Dear fellow swimmers
One of the benefits of my job is the opportunity to swim in amazing places. I’ve just returned from a week in the Maldives with SwimQuest. I’ll be sharing more about that in a future issue of the magazine.
When I got back, someone asked me if swimming in the Thames would be a let-down after my Maldives experience. I can
assure you it wasn’t. In fact, I couldn’t wait to get back into the river.
At first glance, the Maldives offers a much “better” swimming experience: warm, clear water, beautiful underwater scenery, and dramatic wildlife. The Thames is significantly colder, often too murky to see anything, and sometimes polluted.
But rather than seeing some swimming locations as better or worse than others, I prefer to enjoy what each offers on its own terms, instead of
wishing they were something else.
Of course, I loved that I wouldn’t get cold in the Maldives, however long I pottered around admiring the fish. Swimming with sharks and seeing manta rays are things I’m unlikely to forget. It’s definitely less appealing to step into the Thames, but I found
myself looking forward to the biting cold, the way it makes me feel post-swim and checking to see if the coots have hatched their chicks. Instead of ranking the swims, I try to embrace their differences.
The beauty of outdoor swimming is that it offers a fantastic diversity of experiences and encourages us to embrace nature as it is, not as we might think we’d like it to be.
But sometimes, you need to take a trip away from
your usual swimming spots to truly appreciate that.
New issue alert
While I was away, the brilliant team here at Outdoor Swimmer completed our night-swimming-themed May issue. This will be arriving with members from today, and the digital edition is already live. You
can see what else is in the issue and buy a copy here.
Pool party time
They also announced the date for our first pool party, which takes place on 6 June at Hilsea Lido in Portsmouth. We’re looking
forward to meeting many of you there! For details and tickets see here.
I really should go away more often!
