Wild Swimming Days Out

We’re running a number of ‘Wild Swimming Days Out’ in 2023 and annually. These are swimming days that are designed for all-comers. We have swimmers that turn up and do head up breaststroke, all the way through to swimmers that’ll cover 3-4km. The day is designed to take in 3-4 swims, with minimal travel between swims. Our West Cornwall day out in 2023 saw us park up and manage 4 swims without moving vehicles. We typically set a rough area and then get in touch 2-3 days before the event, once we’ve seen an accurate forecast and announce the exact swim locations. This ensures that you swim in flat and enjoyable conditions.

Our west Cornwall Wild Swimming Days Out saw us swim from 2 secluded beaches to the west of Perranuthnoe, one beach swim from Perranuthnoe and another glorious swim towards Cuddon Point.

READING THE CONDITIONS / PLANNING A SWIM

There is an art to reading the conditions and planning a swim. It really isn’t a difficult art to pick up though. The longer you look at the conditions and get used to planning, the better you tend to get at predicting the conditions.

Below, we’ll look at a specific swim and then how you’d go about checking the conditions and planning a route or possibly finding an alternative swim.

So we’re looking at Penzance sea front / Penzance Promenade. As you can see, by my dodgy scribbles - with a south, southwest or southeast wind, the wind (and chop) will be blowing straight in there. A wind strength of 0-10 kmph won’t produce a great deal of chop. 10-20 kmph will produce a little. 20km+ will start producing enough ‘chop’ to make the swim far more challenging and far less pleasurable. You also need to consider the state of the tide. At high tide the water level is half way up the sea wall. If chop and swell hits the wall it’ll bounce off and send that chop back out to sea. So…if you were swimming at high tide you’d be hit by chop from a few different directions.

START PLANNING when looking at where to swim you should always start the plan at home on the internet. There are a number of different resources that you can use. We like ‘Tides4fishing’, there is also Swimfinder, Windfinder, Magic Seaweed (soon to have a name change), Windy App, Nautide, local to Cornwall is the free My Coast App (I think they’re starting to roll this out nationwide). When looking at these resources you should be checking the wind direction and strength, tide times, swell, you can also look at the weather forecast (avoiding any storms/predicted lightning/drastic wind changes…). Below, we’ll use the Tides4Fishing website. A great starting point would be Swimfinder, which you’ll find towards the bottom of the page.

In our example at Penzance sea front, we’re looking at a 10am swim. The wind will be Northerly, at 31 kmph. So, whilst that is a little strong, it’s off-shore for a south facing swim. That means that the wind has no opportunity to influence the conditions, in terms of chop, as the wind only hits the water on the shoreline. You may think that this wind would push you out to sea…if you swim front crawl, there’s a tiny surface area exposed to the wind. This will have minimal impact on the swimmer. If you swam head-up breaststroke and you weren’t such a strong swimmer, you have more surface area exposed to the wind. This may make it trickier to swim back to shore. In this instance, you could plan a high tide swim…so that the harbour wall offers protection from the wind and the off-shore wind blows straight over your head. Next we’ll look at swell. Swell isn’t so much a factor in Penzance (sometimes local knowledge is crucial).

Again, in our example the swell for 10am is around 1.8m. You don’t really get breaking waves in our Penzance example. So whilst this is a decent size swell, breaking waves aren’t a factor. If we go back to the wind direction, we know that it’s 31 kmph from the north. So that wind will be pushing against any swell and flattening it right out. If it were 31 kmph from the south, with a 1.8m swell it’d be a very different story. Anyway, with a strong offshore wind and 1.8m swell there isn’t going to be too much to worry about. The only slight issue you might have is getting in off the slipway at hight tide. There may be a little bit of water sloshing around. *At this stage I will point out that the swell section of the website is my least favourite and least accurate. I’ll always double check the swell with Surfline.com. I’ll pick a nearby beach, that faces the same direction…like Praa Sands or Perranuthnoe and check the surf prediction. This will give you a good indication of the swell size.

