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 water on Christmas Day in Ireland alone, only one or two thousand at best of those will see the post. Most of…
Imagine these brief vignettes: You’re swimming in the pool lane and it’s going pretty much as it usually goes. Outside the lane the rest of the pool is public recreational swimming. In the other part of the pool are a bunch of lads, maybe in their twenties. At one point you flip off the wall mid-way through a 400 or an…
This is a maelstrom. Indeed the very definition of such, as it’s the whirlpool at the base of Niagara Falls. It’s where Captain Matthew Webb tragically died on this day, July 24th, 1883. It was taken by a photographer zxo and it grabbed my attention immediately I saw it and they gave me permission to…
Any experienced open water swimmer will be, or at least should be familiar with evaluating personal risk on an ongoing basis. (I have written many posts about the Do’s and Don’t’s of open water). One thing we don’t talk about is drowning, because we put ourselves in the category of people unlikely to join the…
An interesting article in a US coast guard magazine caught my eye, about what a drowning person looks like. Bits excerpted below. “Doesn’t everyone who works on (or above) the water as rescue professionals know what drowning looks like? Most people assume that a drowning person will splash, yell, and wave for help; and why…
LoneSwimmer 