The swimming bug really bit me in 2023 after I tore my ACL and needed a way to stay fit and replace trail running. I had swum in school (35 years ago!) and enjoyed it to some extent, though I found swimming laps pretty boring, and the coaching wasn’t great. As a result, I was never particularly good—competent and confident in the water, but not skilled. After school, I stopped swimming completely and focused on rock climbing, mountain biking, surfski paddling, and squash. Swimming never made a comeback because, well, it was just too boring!
Fast-forward 30-odd years to life in beautiful Cape Town, where the beaches rival those of Portugal. On Sunday mornings, while taking our young kids to the beach, I’d often see a group of people heading out for a swim at Camps Bay. Crazy, right? In Cape Town, the summer water temperature rarely gets above 13°C, and if you're unlucky, it can even be below 10°C! The truly hardcore swimmers even do this without wetsuits. I’d watch them and think ocean swimming looked interesting—but there was no way I was getting into that cold water, even with a wetsuit.
In 2022, we emigrated to Portugal and settled in Ericeira. The ocean conditions here are similar to Cape Town, but the water is noticeably warmer (just 3–4 degrees makes a big difference!). Still, swimming wasn’t on my radar. My wife, however, took up openwater swimming, and maybe that’s when the seed was planted.
Then came my ACL injury, and running was off the table—too much impact on my knee. Begrudgingly, I decided to swim at the municipal pool, just to do something, all the while grumbling about how boring it would be. And guess what? I actually enjoyed it. A big motivator, I’ll admit, was using a sports watch to track my sessions—I could compete against myself and see real progress. But let’s be honest, swimming laps is still dull. Then I remembered: my wife was doing open-water swimming. The water was warmer here. Maybe I should give it a shot.
And surprise, surprise—it was amazing! Ocean swimming is so much more interesting and challenging than pool laps (kind of like how mountain biking beats road biking and trail running beats road running—#sorrynotsorry, roadies!). Sometimes you see dolphins, sometimes you're swimming with or against the currents, sometimes the ocean slaps you in the face, and sometimes it feels like a washing machine. But it’s always an adventure!
Don't get me wrong—the pool is great for technique training. But the sea? That’s where the real fun is.
Corn Van Dyk