What to look for in an open water swimming venue
When looking for an open water swimming venue that is right for you, there are a few quick tips that we find to be helpful both from a safety perspective, and an open water perspective:
- Who owns the water?
Surprisingly some swimmers don’t recognise that this is a question we need to think about, but if it’s a private lake remember that you would need to have permission so that you can swim there.
With private lakes and swimming venues usually these are manned by a members company or a swimming club. Not sure where to begin to find out who owns the water? Facebook groups are a great place to start: Just do a search of your local area and open water swimming groups, and you might find that there are groups in your area where you can ask the question, where’s safe for me to swim in?
A bonus to that is you might find a like minded community at the same time when you start to delve into the open water swim spots in your local area.
- Where’s the safest place to enter and exit the water?
This is really important and we can’t emphasize this enough. Make sure that you have easy access to the water so that it’s not going to be a really steep drop off as you enter to swim. Take nature into consideration and ideally your entry point shouldn’t be close to any animal shelter or nests. Of course it goes without saying that the entry point should be just as easy to exit and so bear this in mind when doing your initial checks that your chosen entry point into the water will be just as easy for you to get out.
Remember you’ll most likely be feeling tired and lethargic following your session and so be mindful that you don’t want your exit point to be a place where you’ll need to have a store of excess energy to lift yourself up and out of the water.
- Is there a lifeguard?
Whether that’s an inland body of water that has lifeguards for specific times during the day or a beach in your area that is lifeguarded, check the RNLI’s website for a list of all the manned beaches and bodies of water around the country. Things to look out for include: what time they open, what times the lifeguard is there for and importantly what times they’re not. If you are new to the water or heading out alone for your swim, then we’d always recommend swimming where you have the additional safety of a lifeguard on hand.
- How accessible is the water?
If you’re going to be swimming in a river, how close can you get, can you park your car a sensible distance away and then how far is that walk going to be with your necessary kit you need for the swim? Is there any phone signal so if something goes wrong, are you going to be able to get in touch with someone?
Take the time out to do a recce without even thinking about going swimming on your first visit.
Remember our first question about who owns the land, this is key when it comes to accessibility. If you’re swimming on privately owned land you need permission to access, otherwise you’re at risk of trespassing when on someone else’s property.
- The water temperature
We’re in the UK so the likelihood is the water will be cold regardless of what season it is. Be mindful of cold water shock and your body’s natural reaction to getting into water. The water is much colder than the resting temperature of our bodies. Naturally most open water locations don’t have showers, so don’t go with the expectation to have a nice warm shower at the end of the swim. The key is to ensure that you’ve got a really good warm kit that you can put on as soon as you get out to keep you warm until you get back home to that hot shower!
- Join the open water community
It’s a really welcoming one and you won’t regret it. So if you haven’t already searched for local groups on Facebook, this might be a good time to do that. Or why not join the Henley Festival Facebook group?
Fancy a hot drink and a slice of cake after the event? Who doesn’t! We guarantee you’ll find some friendly faces on the groups who are organising a post swim social.