Lastly, we’re looking at the tide. At 10am, it’s around a 1.9m tide. Bear in mind that tidal ranges can have massive differences from area-to-area, around the country. You need to specifically look at the area where you’re planning to swim, for accurate tide times and an idea of the tidal range. The ‘tidal coefficient’ is a great feature and gives you a visual representation of exactly how much water is moving around. In our example, it’s 75/120. So it’s not a huge tide but it’s not a small one either. A 120/120 is the biggest possible tide you could experience and a 0/120 would be the smallest. Above, it also gives you a text description of the tidal movement…’a high value and therefore the range of tides and currents will also be high’.

Back to the example swim, a 1.8m tide would make it tricky to get in along Penzance promenade, as it’s quite rocky. You’d have to head for the beach towards Newlyn or swim off the Battery Rocks area, at the back of the Jubilee Pool. If you were the head-up breaststroker we spoke about earlier and were worried about the wind you might wait for the afternoon high tide and get protection from the sea wall along the promenade.

OTHER FACTORS :

• land mass. You often get large tidal movements through narrow land masses. You can get this with long narrow beaches or area like Dover. You have water funnelling through narrow gaps or land masses and can get strong currents on an outgoing tide or almost constant lateral currents, as the tide goes in and out.

• tides. You have the most water movement in the middle two hours between a high and low tide. These are hours you can avoid. Particularly if you’re experiencing spring tides. If unsure of an area normally best to ‘test’ on an incoming tide, avoiding those middle two hours.

• headland. You can experience currents moving around headland and islands, particularly when there’s deep water in these areas. Remember that most people would struggle to make any forward movement against a current as small as 2 knots!

BE FLEXIBLE WITH SWIM LOCATION

Our example location was Penzance sea front. If we look at Carbis Bay (10-15 minute drive away) on the same day. The wind would blow straight in here. It’d really be whipping up some chop and wouldn’t be the most pleasant location to swim in. The swell is coming from the south so you wouldn’t have surf but you would have constant lumpy chop and plenty of it.

ADDITIONAL CHECKS

You can always make additional checks if your swim location has a webcam. Just remember that most webcams are wide angle and aren’t always that close to the water. So any chop or swell may look a little smaller than it actually is.

FINALLY

You can do all the checks in the world at home…but it’s really important to re-check the conditions when you arrive. Ensure that the conditions are behaving in the way you’d expect. Be prepared not to enter the water and possibly have a plan B…just in case.

COURSES

Sea Swim Cornwall have set up an affordable course to teach the fundamentals of planning your swim and understanding the conditions and rip currents. Our ‘First aid for swimmers’ course is available in a number of locations throughout the summer. CLICK HERE for more info.

---

ADDITIONAL WEBSITES :

SURFLINE, FORMERLY MAGIC SEAWEED

ABOVE : We’ve started by highlighting the search bar at the very top of the page.Put in the location of your swim. Bear in mind that this website is primarily for surfing and if you live in an area that never gets surf/waves, they may not cover your area. I was quite surprised there were search results when I put in ‘Penzance’.

At the bottom of the page I’ve circled a little summary of the conditions. So today we’re looking at 5-7ft of swell, next to the 5-7ft prediction it says ‘9s’ in small text. There’s a 9 second gap between each significant swell. This means there’s a decent swell, with some power. If the gap was really small ie. 2-3 seconds, we’re now really talking about waves with far less power ie. chop or choppy conditions.

We then go onto wind strength and they supply a handy little map that shows you how and where the wind will hit that particular stretch of coast. In this example 37 mph is a significant strength of wind! Below in smaller text you also have the ‘gust’ strength. This can have a real influence in whipping up chop, so is also important. There’s then a small visual representation of what the tide is doing at the time you’re checking and a guide to the water temp.

IF YOU SCROLL BELOW THIS INITIAL INFO THEY GO INTO FURTHER DETAIL: (see below)…

Figure A - takes you through the changing swell size and wave period through the day. Next to figure A are little arrows. They show you the swell direction.

Figure B - Wind strength through the day and a visual of the direction (arrows).

Figure C - summary of the weather.

Figure D - very handy…goes over the probability that this forecast is accurate. Todays forecast is around 90%. If you look at ‘tomorrows’ it’s only around 65%.

WINDFINDER

When using Windfinder always use the exact area you’re in or intend to swim in. For me, in this example I’ve typed in ‘Windfinder Penzance’. This website primarily focuses on the wind direction and strength. Great if you don’t ever get much swell in your local area but not so good if you do. I like using Windfinder as a secondary check, after using another website that’s better with swell.

