I was pretty excited a few month’s ago to be asked by Simon Griffiths, editor of the world’s first and only open water swimming magazine, to write a post on a subject I feel pretty strongly about; tides. You feel strongly about tides, Donal? You are even weirder than we thought. The magazine has previously featured loneswimmer.com and our other shared project with Evan Morrison, marathonswimmers.org, whose own blog freshwaterswimmer.com has also been featured.

Open water swimming in Ireland and the UK are primarily governed by two aspects, cold and tides. Therefore I’ve previously written a lot about both, and will continue to so do.

Incorrect (or no) understanding of tides (and waves) lead to deaths around the shores of Britain and Ireland every year, and the media don’t help the situation by regularly attributing drownings to freak waves. Tides are critical for any swimmer visiting the coast or estuaries.

Simon asked me for a comprehensive article covering theory, safety, hazards, and useful resources. I even took the photos for the article, using Newtown & Guillamenes for my images of tidal range and hazards.

The magazine is available for iPad (search H2Open) through Apple’s newstand and there are Apps for both Android and iPhone, and it’s available as subscription or individual issues (for a mere £2.99!), all from here. The App is free and comes with a free 16 page sample magazine.