September 2024 ‘Changing seasons’

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The outdoor swimming season used to be very clear cut in the UK. May-September was the ‘season’ to swim in open water. Inland open water lakes and venues opened in spring and closed as schools started in September. Lidos and outdoor pools made as much money as possible in the heat of summer only to shut as soon as leaves began to fall. Lifeguards and flags appeared on our beaches in May in anticipation of the summer season. But as the trend for year-round outdoor swimming has grown and the climate continues to change, all our seasons are becoming a blur.

Like many swimmers I am more sensitive to seasonal changes than most people. I notice if it is unseasonably warm, cold or wet and see the natural clues that indicate that things in our environment are changing. Due to such a wet year here in the UK I have noticed a huge decline in insects at my regular swim spots. Our water temperatures didn’t drop very low last winter and then took a long time to warm this summer. It is making planning swims, events and trips more challenging. Many event organisers battle the conditions every season, but it does seem to feel like it is becoming harder to predict and plan, with safety everyone’s priority.

There are some perks to our changing climate. Long-distance swim windows are extending as warmer seas mean there is more time to swim across them. But on the flip side, winter water isn’t getting cold enough for elusive ice swims. As we head into autumn there are plenty of swimmers excited for a season of winter swimming ahead, but we may be some time away from cold-water swimming yet.

In this month’s issue Rowan Clarke explores this changing season phenomenon and discovers how we can swim forwards, whatever the weather. She also speaks to some of the swim stars of the summer season who have broken records, conquered channels and blown us away with swim achievements.

As the seasons switch, many of us head to the pool. In our Coach section, Simon Griffiths introduces us to pool racing and Paul Newsome explains how to transition from open water to pool training. In Gear we review the biggest selection of changing robes we have ever tested to help you choose the best kit for you and your budget. There are also all the usual favourites, including travel ideas from Cornwall, Switzerland and Scotland and event reviews to inspire swimmers of all abilities.

Enjoy the issue!