So…they give you an exact location ie. Penzance Heliport, which is a nice central location. They then give you a quick summary of the wind direction and strength….and a summary of the weather.

Circled below this is another summary of the wind through the day and it strength. If you look at the Friday (today), it’s strong wind all day, building through the morning, peaking in the afternoon and dropping off in the evening.

Above red circle gives you a visual representation of the wind direction.

Blue circle is wind strength in knots (roughly the same as mph) and then gust strength below.

Green circle really summarises the days weather.

Black circle, goes over swell. This includes a visual of the direction, height in metres and the wave period. So…today it’s 10-12 seconds, which suggests a good strength swell.

Yellow circle at the bottom is the tidal info. This is the bit I don’t really like, as they don’t go into specifics. It’s difficult to figure out the exact tide times etc.

SWIMMER SPECIFIC WEBSITES :

SWIMFINDER

A website aimed at swimmers that supplies you with all the info you’ll need. I feel that this website dumbs it down enough to be really easy to understand, whilst still making you engage your brain a little and forcing you to think about what’s going on with the conditions and how this’ll impact your swim and the conditions. They strike a good balance.

Firstly, select your swim by the exact location or town in the search bar and then select the location on the map. The map is handy as you may be on holiday / not know the local area and it gives you an idea of your options. Once you’ve selected the swim…

I’ll point out that this is a big website, with lots of info. However, after spending 5-10 mins on here I started to get to grips with it and after that time period I found it far easier to navigate. So if you struggle a little initial, persist! There’s a lot of useful info on here and it’s presented in a way that makes it easy to digest, even if you’re new to look at this sort of info.

ABOVE - We’ll start by looking at the forecast. You get a summary at the top of the page, which I’ve circled in red. It goes over wind speed, direction (telling you whether it’s onshore, offshore, cross-shore…), wave height, weather forecast… It then details the rest of the week and the likely swimming conditions.

As already stated, you have a summary of the swimming conditions (circled red). Today ‘challenging conditions’. Circled blue is then more info on those conditions : including wind strength, direction (visual arrows), wave height, direction and wave ‘periods’. In addition, there’s a lot of info regarding the weather conditions.

They have this great little feature (above), highlighting the water quality.

You have a visual representation of the tide for the day.

Another great feature is the above. It highlights local swimming groups and businesses…as well as handy info on how to get to swims.

If you find the idea of reading the conditions and planning swims a little intimidating, Swimfinder is a great place to start. The summaries are really helpful, as is the initial info on the local area, parking, facilities etc.

If you liked this article it might be worth reading our Safe Swimming Guides to various areas… CLICK HERE

Penzance holiday activities guide

Now offering midweek swimming holidays, to run alongside our weekend and private booking activities, we thought it’d be a great idea to include a Penzance activities guide. An idea of additional activities you could undertake whilst visiting. OBVIOUSLY it’ll be difficult to compete against the swims we’ll offer but we’ll direct you to some providers that can compliment the swims.

Your first port of call might be to check out Kayak’s local area guide, particularly for accommodation - CLICK HERE.

You also want to check out some of the following :

1. Western Discovery - walking holidays

2. Ocean High beach hire/activities provider, Marazion

3. Ocean Sports Centre, Carbis Bay. Activities and hire centre

4. Kernow Coasteering

5. Electric bike hire - Ride On / Beryl Bikes

6. Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens

7. Sauna on the sea front

8. Local art galleries

9. Surf school Praa Sands / Surf school Sennen

10. Visit St Michael’s Mount

11. PASTIES!

12. Minack Theatre

13. Polgoon Vineyard and vineyard tours

14. Morrab Gardens

15. Good food and entertainment

16. Great food in town

17. Newlyn Filmhouse

18. Mousehole Harbour

Open water swimmers first aid course

We’ve been offering water safety, swim planning and rip current awareness courses for a few years now and they’ve been really well received. So, we’ve added this course to a half day of training, which also includes :

• First aid training

• CPR

• intro to using a defib

• Choking (adult, child and baby)

• towing techniques

• short practical in sheltered, shallow water

• We also spend a lot of time looking at hypothermia

• heart attacks / cardiac problems and other medical conditions…

Group swimming has never been more popular and we’ve specifically looked at issues that might crop up with swimming in groups. So, we’ve included :

• towing techniques, in case you have to tow someone to the shore. As an individual or as a group

• Choking, specifically including child and baby…as lots of swimmers are parents and grandparents

• There are a number of ‘mature’ swimmers in the water, so we’ve focused on conditions like fainting, heart issues (attacks, angina…), using defibs...

