Slathill Swimming

My family decided to go to Galway for the bank holiday weekend. Just to the west of the city is the wonderful sea-side resort of Slathill. I was used to swimming there and we brought the kayak with us. So I decided to do a two-way Prom Swim, from the Blackrock Diving Boards to Grattan Road Beach and back. A total distance of 4,000m.

When we arrived, the sun was splitting the stones, the tide was full and the sea was calm. We quickly got ready and began the swim. The water was quite warm and there was a light breeze pushing us up towards the beach. It was a wonderful experience, the water was clean and clear. We swam past the Galway Bay Hotel, Lesiureland, Seapoint and the Galway Atlantiquaria. At the aquarium, the temperature suddenly dropped due to the output form the tanks...brrr! After 33mins we arrived at Grattan Road Beach, where the beachgoers seemed stunned at the idea of someone swimming all the way from Blackrock. They seemed even more suprised when, after a quick break, we turned and headed back. The whole swim took a total of 1hr 8mins.

Champion of Champions

Yesterday the first Irish "Champion of Champions" was held in Sandycove. The plan was to swim 5 laps at 9am, 3 laps at 2pm and 1 lap at 5pm. A few people stuck to the plan, but because of the strong easterly gales I decided to just do 3 laps at 9am and 2 laps at 2pm.

Even with the bad weather it was a very enjoyable day, with the added bonus of Munster winning the Heineken Cup. There were lots of great swimmers at the event, including Kevin Murphy, the King of the Channel. Hopefully next time the weather will be better and I will be able to complete the challenge.

Close encounters...

It was an unusual swim in the river last night. It was quite dark but it was very mild and dead calm. I was the only one in the water and my dad was kayaking. About 1200m upstream, I lifted my head to see where I was going. I could see something breaking the surface and swimming along infront of me. I presumed it was a small fish, as usual. A few strokes later, I was greeted by a huge splash on my left hand side. I stopped to take off my googles and watched a curious otter swim away from me. This was certainly a new experience. I had only ever seen otters from a distance and in the early mornings. I am looking forward to more close encounters with our furry friend.

River temperatures

Since the weather has started to really improve, conditions for river swimming are perfect. Many hours of sunshine on the surface of the water has brought temperatures way up into the mid-teens. So far we have done two swims of over an hour and 5km are swims on the charts for the next couple of weeks. The inaugural Irish "Champion of Champions" in Sandycove is less than three weeks away. Hopefully this weather will keep up and we will be well prepared, if I can find a kayaker that is.

Training in full swing

After a terrible few weeks of dropping temperatures and sicknesses, training is finally back to normal. Club training is continuing as normal and open-water training is finally starting to pick up. This week the temperatures in the river rose to 11 degrees, a good improvement on 8 a few weeks previous. Today we did 4km in the river. A good sign that we can start to swim as we would for the rest of the summer.

First swim in the Blackwater in 2008

Last Saturday 23rd February was the first swim in the Blackwater this year. There were only two of us, myself and Dave Mulcahy. The water was 9.5°C, which is unusually warm for this time of year. At its coldest in January it's about 7°C. So it's well on the way to warming up for the summer. This is the earliest we have ever swam in the river. Last year we started in mid-April and continued until November. Hopefully we will be swimming twelve months a year from now on.

First Post

Hello and welcome to my blog! I started this blog to keep everyone up-to-date on my attempt to swim the English Channel. I am signed up to make my swim somewhere between the 11th and 16th of September 2009, and if I am succesful, I will be the youngest Irish person to have swum the Channel.

I will keep you posted,
Owen.