Reflections on Project Copper. I’ve swam about 54,000 metres to cover the 25 kilometre coast, which were swum as a series of out and back swims, so every metre of coast was swam twice. With the experience I’ve gained of the various currents on this stretch of coast, I now know there are longer swims…
Ballyvooney Cove is on the smaller coast road between Stradbally and Bunmahon and is not well known. It has heavy shingle and is difficult to walk on above mid-tide, like some of the others along this coast like Annestown. It’s only a couple of hundred metres across and the same to the flanking rocks. To the south-west…
This is Project Copper Coast swim number nine. Yes, I know I’ve haven’t put numbers on them until this but I only foresaw one swim after this to finish. I first visited Ballydowane as a small child with my family, and never knew the name nor location, until I visited it over 25 years later,…
Anyone following the new swim spot reports recently or looking very closely at the tag cloud (and why would you, since you actually have a life) may have seen a tag called Project Copper on the site for the past couple of weeks. It recently struck me, in one of those why-haven’t-I-done-this-before moments: Why not…
I had a plan for a swim last week, but I was let down again by my kayaking friend. What to do, what to do? Friday’s forecast was pretty good. Very light onshores. I wanted something new. So I decided it was the apposite day. I had a pretty decent breakfast and was ready to…
Continuing to take advantage of unusually warm water that is completely out of sync with the crap summer we are experiencing, I’ve been revisiting some of the caves and arches from last year’s Project Copper now that I have a waterproof camera (oop, just realised I must do a review of it) to take…
I love swimming at my favourite places such as Kilfarassey, Sandycove and the Guillamenes. but I also love swimming at new places and there aren’t that many left to me on the Waterford Coast. It’s been some time since I did Project Copper Coast, swimming from Powerstown Head as far as Stradbally. There’s a gap…
Steve Munatones posted a list of possible features on dailynewsofopenwaterswimming.com for a good open water swimming spot some time back. 1. Year-round conditions 2. Summer conditions 3. Abundance or absence of marine life. If marine life is known, how does the abundance or absence of sharks, dolphins, turtles, jellyfish, Portuguese man o’ war positively or negatively…
Some time ago I discussed Ned Denison’s 3,5 & 9k annual swim list which runs each year and is available here on the Sandycove Island Swimming Club website. For some years now, Ned Denison has also maintained a list of swimming achievements by Sandycove Swimmers and those swimming within the area. For the last few years since…
The subject of open water fears has come up here and elsewhere occasionally, and I often get asked about dealing with it, whether it’s fear of deep water, jellyfish, cold or sharks. Particularly sharks. And anytime I ever mention sharks, you all go for it like people for whom the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week just…
The online marathon swimming world is buzzing with discussion of Santa Barbara CSA Scott Zornig’s rant discussion on the problems with marathon swimming, with seemingly the majority of the more experienced Channel and distance swimmers in agreement. I suggest you first read the (longish) article linked above. To recap his core three arguments and concerns:…
I would have mentioned this previously if it weren’t for the Project Copper posts, but the sea-lice have been back for the past two weeks, as always at this time of the year when the water reaches its warmest. 13.9 degrees Celsius at the Guillamene the other day, the first time I’ve measured it in…
In 2010 while Channel training I did the majority of my Waterford training at Clonea, trying to eek out some fractional comfort from the average extra 0.25 degree Celsius water temperatures, after spending the previous few years mainly swimming at the Guillamene, where I returned again last winter and this spring and early summer. But…
I had some nervousness about this swim for a few reasons. Having previously discussed my familiarity with Bunmahon, I’ve written about the dangers on the beach. These don’t worry me because it’s a very localised danger, for inexperienced or non-swimmers, that covers an area of a few dozen metres squared. But I recalled a couple…
A lot of Irish places names have been appearing in my Project Copper posts and I said I’d do a brief overview. Disclaimer: I’m not a native Irish speaker, but I have a few words like many people. If you are from overseas, we don’t call it Gaelic, by the way, but there’s a commonality…
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 more experienced cold water swimmers than I. There are people who love colder water more than I. There are even…
Instead of a beach, shadows loomed over me and the water went from gold to black in sudden deep shade. A wall of dressed stone met my fingertips and loomed two metres over me. It was a pier, stone mooring bollards along the edge. There was another pier twenty or thirty metres away to my…
Craft beers are the thing, right? Local, interesting, more flavour, more fun. One of humanity’s oldest craft’s giving the blandness of the global industrial homogenisation of food and taste a hopeful poke in the eye. One of the better things of living in Ireland, because of the country’s still large agricultural sector, is our access to local fresh food…
I had forgotten about the anniversary but I started LoneSwimmer.com on a whim on the afternoon of 18th of January, 2010. Little did I guess where it would lead. Since then LoneSwimmer has grown year on year, and often month on month. It was viewed in 185 countries in 2013 though the countries that most…
When I started writing loneswimmer in 2010, almost four years ago, I didn’t add a single image for months. I was learning to write regularly, learning, as I still am, to express my thoughts about swimming, and trying to stick rigidly to one of my guiding principles, not always easy for any Irish person, and…
I wrapped up 2012 with a few posts on some photos I’d taken through the year related to swimming. About the time I writing those posts, I embarked on what is known as a 365 Project, taking a photograph (often many more) every day for a year, which I completed this week. (I started it…
These are the final of my favourite photos from 2012. In the course of doing this series I’ve been very happy with the overall result and some of the rediscoveries. I’ve been reading a lot about photography lately, and one of the things that resonated most was actually a comment, to try to find the…
This post is now part the My Swimming Life, 2012 series. I must start with the Guillamenes and Tramore Bay and Kilfarassey of course, my main swimming locations. My usual range in Tramore Bay is between Newtown Head (under the pillars) to the beach, along the west side of the bay, most of the range…
Having explored Kilmurrin to Boatstrand, an obvious step was to swim underneath the 50 metre cliffs to the west of the cove, toward Bunmahon. The conditions were typically similar. Force Two onshore. Tide was lower though, only half in the cove. I left via the usual route on the left of the cove aiming to…
LoneSwimmer 