Ella Foote, Editor


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  • Best shoes to wear after swimming
    Lightweight and slip-resistant sliders, cosy outdoor slippers and an innovative thermoregulating wool boot: we review the best shoes to wear after swimming
  • Rewatch the Olympic marathon swim to improve your river swimming skills
    “This is one of the most fascinating Olympic marathon swims I’ve ever watched,” says Simon Griffiths.
  • A swimmer’s perspective of the city
    City swimming can be a thrilling experience, as demonstrated by the epic swims in the Seine in Paris this summer.
  • Immerse in weather
    Rowan Clarke discovers how noticing the weather can change us and the world.
  • An inspiring summer of swimming
    Wowed by a summer of amazing swimming, Rowan Clarke meets the creator-completers of some of the most inspiring outdoor swims in the world.
  • The Adventures of Scout
    What inspired three ocean loving engineers to create a series of fun rhyming children’s books?
  • Finish the season strong
    Paul Newsome looks at how to perform your best in end-of-season events and challenges.
  • Fit for a poet: a swimmer’s guide to Lausanne
    Jo Tinsley hops on the train to Lausanne, Switzerland, to explore its lakeside beaches and open-air pools
  • Best changing robes 2024: tried and tested by outdoor swimming experts
    With autumn water temperatures approaching, now is a good time to invest in or update your changing robe. Our outdoor swimming experts have tested the best changing robes for 2024 – so whether you’re after winter warmth and waterproofing, lightweight and packable or innovative design there is a robe for you
  • Survival Swim
    The line between magic, spirituality and human experience is at the core of new play ‘How I Learned to Swim’ by Somebody Jones. Sophie Pierce reports.
  • Masters swimming: get ready for the pool
    Add a new dimension to your swimming with Masters racing, says Simon Griffiths
  • The Lido Guide: Stonehaven Open Air Swimming Pool
    Emma Pusill, author of the newly updated The Lido Guide, lets the train take the strain and finds that an Art Deco lido, double dipping and aqua-zumba make Stonehaven a dream ticket for swimmers
  • Weekending: Pier House, Charlestown
    Weekend escapes with a swimming opportunity. This month Ella Foote heads to Pier House, Charlestown for sea dips and pub room comfort
  • The Coastal Cafe Guide: Eating on the edge 
    From coffee and pastry horse boxes to street-food trucks and gourmet seafood bars: The Coastal Café Guide has got your year-round ‘food with a view’ box ticked. We choose our sea-swim-appropriate selection
  • The tides of change
    Daniel Shailer meets the “black mermaid” turning the tide for swimming access in South Africa Growing up in Sowetu, South Africa, Zandile Ndhlovu wasn’t just hundreds of kilometres away from the sea — she was afraid of it. “There were these continuous stories to stay away,” Ndhlovu recalls. “We’d be told there’s a snake that lives in all bodies of water. When you hear stories about the sea, there’s a big snake that lives in there,” she laughs, then stops. “Then stories like that would be reaffirmed when there was a drowning and the kid was not found: the snake had taken that person.” Ndhlovu saw the ocean for the first time when she was 12, on a visit to her mother’s family in East London on the coast of the Indian Ocean. “I remember just looking,” she says, as her cousins charged ahead of her. What would one day become the kind of story she recites in interviews began with incredulity — that something so terrifying to her could, for her cousins, be fun. “They just took off their tops and ran into the water.” Since overcoming her fear that day, Ndhlovu has become something of a watercelebrity: freediving on camera, appearing on the BBC’s list of 100 Women of 2023, and doing social media spots with the likes of John Cena. Her latest appearance, Shaped By Water, is a documentary exploring the effect of ocean health on the world through the story of three extreme sports competitors: Ndhvolu, freestyle skiing world-champion Jess Hotter and the 11th Hour Racing sailing team. But her main focus, Ndhlovu says, is the Black Mermaid Foundation: a nonprofit she founded in the midst of the pandemic, around the same time she dyed her waistlength braids ocean blue. In practice, the Foundation arranges field trips for South African kids to the sea, where they swim over heaving kelp forests, spying the small sharks and octopi that call them home. In mission, though, Ndhlovu sees the Foundation fighting to change South Africa’s swimming season in two ways: widening who feels safe in the sea, and sowing resistance to the climate crisis changing the water around her. First, Ndhlovu wants the next generation of South African children to be less afraid of water. Only 15 per cent of South Africans know how to swim, most of them white, according to the country’s National Sea Rescue Institute. That reality was starker than ever when the country emerged from lockdown; more than 800 South Africans drowned in 2022, 600 of them children. The foundation started in lockdown with just four children. Now each trip takes more than 30 kids to the coast. Second, Ndhlovu sees the children as the seeds for a new generation of climate conscious South Africans. But that starts with simply swimming. “I just want kids to connect with the water,” she says. “The idea of guardianship comes last. I need to build that connection, because if you find home in a place, the natural thing is to protect it.” Already Ndhlovu has noticed South Africa’s environment shifting as the global climate changes. “Our winters have not been as cold; our flooding is just getting worse and worse,” she says. The sea is no exception. Humpback whales, which only used to travel to South Africa to breed, now stay to feed on schools of sardines. Orcas, swimming in a newly expanded range, have begun attacking and killing great white sharks. “We’re seeing a change in animal movements in the water,” Ndhlovu says uneasily. “We are in such a critical time when it comes to climate. We need all hands on deck.” Ndhlovu doesn’t see these two goals – broadening swimming access and growing climate consciousness – as separate. Perhaps that’s because her own journey to the water was so transformative. After overcoming her initial trepidation, Ndhlovu wasn’t particularly attached to watersports until another epiphany of fear. In 2016, facing the breakdown of her marriage, Ndhlovu, then working as a consultant, traveled to Bali to try and find the words to tell her family. She went freediving, at first just for 20 seconds. “It wasn’t long. But for me what land was a feeling of, of home, it was a feeling of belonging,” she says. “The water is a powerful place for me.” That’s the feeling she hopes to give children with the Black Mermaid Foundation. “The end goal is to have ocean guardians that are diverse,” she says. “Those are my little soldiers: the humans that you put out into the world to expand the narrative.” Because in her work with the foundation and wider public engagement with projects like Shaped by Water, Ndhlovu has an unshakable feeling that the tides of change are ultimately turned by storytelling. And ocean conservation is playing catchup. Because it’s as easy to think of precious forests and jungles as it is to be afraid of the faceless oceans. Ndhlovu believes the Black Mermaid Foundation can tell a different story. “So when someone says: ‘there’s a snake that lives underwater,’” Ndhlovue hopes, “someone can say ‘But I went out with Zandi and that’s not true.’”
  • The weather decides whether we swim
    Channel swimmers know: if you don’t like the weather, wait a minute. Elaine K Howley delves into a swimmer’s history of weather watching.
  • Planning for colder swims
    Channel swimmer Sophie Etheridge shares her top tips for preparing for the cold water season ahead.
  • September in the swim community
    NOWCA has a new swimming venue in Cambridge and Mental Health Swims encourages pool swimmers to join their community this autumn.
  • What are the best pool drills for improving open water skills?
    You can still work on your open water skills when you’re training in an indoor pool. Swimming coach Cassie Patten shares her favourite pool drill.
  • Swimming the temps down
    Marathon swimmer Sarah Thomas shares her advice for acclimatising to the cooling water temperatures this autumn.
  • Move of the month: scapula setting
    If you have ever suffered from an aching neck from all those repeated movements lifting your head out the water to breathe, this shoulder exercise could be for you.
  • Event review: National Masters Open Water Championships 2024
    Simon Griffiths took part in the 3km event at Rother Valley Country Park.
  • Plunging with pride
    As Pride Swim returns for its second year and expands to multiple venues across the UK, reader Jem Collins heads to the Canary Wharf event
  • A swim under the midnight sun
    Matt Newbury travelled to Lapland with his husband Aaron and friend Queenie to take part in a truly unique swim across the Arctic Circle…just after midnight!

Other magazine issues

Changing seasons

September 2024

Swim safe

August 2024

Swim hiking

June 2024

Gear

May 2024