St Mawes Swimming

2023 was a very popular year for Sea Swim Cornwall…so popular in fact, that by July we decided at the last minute to put on an additional swimming holiday in Sept. As we hadn’t done a lot of swimming in the St Mawes / Roseland area…this was the obvious choice.

St Mawes is an ideal location for swimming holidays, as you have multiple sheltered rivers to choose from, as well as coastline facing in every direction. As well as the wind and conditions, the tide also dictates where you might swim…meaning every swimming holiday is different.

This is St Just-in-Roseland and the tidal pool. Great way to start a holiday!

Our Safety Record

We come from a swimming and lifeguarding background, here at Sea Swim Cornwall. For us, good lifeguarding is all about being pro-active and preventing people from getting in a situation where they need to be assisted or rescued. This is the approach we adopt with our swimming holidays and activities. On occasion we will do the odd ‘rough’ swim but it will be with a group of swimmers that we know and we’re always very transparent about the conditions you’ll be swimming in…particularly if they’re going to be less than ideal.

We do offer set location swims but these do come with the risk of being cancelled or re-arranged, as if the conditions are not safe we will cancel. The majority of our swims (and the swims that we publish on our social media) are arranged at short-notice, having looked at the short-range forecast. They are selected based on the quality and beauty of the swim itself but primarily they’re based on the conditions. For both your safety and enjoyment.

Since 2015 (at the time of writing) we've never had to rescue a customer. In that time we've assisted 2 swimmers over approx 200-300m of slightly choppy water...before they continued swimming. Off the top of my head we've had 1 swimmers since 2015 injure themselves (rolled their ankle on dry land).

We totally appreciate that some people get a little anxious at the thought of sea swimming, especially if they’ve never swum any kind of distance in the sea. We can assure you that all of our swims are thoroughly risk assessed and selection is based on the appropriate conditions.

Short Notice Summer Swim Double-Ups

 We trialled this at the end of last summer and it worked really well. This summer we’ll offer our standard 2-3 km short notice swims (short-notice as we check the conditions midweek and then pick the swim based on the forecasted conditions). We’ll also offer shorter distance swim double-ups…so we’ll swim around 1km at two different locations, that are fairly close to each other. These are more of an exploration and as they’re fairly laid back you get more of a chance to get a few coaching tips and ask questions.

Potential Doubles for this summer :

Porthcurno / Penberth or Nanjizal / Porthcurno : Porthcurno is easily one of our favourites and a stunning swimming location. The beauty of Porthcurno is that it also has some stunning swimming ‘neighbours’.

Kynance / Cadgwith : Kynance is Cornish Top 3 swims material. Cadgwith offers the breathtaking ‘Devil’s Frying Pan’ swim, as well as some very cool nearby caves to explore.  

Mousehole / Mount : swimming over to St Clement’s Isle (Mousehole Island) and back. Then swimming off the beach at Marazion.

Porthleven Harbour / Rinsey or Prussia Cove : swimming out of the iconic Porthleven Harbour and back in. Rinsey or Prussia also offer fabulous, peaceful swims.

The Gannel / Polly Joke : Crystal clear water, meets a little Cornish gem.

This summer we’re offering memberships for return/frequent ‘short-notice swimmers’. The membership offers around 1/3 discount – and is only £15! CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO

Safe Swimming Guide - Lamorna Cove

This beach can get swell and chop from any southerly wind. Again, be wary of swimming here once the tide has turned and is going out, particularly with big Spring tides.

Recent weekend swims

We’ve been hosting quite a few swims over the month of August. Including loads of swims around St Michael’s Mount, some exciting cave swims at an undisclosed beach near Penzance, one of our faves - Carbis Bay to Porthkidney… swim coaching sessions at numerous locations. It’s been a great month.

Booking available : either set a date and we’ll pick the best swim for that day’s conditions or keep an eye on our social media, where we typically announce what we’re doing with a few days notice.