• Swimming year round is popular so we’ve included hypothermia, cold water shock, after drop etc.

• Pro-actively planning a swim and looking at the conditions.

The training is available through our website, with individual places and private group booking options.

Swimming at Charlestown, St Austell

Typically any moderate wind direction, other than a fairly rare easterly works at Charlestown. Taking all necessary precautions, you can swim out of the harbour or opt for safer entry off the beach immediately next to the harbour…on either side. From there you have a number of options. *If you are swimming from the harbour check the tide. There isn’t a lot of water at low tide! A very short swim may include entry in the harbour and a swim around the corner to the beach. A longer swim may include a round-swim to Duporth Bay to the south (anywhere from 1-2km) or circular route from Charlestown to Porthpean Beach and back (approx 3km). Please be aware that some of the route is quite secluded and these swims would be best with a swim ‘buddy’ and possibly tow floats. If unsure, swim these routes on an incoming tide.

…and here’s additional footage of Porthpean. Porthpean has a small car park just above the beach. Charlestown has a larger car park and some free on-road parking.

OUR BIGGEST HURDLE

We attract swimmers from far and wide. We’ve had clients from Scotland (taking advantage of Cornwall Airport, Newquay), Manchester, swimmers from Holland, a lady from south Australia…all over the place. As well as accommodating people from various areas of the country and the world, we also accommodate swimmers of varying abilities, experience and speeds. This is also where one of our major hurdles lies.

On a fairly frequent basis we receive emails and phone calls from clients that have booked and are looking to book, regarding the anxiety they are experiencing over swimming in the sea and their suitability to the activity they have booked. This year we have introduced a ‘slow swimming’ holiday and it’s booked up 2-3 times faster than our standard holidays…and I’ll be shocked if half the people that attend the ‘slow swimming’ holiday aren’t perfectly suited to the ‘standard’ version of our swimming holidays.

So…firstly, we’re not really concerned about the pace that people swim. What we are interested in is whether or not you can swim the distances set out in the holiday/event description. What we’ll also point out is that there is no requirement to complete all of the swims over the course of the holiday/event day. Provided you let us know prior to swim starting, there’s obviously no problem with you sitting a swim out. What we’re are also happy to do is put on a shorter distance swim immediately after the scheduled swim finishes. We adopt a very flexible approach.

Secondly, we base all of our swims on the days conditions. So we never approach a swim day (unless it’s a one-off private booking), with a set swim location or series of swim locations. That way, you swim in the safest conditions possible…for both your own safety and enjoyment and there’s no pressure on us to hold a swim in questionable conditions!

Third and final point, as I’ve already mentioned, we approach all of our activities in a flexible manner. If for example, we had a couple of slower swimmers in the group, we simply split up our water safety team and one of the team would hang back.

If you have any questions regarding swim holidays or swimming events feel free to get in touch.

Helford River Wild Swimming Event

At the start of 2022 there were loads of westerly winds. In an attempt to escape the dreaded ‘westerly’ we popped over to the Helford and the lesser well known Gillan Creek. Thank God for those westerlies! Ever since we’ve carried out quite a bit of activity in both areas. Both are absolutely stunning and both areas are fairly well protected from most wind directions. More importantly, both are really safe areas to swim (in the right conditions) and have very easy exit points.

For 2023 and the foreseeable future we have put together a series of wild swimming days out. These are very casual, walking - swimming days out. They’re designed specifically for people that simply want to turn up and swim at their own pace. No open water swimming experience is required and participants can swim whatever stroke they like, over very flexible distances. We typically take in 3-4 swims over an afternoon or morning.

SUMMER FOOTAGE

---

---

AERIAL FOOTAGE

Some aerial footage, shot in the winter over a number of the areas and beaches we’ll hopefully include on the 2023 day out.

