Swim Pembrokeshire - Blog #swim tow

Solo Swim Hike in South Pembrokeshire

Wed, 21 Sep 2022 10:40:21 +0000

A Challenging but Enjoyable Solo Swim Hike in Pembrokeshire

Swim Hiking, also known as Swim Trekking, Cross Country Swimming, and likely many other names, involves a combination of hiking and swimming, towing your gear behind you. With its rugged coastline and beautiful clear seas, the Pembrokeshire is perfect for it!

Autumn is a great month for swimming, when the sea is at its warmest and the light is crisp clear, with air temperature starting to drop. It all makes swim hiking a very pleasant activity.

So, when high pressure hit this weekend we took the chance to swim hike along a route we've had our eye on for some time, which incorporated a 5+km swim leg from Stackpole Quay to Freshwater East.

After numerous recces of the route, I had an idea of where the challenging bits would be, but you never really know until you do it! So, just do it!

It's often a good idea to walk the route beforehand as you can see hidden dangers and the effects of tides and wave action from a higher position, so I walked the coast path and planned the route in detail, as well as planned logistics such as pickups and also safety/cut off times/emergency procedures etc.

After a short walk to Stackpole Quay we packed our gear into a 20L capacity rucksack, making sure everything was secure and the essential/emergency items were easy to access. We then bundled this into a heavy duty waterproof bag, which was part of the RuckRaft assembly, and then headed off on the swim.

After numerous recces of the route, I had an idea of where the challenging bits would be, but you never really know until you do it.

There was a gentle swell for most of the swim, although the weather did start to roll in towards the end and we were being 'chased' by dark storm clouds with 1km to go, which added to the adventure. The water was very clear though, with 7-8m viz in parts, and was a lovely cool 16-17°.

The rucksack was about 8-10kg, which was towed on the 'RuckRaft'. The RuckRaft performed perfectly - it is such a great bit of kit. Contents of the rucksack included clothes, lightweight walking shoes, water, chocolate, powdered hot drinks and dehydrated food. The weight was fine although the wind did pick up half way and we started to notice the drag more as the swim went on.

Swim hiking can be as long or short as you like, but for routes over a couple of km long we recommend packing a small stove or at least taking a thermos flash of hot chocolate as this does wonders to keep your spirits up and warm you up after a cool swim.

Towards the end of a 5km swim, after towing this gear all the way, with no fins for assistance, the shoulders were starting to feel the strain, so I was glad to eventually get to shore for the subsequent hike.

Here you can see I made a nice cup of hot chocolate when I got to Freshwater East. The stove in this case is a lightweight twig stove - driftwood is always available on beaches and the small fire has the added advantage that it can be used as a heat source if you're cold.

If you're wondering what to wear on your feet - choose something that packs quite small. There's no real need for heavy clunky hiking boots. And sometimes (rarely) you may want to even swim with them on, if you think you need to exit on rocky shorelines or rocky beaches.

Personally, I love the Vibram 5 Finger trail shoes and they're perfect for swimrunning/swim hiking. Lightweight, flexible, easy to drain.

I usually take an old army water bottle that takes about 1 liter of water, which is useful for keeping hydrated and also for hot drinks. I also pack a LifeStrawwater filter if I ever need to tap into natural water sources if I run out of water on route.

The Yorkie was great too!

The total distance of this particular route was about 7km, with the key element being the 4-5km swim in the middle of two short hikes.

Overall it was a very enjoyable route, but definitely requires respect in exposed areas and it's important to know your route beforehand so you can make sure you know all areas you can exit the water early if needed and carry on, on foot.

Also important to consider are whether the route is linear, do you need a pick up, what's the weather forecast, is it likely to change? What are the tides, currents etc.?

Reasearch, research, research.

Swim Pembrokeshire run Swim Hike excursions through the Spring, Summer and Autumn - contact us here to do a swim hike in Pembrokeshire!

Kit Review - Lomo Swim Tow

Mon, 30 Apr 2018 11:12:33 +0000

We've been asked recently for our opinion on which is the best swim towel for open water and sea swimming in particular, so we thought we would give a review of a tried and tested swim tow from Lomo.

There are two basic models from Loma for the swim tow float, which are the singular bladder or the dry bag compartment variety. This review is of the latter dry bag tow float.

The lomo swimming tow is very sturdy and well made. One feel of the float material shows that it would take a lot off abuse before it ripped or punctured. Indeed the one shown in these pictures is well over a year old and has been used several times per week in that time and has even had the tow strap rip clean off in rough sea conditions but is still going strong.

It comes in various colours. Are preference is illuminous orange. The visibility of it is excellent and you can be seen from a great distance without much effort.

The float is designed so that it is in fact too bladders each with its own valve that can be inflated and deflated, which sandwich the dry bag compartment, with d dry bag opening at the top.

The valves consist of the inflator valve which even if you leave it and then will not allow air to escape once it's been blown in, and the deflator valve which is used to expel air either in a controlled manner or very quickly in order to pack the tow float away.

A common question is: Can you keep car keys in the compartment bag?

To this we would say yes, but would recommend putting them in a separate small dry bag or a dry box. We do this, we use the Lomo drybox. See this link for details.

Normally the tow float strap that attaches around your waist attaches to the float on the opposite end of the dry bag compartment opening. The strap that comes out of the box is adequate and of sufficient length. We have seen on other models that the strap attaching the toe to your waistline is way too short and that's the tow float ends up getting tangled in your feet.

In this review you can see that the tell float attachment was ripped off the bag. This was in no way a negative reflection on the bad quality, the conditions at that time were insane and it's a testament to the quality of the bag that it can still be used even when the strap got ripped off.

In this case we quickly improvised and clip to strap onto the opposite end where the lomo swimming tow comes equipped with a couple of handy resin D-rings.

This can also be used to clip on other stuff for example as pictured here, a whistle, or perhaps a GoPro with selfie stick, or we have also used it to clip on a diving slate so that we can take notes or draw diagrams of wildlife or even students swim strokes! In other words these simple d-rings are very useful.

We have decided to lengthen the overall length of the tow float waist attachment strap. We have found many swimmers suffer from the short straps available on other models and the tow flow quickly becomes annoying and gets caught in their feet. We have found that having a longer attachment strap allows the float to float a couple of feet behind the Swimmer and also it means you can pass the tow float to someone in need.

It also means you can do a bit of duck diving to a couple of metres depth without having to detach the tow float from your body, should you see some interesting wildlife on the seabed.

This particular model cost £25 from Amazon and has been worth every penny.

Watch a video review here:

Using Your Swim Tow to Conserve Energy

Mon, 26 Jun 2017 16:00:00 +0000

Swim tows are useful in many ways, not just to increase visibility, they can be used to conserve energy too...

Swim Pembrokeshire - Blog #swim tow

Solo Swim Hike in South Pembrokeshire

A Challenging but Enjoyable Solo Swim Hike in Pembrokeshire

Kit Review - Lomo Swim Tow

Using Your Swim Tow to Conserve Energy

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