock July 17, 2019 - On Saturday 10th August 2019 I will be swimming in the 14th Annual Around Alcatraz swim in San Francisco Bay. The 5.8km swim involves water temperatures around 13C with fast tides and complex currents and is considered the most difficult of all the Bay swims. We will start at 6.30am at St. Francis Beach and swim … Continue reading Swim The Planet™ – Rock Around the Rock
Swim The Planet™ – The Rip Wants You Dead June 16, 2019 - The Winter Rip is an extreme open water swim. Our historic crossing on 2nd June 2019 confirmed this description. The story of our crossing is worth telling. The Unravelling This photo shows our group of four swimmers some two kilometres and one hour into our crossing and about one kilometre from our finish at … Continue reading Swim The Planet™ – The Rip Wants You Dead
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Going Global |
From Struggle Street to Wall Street August 29, 2018 - I grew up in the tough northern suburbs of Hobart Tasmania and went to an even tougher public school. My school life focussed less on Shakespeare and more on survival, but I scored well in resilience. After my school and university days, I worked in the pressured investment banking environments in London, New York, Sydney, … Continue reading From Struggle Street to Wall Street
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Styling |
Style Series May 21, 2019 - Forty percent of women’s shoes sold in 2018 were runners, which means these have now become my latest styling ‘weapon of choice’. Over the summer I developed several different styles and worked through their manufacture with a bespoke leather shoemaker during a recent trip to South Africa. Our final design included runners made exclusively from … Continue reading Style Series
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 The Rip Feb 2019 |
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