Swimming Holiday Costs

Here at Sea Swim Cornwall we do our very best to offer great value for money and make swimming holidays accessible for all. When we first started we took a long hard look at the industry and it was very clear that the majority of swimming holiday out there were unaffordable for a lot of people…or it might be something you’d do once or twice in a lifetime. We decided that we wanted to change that.

We started by offering 3 day (2 1/2 day really) swimming holidays (5 epic swims). Part of the reason for this was that most people would only have to take 1, possibly two days off work to attend a great long-weekend. With a shorter trip, you also don’t have to pay a great deal for accommodation and/or meals out. We offer private one-off bookings, so if anyone did want a few more swims, they can simply get in touch and book either side of the holiday. You may also want to take in some additional activities, so could easily take a week off and do both.

This year we’ve actually put our prices down! During 2022 we tinkered with our usual formula and offered a larger group swimming holiday. It sold out in record time and was our most affordable and popular holiday to date. Whilst we had more people in the water, the ratio of water safety members to swimmers was better than our traditional style holiday and it gave us more flexibility when it came to the group spreading out…it was a very easy decision when it came to rolling out more of these holidays.

Most of the following budgets are based on an individual booking. If you come down as a pair (with a fellow swimmer), you obviously share accommodation expenses etc and benefit from lower accommodation, driving…expenses.

BUDGET HOLIDAY :

Swimming holiday (mid-week option) - £129

Fuel (mid-range, mid-sized car, approx 400 round trip) £70

Additional driving/parking in Cornwall - £50

Camping (2 nights). £15-30

Lunch out - £20

Total : approx £300 / £270 per person if you shared a car and tent

MID-RANGE BUDGET :

Swimming holiday - £139 to £188 (depending on the holiday)

Fuel (mid-range, mid-sized car, approx 400 round trip) £70

Additional driving/parking in Cornwall - £50

B & B (3 nights) - £300-400 (could book with a friend & share cost)

Lunch and 1 dinner out - £50

Total : approx £670 or around £500 per person sharing with a friend

HIGHER-RANGE BUDGET :

Swimming holiday - £188-£239 (depending on which holiday)

Fuel (mid-range, mid-sized car, approx 400 round trip) £70

Additional driving/parking in Cornwall - £50

B & B / Hotel (3 nights) £650 / 2 Nights £450

Lunch & dinner out £70

Total : approx £1,000 for 3 nights or £800 for 2 nights.

TO CHECK OUT OUR 2023 HOLIDAYS - CLICK HERE. We also take private group bookings and offer 1-day events.

Swim Safety & Planning

We teach a water safety and rip current awareness courses in the early and late summer season and one of the principles we teach is the following - rips and currents don’t typically drown swimmers…it’s the panic that causes the problem. It’s the individual losing their composure and doing something irrational, like ditching the surf board they’ve been safely lying on and trying to swim in against a rip current…or simply swimming against the same rip for so long that they become exhausted and start to really struggle.

So……planning a swim. You don’t necessarily need to plan your swim, especially if it’s your regular swim and you have a good idea of the conditions. If however, you decide to swim somewhere new, come up with a plan.

Your considerations need to include :

• the state of the tide. Coming in, going out, springs, neaps…typically best swimming on an incoming tide, with minimal tidal movement (neap tide). Particularly if it’s your first swim at that location.

• Lateral movement. Most of the advice we’ll give is based around the sort of conditions that we experience here in Cornwall. In other areas of the country/world you can get strong lateral movement (ie the current runs parallel to the shore), so factor this in and do your research.

• PLAN your route, with an exit strategy. Then come up with a plan B. As mentioned previously, panic can be a big problem. If you can’t get to exit A, you’ll then simply resort to plan B with minimal fuss. That might be an exit further up a beach, around to the next cove…or return to where you entered the water…

• I’ll briefly mention the basics - swimming buddy/spotter, high visibility (tow float etc), you can take a mobile phone with you in a case (test and ensure it’ll get reception). You could also look at something like an EPIRB or personal locator beacon. At the time of writing, they’ll set you back around £200-300 but they use satellite, rather than reception and pin point your exact location. So are awesome, particularly if you want to swim somewhere remote. Might be well worth the purchase if you swim with a big group and are all happy to chip in.

