The World’s Best Guide to Open and Cold Water Swimming
There are better cold water swimmers than I. There are faster cold water swimmers than I. There are hardier cold water swimmers than I. There are more scientific cold water swimmers than I. There are...
View ArticleHow To: Advice for Christmas or New Year swimming in cold water for irregular...
PREPARE and OBSERVE If swimming by yourself, make sure you inform someone where and when and preferably have an observer. Your most important pre-swim action to make sure you know where to exit the...
View ArticleDancing With The Devil – A Christmas Day Swim Rescue
For five years I’ve posted swim advice for the casual swimmers who may take to the water on Christmas Day or over the holiday period. I’m always aware that of the 10,000 people who will take to the...
View ArticleWhat Is Cold Water Swimming? Part 2 – The Open Water Swimmer’s Rule of Thumb
Is it too cold to swim? and when is it too cold to swim? are perennial questions that have prompted a number of articles and to which I will likely return in the future. If I was to list the variations...
View ArticleWhat Is Cold Water Swimming? Part 2 – The Open Water Swimmer’s Rule of Thumb
Is it too cold to swim? and when is it too cold to swim? are perennial questions that have prompted a number of articles and to which I will likely return in the future. If I was to list the variations...
View ArticleIf Channel Swimming Was Star Wars …
If Channel Swimming was Star Wars… Captain Webb would be Yoda, the ultimate Jedi swimmer. King of the Channel Kevin Murphy would be Luke Skywalker, while Queen of the Channel Alison Streeter would be...
View ArticleThe Wreck of the Sea Horse – a true tale of The Copper Coast – Part 1
The weather on Saturday the second of July was horrible. The air was cool, a mere 14 degrees. It had been raining for three weeks, and the early promise of summer, a sly murmur spoken over a mere four...
View ArticleThe Wreck of the Sea Horse – a Tale of The Copper Coast – Part 2
When I left you at the end of the last post, I’d also left the LE Orla, setting out for the water under Doneraile Head and park where I could see the local RNLI and Tramore Inshore RIBs on weekly...
View ArticleThe Birth of a Sport – Captain Matthew Webb’s successful English Channel solo...
Kathy Watkin’s book The Crossing, reviewed here, is the only currently available biography of Captain Matthew Webb and is almost required reading for any English Channel soloist and certainly for any...
View ArticleHot Coffee by Moonlight: the Birth of Marathon Swimming. Part 1 – Agnes...
Kathy Watkin’s book The Crossing, (reviewed here), is the only currently available biography of Captain Matthew Webb. It is required reading for any English Channel Aspirant and certainly for anyone...
View Article“We Enter on our Nautical Existence” – The Birth of Marathon Swimming – Part 1
I had intended this article to cover further the articles shared by Nick Adams from the turn of the last century, but I realised that I would have to digress from those accounts and go back to the...
View ArticleRapture on the Lonely Shore, Society by the Deep Sea – The Birth of Marathon...
In the last part we closed with Byron’s continued explanation of his Hellespont swim to Mr. Turner, (below again). “With regard to the difference of the current, I perceived none; it is favourable to...
View ArticleIt Takes An Ocean Not To Break
There have been many searches about open water swimming into LoneSwimmer over the years, from the humourous to the informative. I have in the past written articles based on some of those search. Goggle...
View ArticleIn The Depths, The Stars
I feel. Shamanistic. I feel. I feel atavistic and pantheistic. I feel touched by what they could have, maybe did call the divine wind. Though only my fingers and eyes move here, a wind, no, a storm is...
View ArticleThe Sound of Bells – A Tale of the Copper Coast
Rolling across the water from somewhere in the distance I could hear the sound of bells. Under the water’s surface the luminous dial of my watch showed six PM. So. The Angelus Bells, the Catholic call...
View ArticleHow To: Long Swim Recovery Meal
Swimmers love to eat, quite a lot, and to talk about how they eat almost as much. Yet there is little discussion of food on this site. The last time I wrote a recipe here was some years ago with the...
View ArticleThe Return of Furious Bob
Our eponymous hero first appeared in the letters column of H2Open magazine back in 2012, subsequent to Simon Griffith, (editor of H2Open) posting a link to the one of the articles I’d written about...
View ArticleHow To: Advice for Christmas or New Year swimming in cold water for beginner...
The weather forecast for 2016 Christmas Day on Ireland’s south coast is not good for casual Christmas swimmers. Storm Barbara will peak on Friday but on Christmas Day will still unveil west-south-west...
View ArticleHow To: Advice for Christmas or New Year swimming in cold water for beginner...
The weather forecast for 2016 Christmas Day on Ireland’s south coast is not good for casual Christmas swimmers. Storm Barbara will peak on Friday but on Christmas Day will still unveil west-south-west...
View ArticleThe Return of Furious Bob
Our eponymous hero first appeared in the letters column of H2Open magazine back in 2012, subsequent to Simon Griffith, (editor of H2Open) posting a link to the one of the articles I’d written about...
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