Winter swimming has been my greatest discovery of this coronavirus pandemic | Alison Rourke

Getting into the ocean every morning has been a reminder of what a tiny speck I am on this planetI'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little freaked out the first time I saw a shark on my swim out of Sydney's Manly Beach. Time almost stood still as the sleek figure weaved below me. Disbelieving, I thought: "That looks like a shark." No one around me in the water even blinked an eye, and the baby grey nurse drifted off into the deep blue.I have been a swimmer all of my life, but the idea of a shark encounter had pretty much kept me out of anything beyond the surf. That was until the Covid-19 lockdown. I had been covering the pandemic for the Guardian since the virus first emerged in China in January. At times I had found myself overwhelmed by the story's immensity and the grim reality of how it had taken over our lives. Continue reading...