• If you do experience a strong current I’d suggest the following. Stay calm. Think your way out of the problem. If you can’t move forward because of a current, can you go back the way you came or swim to the side and avoid the current? When talking about rip currents, they’re never typically that wide and only generally go out to the back of the breaking waves. So moving to the side of a rip and swimming in without huge resistance is fairly straight forward.

• We have a fantastic coastal rescue service. If you’ve exhausted all other options start waving and shouting for help. It may be embarrassing but the RNLI will have no issues picking up a swimmer in distress. Nearly everyone has a mobile phone these days and someone will more than likely spot you and call for help…this then brings me onto one of my final points.

• If you are attempt a new route or swimming at a new place avoid an early morning or evening swim. If you did get in trouble it’d be far better that people were present and could call for help. Also, if you’re losing light and it starts to get dark, you could be in real trouble!

• Lifeguards are a great resource. If unsure ask. You can also make lifeguards aware of your plans.

• Research, if you do any research make sure you use a reliable source. If you ask a question on say….a social media group, you don’t know who’s responding and their level of experience. I’ve lifeguarded and provided water safety for nearly two decades and quite honestly, am so fed up with people arguing with my advice (clearly from a position of complete ignorance), that I simply don’t bother engaging anymore. Which I think is a real shame. Be careful when taking advice.

• Whilst swimming with a ‘buddy’ is a great idea, ensure you swim with a good buddy! I have some friends that are quite competitive. I’ll often swim with them and they have absolutely no awareness in the water of where I am and what I’m up to. If you’re swimming with someone, actually keep an eye on each other.

• Finally, I swam along the promenade in Penzance last summer by myself and a thought occurred to me. I was swimming at high tide in full view of the promenade for safety reasons. The thought was pretty straight forward and it was the following…if I had a random seizure, passed out or had cardiac event (which is about the only issue I would possibly have that I couldn’t deal with), firstly - would anyone on the promenade even notice? Second, how long would it take them to realise something was wrong with me? Finally, if they jumped in or called the emergency services, how long would that take and do they actually have the ability to either drag me out or administer first aid? I’d probably be face down in the water and I’d be brain damaged or worse within 2-3 minutes. Which begs the question…why am I swimming along the promenade? The point I’m making is that swimming with someone that can take the appropriate course of action should something go wrong, is pretty important. If you swim with someone very regularly, or simply swim regularly it’d be well worth doing some sort of first aid course.

• Following on from the above point is the part about rescue. We were taught this back in my lifeguarding days. If someone is in trouble and you don’t realistically think you can get them out or handle the conditions then you really have to think about whether or not you go in to try and assist. It’s far easier and safer for the appropriate rescue services to rescue and assist one person, than it is for two!

Below you’ll find a great video on rip currents and how they work.

Swimming at Porthcothan Beach

We don’t do a great deal of swimming at Porthcothan, which is a shame as it’s a stunning part of Cornwall and not always that busy. It did feature on one of our charity swims and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Porthcothan is quite a narrow, fairly long beach, that starts to open up as the tide goes out. Due to the shape of the beach, we’d advise you to be very careful swimming there on an outgoing tide…particularly if there is some swell running. We’d also advise you not to be too adventurous with an outgoing tide and swim around either headland. There are a number of small islands and rock formations and you can get some strong currents and tidal movement.

Porthcothan is lifeguarded for a number of months over the summer, there is a beach cafe and reasonable parking.

Polurrian Swimming

Polurrian Beach is a real stunner on the Lizard Peninsula. It has limited parking or you park up at Poldhu and walk a good mile on the coast path. Whilst this might put some people off, it ensures the beach is never that busy.

Now, the beach can pick up swell. So you have been warned. Typically, not a lot of swell over the summer months and at the time of writing, it is lifeguarded over the 6 peak weeks of the summer. You’d generally want to avoid swell or wind of any strength from the west. I’d also be very careful swimming there, particularly near the headlands on an outgoing tide, particularly a spring tide.

