GregInTheWater
GLASGOW OPEN WATER SWIMMING COACH
Archives
A week after our grand adventure up Loch Tay, it was time for some relaxing swimming in warm water. A Four of us ventured out to Greece to swim on a Swimtrek trip on the island of Milos. The island is located in the Aegean Sea between Athens and Crete. After making it through the delights of a Scottish summer we were looking forward to a week of sun and warm… Read More
My 100th blog post. When I started this blog it was to record my various ocean swims races or open water swims as they call them in the UK. I just looked at my very first blog, and it talked about places to swim around the world that I might get to. Well I have swum at all of them and more. I started doing open water swim events in my former… Read More
On the morning of Friday 13 March 2015, the idyllic island paradise of Vanuatu was smashed by Cyclone Pam. The category 5 cyclone (also known as a hurricane or typhoon) roared in from the north with winds of up to 300 km/h (185 mph) and flattened everything in its path. The island chain was battered by the storm with large waves and storm surges adding to the misery. It has been… Read More
My trip to Vanuatu was over and it was time to hop on a plane to England. I was off to get my qualifications in driving a powerboat and beach lifeguard to enable me to work as a tour guide. I did my powerboat course in Falmouth in Cornwall. That was a lot of fun, though the weather was cool and grey. Then it was off to Newquay to do the five… Read More
On Sunday we took the fifty minute flight from Port Vila to Luganville on the island of Espiritu Santo, the largest island in Vanuatu. The 72 seat flight was full with excited swimmers eager to take the next step on the adventure. Monday saw us pile into a mini-bus to take the one hour drive to Champagne Beach on the east coast of the island. This has to be one of the… Read More
I was in Port Vila the capital of Vanuatu as part of my prize in the NSW Fine Oceanswim series. Luckily for me the winner had chosen the trip to Fiji as his prize (thanks Rohan), which left the Vanuatu trip for the random prize winner amongst the eligible top 20 finishers in the series. I flew out of Sydney on the Wednesday evening flight, and after a short three-hour flight, landed… Read More
The last weekend of April, and there were three swims scheduled in Sydney: the Shark Island swim at Cronulla; the Warriewood swim; and the South Curl Curl swim. All of these were attractive, but I chose the Curl Curl swim, as I had heard excellent reports of it from other swimmers. The swim over a two km course starts at South Curl Curl and swims south along the cliffs down to… Read More
The weekend after Easter meant making a choice of where to swim. There was the long swim ending at Forster; the swim at Shellharbour from the boat harbour to the beach; the swim at Queenscliff in memory of Saxon Bird a surf lifesaver who drowned at the National Titles a few years ago; or two swims at Terrigal. In the end I chose Terrigal in order to swim two races on the… Read More
The Easter long weekend and this year I was doing two swims. I had done the race over 1.5 km at Freshwater on Friday, and Sunday was the turn for Bondi to host its postponed event. There were two races on offer, the 1 km, and the longer 2.1 km. This year I had decided to only enter the longer swim, and it was race seven of seven in the oceanswims series…. Read More
Australia Day 26 January 2013. The day our country celebrates the colonisation of the continent by the British 225 years ago. The day when the first fleet full of convicts who were no longer wanted in the 13 former colonies were re-located. I have been told that I had two ancestors on this voyage: a seaman and a female convict. They were probably on board ship in this place waiting to come… Read More
GregInTheWater 