Current and former parishioners, open water swimming friends from the Williamstown Dolphins and onlookers applauded and cheered as Fr Greg Trythall tore through a special ‘1500’ banner before splashing into the cold waters of Port Phillip Bay. The parish priest of St Mary’s Catholic Church, Williamstown, celebrated 1500 consecutive Sunday open-water swims on 18 August.
Fr Greg has been enjoying the practice of open-water swimming consistently for the past 30 years. It is a habit that he says has improved his overall health and wellbeing, and his role as a priest. Growing up in Footscray, in the west of Melbourne, his parents would often take him to Williamstown Beach in the summer months. Now, many years later, Fr Greg is pleased that it was the location for his momentous 1500th consecutive Sunday swim.
‘My 1000 Sunday swims in a row came on 28 December 2014. It was a beautiful sunny day, and a nice crowd of parishioners came down to our local Williamstown Surf and Life Saving Club to support me on reaching this unusual milestone. And now, with gratitude and pride, I swim out to the first buoy at Williamstown Beach with a few others to achieve that next milestone.
‘Who knows, in 10 years’ time it might be 2000! I don’t think so, but having said that, I never thought I’d get to 100 or 200!’
A couple of days later, on Tuesday 20 August, Fr Greg celebrated 47 years as a priest in the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne. During this time, he’s always led an active and healthy life, his preferred modes of keeping fit being football, cricket and squash (in his earlier years), and now swimming and golf. He has also enjoyed running for many years.
As a priest, he has served in the parishes of Seaford (for three and a half years) and Cheltenham (for three years), both bayside suburbs in the south of Melbourne. He then spent seven and a half years in Airport West, in the west of Melbourne, before serving in the parishes of Grovedale-Torquay (later adding Anglesea on Victoria’s Surf Coast) for 18 years. He has been the parish priest in Williamstown for the past 14 years.
Reflecting on these locations, he says he’s been ‘so lucky’ to be close to the ocean for much of his priestly life. However, he credits his current open-water swimming habit and achievement to an initial decision made in Byron Bay, NSW, while on annual leave.
‘During some prayer time in Byron Bay, with great insight I believe from the Holy Spirit, I decided to go back to doing some more ardent running and swimming—I was in my late 40s at the time,’ he says. ‘I returned to my parish of Grovedale-Torquay determined to run and swim three days a week—Sunday, Wednesday, Friday, with the Sunday being non-negotiable.’ He started this new habit on the second Sunday of November in 1994.
In the years that followed, Fr Greg remained committed to his consecutive Sunday swims. Though there were months away overseas, he resumed the Sunday swims when back in Australia, continuing the count where he left off. ‘Back in Australia, I have never missed that Sunday swim these last 30 years.
‘It was not mainly about my own self-discipline, but more in religious terms, God’s Holy Spirit leading me down a personal path which would have been madness for me not to follow, as I have discovered over the years.’
Fr Greg says he loves the effects of swimming. The practice has made him fitter, happier and healthier, and a better priest. ‘I found that if I ran and swam regularly, I felt so much better for the rest of the day,’ he says. ‘Mentally and physically, I was on a higher plain, and it allowed me to retain enthusiasm for the work I do as a priest.
‘I believe I’m a better priest for people, as my mood is still high following the swim, rather than feeling too much the pressures and stressors of so many night meetings and other things that you find on your agenda, which are quite constant in this work. I think you neglect the physical side at your own peril!’
Fr Greg ran regularly between 40 and 60 years of age. Now, he focuses more on the swimming. On his swimming mornings, his alarm sounds at 6.30am so that he’s in the water by 6.50am. As he’s exiting the water, many of his fellow ‘Williamstown Dolphins’ are entering.
‘I always swim early in the morning so that I can get back in time to have breakfast, then have a time of prayer, hopefully up to an hour before Mass; that then sets me up for all sorts of things in my normal work day.’
Fr Greg admits that it can be ‘difficult’ to get into the water during Melbourne’s cold and dark winters, but he gets in anyway. ‘It’s not quite as uplifting when there’s no sun that you can see, until just about when you’ve finished swimming. And it’s a bit cold and wet sometimes with the rain, but it’s a case of “mind over matter”. I go anyway.’ In the cooler months, he also appreciates the help of his ‘Short John’ wetsuit and the two swimming caps and neoprene gloves. It’s always worth the effort, he says.
‘I believe God gave many of us the benefits of sea water to help us keep the best of health and, with that, greater happiness,’ he says. ‘The sea has nourished me with its beauty; it has greatly enhanced my health … and it has rarely let me down over the years.’
He says this despite having encountered, on a few occasions, some of the dangers of swimming in the ocean. In 1977, he needed to be rescued by a lifesaver when caught in a rip off a Newcastle beach. And while on holidays at Byron Bay in 2018, a pilot in a passing helicopter alerted him to a ‘sizeable shark’ that was swimming very close to him in the water.
‘Nevertheless, in perspective, the ocean has given me nothing but joy and good health,’ he says. ‘In my lucky life, I have also swum in the Black Sea, the Red Sea and [have done a swim], of sorts, in the Dead Sea, as one mainly only floats—the salt content is around 27 per cent’
In three years, Fr Greg will be 80, and he will celebrate the golden Jubilee of his priestly vocation. Following this, he hopes to retire in Williamstown, where can continue his love for golf and swimming. ‘I hope I can keep the friendship of the “Dolphins”, the 25 or so men and women who swim early of a morning at Williamstown Beach. They form a group of not only good, friendly people but are equally self-disciplined as me for their own health benefits.’ He has also nurtured and maintained many strong friendships from his seminary and schooling days, and with former and current parishioners.
Reflecting on his 1500-swim milestone, Fr Greg says, ‘I shake my head in disbelief.’
‘The first 10 were difficult with colder water, but I never thought I would get to a 100, certainly not 1000 and 1500! As far as I’m concerned, it means only that I’ve had a lot of help from above. I have stayed completely healthy, and I believe God has answered my initial prayer made on Byron Bay holidays 30 years ago that I would find something which would help me to retain enthusiasm in my own calling in life for the years to come.’