Summer Swim Project 2022

At the start of 2022 we took a number of applications from swimmers looking to start swimming front crawl ie. they had no previous experience of front crawl swimming. We ended up selecting 2 swimmers. Both female, aged between 30-40 years. Over a series of 6 sessions head coach Tom went through a number of different sessions, teaching different elements of the stroke, setting ‘homework’ and supervising a couple of mid-distance swims. We then charted the swimmers progress over the summer.

The aim of the documentary is to highlight how much progress can be made with swimming, particularly in the sea (with the additional buoyancy), over a relatively short space of time.

The sessions (roughly), started with breathing, going onto look at body position and leg kick, then arm pull and catch and some time and sessions to then put it all together…

Safer Swimming Guide - Porthcurno

I can’t believe that we’ve written dozens of safe(r) swimming guides over the last couple of years but never written one featuring Porthcurno Beach.

Well here it is. A guide to safer swimming at Porthcurno. There are also a couple of suggested swim routes, over to Logan Rock and around the corner to the Minack Theatre (for a very unique perspective).

Porthcurno to Minack and back - approx 500-600m

Porthcurno to Logan Rock and back - approx 2-2.5km…if you swim Porthcurno to Logan Rock on a fairly large spring tide, at low tide you could walk large parts of it. So if you weren’t up to a 2.5km swim to could do a swim-walk-swim. Just watch out for the nudists!

---

SWIMMING AT PORTHCURNO :

PREVIOUS PORTHCURNO SWIMS :

Safer Swimming Guide - Sennen Cove

Here’s our Safer Swimming Guide for Sennen Cove.

Sea Swim Cornwall's Safer Swimming Guide - Whipsiderry

We swam two route here, as part of our 2020 Charity swim. If you get the conditions right and plan this swim it should be perfectly safe. Don’t turn up and simply try and swim it! At certain stages of the tide, particularly with a large outgoing tide you get a lot of water movement. If you are going to attempt it, follow the safety advice on the guide and be careful.

Safer Swimming Guide - Poldhu Cove

Great family day out and some brilliant local swimming options. As stated in the guide, you can get surf at Poldhu. Do check the surf forecast and make sure the conditions are suitable. There are also lifeguards during the main summer season, so have a chat with them before going for a swim.

Rotator Cuff and swimming

Due to the low impact involved with swimming, provided you have reasonable technique, swimming should be an activity that you can do into your old age. There are very few issues that could prevent longevity in the sport.

That said you still need to be proactive and take some preventative measures to ensure you can keep going. One of the issues that might prevent you from swimming into your later years is the dreaded rotator cuff injury.

The rotator cuff is a group of muscles and tendons surrounding the shoulder joint. There are many reasons why you might develop a problem with your rotator cuff. Best practice is to keep the area nice and strong and be a little pro-active. Adding a stretches and exercises into your weekly training program could be a great start.

*As with all exercises, they may not suit absolutely everyone. If you experience pain with a certain exercise, stop immediately and speak to a professional.

We’ve added a few below.

The first 2 minutes of the video work on an already sore shoulder. From 2 minutes onwards we’re into the rotator cuff specific exercises and strengthening.

Christmas presents for swimmers...

Swimming holidays, events and coaching will always be what we’re most passionate about. However, we really enjoy designing products for open water and wild swimmers. We started by designing open water swimming greetings card and primarily gifts for swimmers that would fit in an envelope with a swimming greetings card. This was a little limiting though, so we diversified and added additional gifts for swimmers and a number of products that would suit the swimming community. The majority of our swimming products are £30 or under, a large portion of the products are designed by us and aimed at both open water swimming and wild swimmers.

Originally we felt that there was a lack of greetings cards aimed at swimmers, so we designed and had some produced. We then added some beautiful coastal themed 2s and 3d greetings cards. CHECK OUT GREETINGS CARDS.

We offer a number of swimming products and gifts that fit perfectly with a greetings card, whether it be Christmas, a birthday or simply a pick-me-up. Greetings card sized gifts include Cornwall and swimming-themed stickers, swimming themed pocket mirrors, stunning pictured based fridge magnets of Cornwall, as well as photo based bookmarks of Cornwall and Sea Swim Cornwall vouchers for our fantastic swims and swimming activities.

In addition to the ‘smaller’ gifts we have a number of larger items, ideal for swimmers. We sell our very own towelling robes - making them as affordable as possible.

