Open Water reopens and Felixstowe is about the best place for it - things are looking up!

Open Water swimming is now allowed again in England, in ones and twos, as long as done safely. Squad members have been back in the sea at Felixstowe in pairs. I’ve had several great paired sea swims recently, including 4k at 1:23/100 - tide assisted (I estimate that my CSS pace dropped around 10sec/100m during the 7 weeks of full lockdown).

Sea temp is currently (late May) around 15C and Felixstowe beach (especially Cobbold’s Point-Pier-Martello Tower i.e. alongside the promenade, so easy to exit the water) is one of the safest places to sea swim in the country, if not the world. The tidal flows run parallel to the shore (no rips) and are never too strong to swim against. The only potentially hazardous ‘wildlife’ are a few not very painful jellyfish in the very warmest weeks of summer. A recent RNLI risk assessment of Felixstowe beach rated it as a medium/low risk beach, therefore not requiring lifeguards. Felixstowe beach water quality is consistently measured as ‘excellent’ by the Environment Agency. This is one of the key criteria that allowed Felixstowe to regain its international Blue Flag status recently - great news for the town.

Against this improving background, I have started offering 1-to-1 sea swimming sessions and had my first two today, in amazingly calm and warm conditions. One was with budding local triathlete Gary T. with a cheerful upbeat approach and a lovely new Snugg wetsuit! The other was with Phil from Tuesday evening squad - recently returned from 14 swimming-filled years in Oz. Both sessions involved help and advice on conditions, tides, wetsuit fitting and also sighting effectively, and both athletes finished the sessions buoyed up with greater confidence and skills for enjoying open water swimming safely.

I then finished my busiest day in weeks with my first (2hr) online video analysis with Leonard from the Netherlands! So it’s early days, but also amazingly sunny days, and things are looking up!

*Please make contact if interested in an enabling 1-to-1 sea swimming session - expertly adapted for ALL and ANY level of swimmer:)