Swimming guides
The rest of this site reports what five national monitoring bodies publish about a thousand individual places. These are the things that data does not tell you: what the cold actually does to you, what a water-quality rating is calculated from, how long to wait after rain, and how to pick somewhere in the first place.
- Cold water swimming: a beginner's guideThe sea around Ireland and Britain is cold enough to kill a healthy adult in the first minute, and almost none of that risk is about water quality. Here is what is actually happening to your body, and how to start safely.8 min read · reviewed September 2026
- Winter sea swimming: how to keep goingThe sea here bottoms out around 6–8 °C in February. People swim in it all winter, and the ones who manage it are not tougher than you — they simply never stopped.7 min read · reviewed October 2026
- How to choose a changing robeA changing robe solves one problem: getting dry, warm and dressed on a cold beach with hands that have stopped working. Most of the decisions follow from that.6 min read · reviewed October 2026
- What Excellent, Good, Sufficient and Poor actually meanEvery designated bathing water in Ireland and the UK carries one of four words. They are not opinions, they are the output of a formula — and the formula explains most of what confuses people about them.7 min read · reviewed September 2026
- Is it safe to swim after heavy rain?Rain is the single biggest short-term influence on bathing water quality in Ireland and the UK. Here is what happens, how long it lasts, and where to check before you travel.6 min read · reviewed September 2026
- Where to swim in the UK: how to choose a spotBritain and Northern Ireland have several hundred designated bathing waters and a great many more places people swim. The difficulty is not finding one, it is knowing what you are being told about it.6 min read · reviewed September 2026
- Swimming in Ireland: where to go and what the data saysIreland has an unusually good public record of its bathing water — and an unusually large number of places people swim that sit just outside it. Knowing which you are looking at changes how much the page is telling you.7 min read · reviewed September 2026
- What to bring sea swimmingMost of what makes a cold swim go well happens on the beach afterwards, not in the water. This is the kit list in order of how much difference it makes.6 min read · reviewed September 2026