…as well as tidal clocks, making it nice and easy to plan your swim. Wild Swimming Oil specifically designed for open water users that are exposed to the elements.

Finally, we offer books, swimming goggles, wild swimming themed tote and swimming bags, as well as our spectacular in-house designed swimming caps and Sea Swim Cornwall branded t-shirts.

…and how could I forget the highly visible Ulu Tow Floats!?

Safer Swimming Guide - Church Cove

First things first, it’s the Church Cove on the east side of the Lizard. There are two!

I love this swim. Make sure you do stick to the swimming cove at Cadgwith…the one to the south / right hand side. The other ‘fishing cove’ can have heavy boat traffic.

You can find the Devil’s Frying Pan to the south. Just make sure you swim with a friend and I can’t stress how serious I am about the swell. Anything larger than 1-1.5m from any direction will result un swell rolling in and some potentially quite rough conditions. I’ve only ever cancelled 2 swims from the actual swim location (just prior to the start of a swim) and Cadgwith was one of those locations! A NW swell somehow got in there…it looks impossible.

Open Water Front Crawl Breathing

A high percentage of people I’ve coached over the years, that are typically learning front crawl (freestyle) or have learnt to swim front crawl recent to their coaching session, struggle with the breathing aspect of the stroke. One of the major barriers to swimmers progressing is a poor breathing technique and a lack of confidence when it comes to breathing.

So… the best way to typically improve a certain aspect of your stroke is to isolate that part of the stroke and carry out drills on that specific aspect without having to worry about the rest of your stroke. For example, if you want to work on your leg kick, you’d perform leg kick drills and ditch the arms. You’d use a kick float for example. This way your sole attention is on the aspect of the stroke that you’re trying to improve.

Breathing is no different. What I typically suggest is that you work on your breathing in the safest environment possible. This would be the bath tub. If you don’t have a bath, possibly a large bucket outside, on a table. The bath provides you with a safe, warm and calm environment. If you breath in some water, you simply have to lift your head and you’re sat in the bath!

STEP 1 : Start by kneeling in the bath and simply learning forward and putting your face in. When breathing during front crawl you’re not looking to fill your lungs with as much air as possible. Breathing is the slowest and least streamlined part of the stroke. You want your face out (well half out) and your breath to be as quick as possible. Also, if you open your mouth nice and wide and take a massive gulp of air, you’re more likely to get slapped in the mouth with some chop/small wave. So it’s a short sharp breath in and then a short sharp breath out, once your face is in the water. Should take under a second to breath in and marginally longer to breath out. You obviously breath out whilst your face is in the water. You should do so through your mouth and nose. If you don’t breath out through your nose, you tend to get water going up it. You’d want to repeatedly breath in and out in this manner for up to a minute or two at a time. Try this a few times, possibly on different occasions, until you’re confident and/or bored to the back teeth of doing it.

STEP 2 : You could then progress into the open water. Stand at around chest depth or slightly under and lean forward and carry out the same exercise. Again, 1-2 minutes at a time.

STEP 3 : Once you’re confident with your breathing you simply (hummmm), marry up your stroke with your breathing.

POTENTIAL ISSUES : the odd person has real issues with breathing out through their nose. If you have a persistent problem and find water going up your nose, it might be worth thinking about a nose clip. When you first start practicing front crawl, if you can only breath to one side ensure that any chop is hitting you on the back of the head and you’re not breathing directly in the direction of choppy water.

Another issue or problem you might encounter might simply come from you being too eager to start swimming. Always acclimatise and make sure you’re comfortable before starting your stroke. If you simply get in and start trying to swim or try the breathing stroke drills, you may gasp for air as you’re simply not used to the water temperature. Always take your time.

Just remember that the human brain can only really focus on one task at a time. We can multi-task but that’s simply the brain flicking from one activity to another very quickly. This is why it’s important to work on the breathing in isolation and get to a point where you don’t have to think about it. From there, you can then pay attention to the aspects of your stroke that you need to. Not worrying about the breathing aspect should also make you more confident when first starting out.

RELATED ARTICLES :

Pool training guide,

new wild swimming event in Cornwall,

learning front crawl over 1 summer,

selection of safe swimming guides,