A swim to die for — where in the world can I do one?

Question

Several years ago I entered the Escape From Alcatraz triathlon as I wanted to swim from Alcatraz to San Francisco.

Source: http://www.dolphinclub.org/swimming/escape/

I was scheduled to go on a work trip at the time and this worked out perfectly. Unfortunately the trip was cancelled and I never got to do it. I subsequently entered a couple of times later but never made it through the random entry cut; apparently it's heavily over-subscribed every year.

Obviously the major "big-swim" is a channel swim.

But really that just looks like torture and costs the price of a large brand-new car and you have to book it 5 years in advance.

Question: Has anyone got experience (whether directly or via friends/colleagues) of some reasonable but not wallet-emptying swimming event that you you would want to tell your grand-children about, like swimming from one country to another or something? I don't want to train for a year (been there, done that) for some event and end up doing something that I'm just going to feel miserable doing. I'm not looking for a race, but something with other entrants would be good. I'd prefer it not to be a marathon-solo event, but just something that contains a memorable long swim as evoked in the Alcatraz photo above.

Update: I don't like leaving a question with an unawarded answer so I reviewed the answers with a view to which event I would actually take part in.

The Hellespont / Bosphorus / Dardanelles swim(s) have a definite appeal. Swimming from one continent to another across shipping lanes closed just for the event sounds epic.

The Freedom swim sounds good too, but it's too cold for me. I can swim in cold water if I have to. But I don't have to. So I won't.

There were a few lake swims including the Sun Moon Lake swim which sound like they'd be enjoyable, but they don't really tick the "to die for" check-item. "Only 20000 other people besides me managed to finish..."

Some people took "to die for" too literally, and seemed to want to suggest something that would be the last thing I ever did...

The Rottnest swim looks amazing. A 20k swim would be a major part of my day though! Also, I'd need to organise a support boat and a qualifying swim.

Aleks G provided a pointer to the World's top 100 open water swims and I had a look through those. One of which was the Bermuda round the sound swim at (up to) 10km. The HQ for this swim is a hotel I've actually stayed at and the water temperature is 25C. Perfect.

However, I'm going to select AE's answer as accepted.

Many thanks for the great answers!

Answer 1

How about the Turkish Straits - the Hellespont / Bosphorus / Dardanelles ?

(Photo is public domain as it was created by NASA).

Answer 2

There are many long (and long-ish) distance swims known around the world.

If you're looking for something medium distance (i.e. not English Channel), you can try International Swim Across Dnipro River in Ukraine - it's 10km, about 4 times the distance of Escape from Alcatraz swim and about 1/3 of the English Channel. Here's the link to the last year's event. I can't currently find any info about the next one, but this can be a good start.

On the larger side, there's Lake Michigan swim from Chicago to Michigan City (about 38 miles). And, of course, Cuba to Miami is the killer at 110 miles.

Obviously, there are many more. Have a look at the World's top 100 open water swims - it might give you some ideas. For another source of inspiration, have a look at the Water World Swim website - these are all based in USA.

Answer 3

The Freedom Swim is another "prison escape" swim from Robben Island (where Nelson Mandela and many other political prisoners of the Apartheid era were held) to Blouberg, near Cape Town, South Africa. The distance is 7.5km and the temperature is typically around 13°C. It takes place in the Southern Hemisphere autumn (around Freedom Day, 27 April) and is open to 120 individual un-wetsuited solo entries (plus 25 wetsuited entries, and relay teams).

The entry fee is around 110 USD at current exchange rates. You have to do a qualification swim beforehand, and hire a support boat.

Answer 4

The 2017 Lake Balaton cross swimming competition is a 5.2km swim in the biggest lake in Central Europe. Registration is 30 USD. Around 10,000 people do this yearly, however very few from abroad, only a few hundred typically. There's a certain bragging right in that :)

Answer 5

Lake Ohrid in Macedonia. It's the oldest lake in Europe. There is a traditional marathon every year. It's beautiful, affordable, no sharks and lots of history. I was born there if you need any info feel free to msg me.

The marathon is about ~30km and the best swimmers in the world come to compete.

Ohrid Swimming Marathon (Wikipedia).

Answer 6

If you haven't had the chance to go to Sun Moon Lake in Taiwan, this could be a great reason for a first visit. It hosts an annual 3-km race across the lake, where swimming otherwise is forbidden.

The lake is surrounded by mountains and the whole area is generally amazing. The only potential downside is how time-consuming it is to go there. The easiest way there would probably be on a bus, directly from Taipei. The fastest would have to be by taking the high-speed railway from Taipei to Taichung, followed by a bus-ride. Oh, and they have apparently had tens of thousands of participants in recent years, so it might get crowded.

There are also bicycles for hire, that you can take around the lake, which is something I definitely recommend.

Sun Moon Lake Swim http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/photo/2013-09/08/132702616_21n.jpg

Source: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/photo/2013-09/08/c_132702616.htm

Answer 7

Where I live on the border between Germany and Switzerland there is a big lake, Lake Constance. Well, it's big by our standards. The Rhine runs in one end and out the other end over the Rheinfall, so there is a fair current, and it can be cold, depending on the time of year.

Occasionally intrepid people swim all the way along it (63 km, 39 miles) or across. If you check out the map you'll see it's long and Y-shaped, so swimming across is easy or hard, not forgetting the current and the ferry boats. Lake Constance is between Austria, Germany and Switzerland, so you swim between 3 countries, depending on route.

There are sometimes organised events. Give it a google.

It's not just a good swim, this is a lovely area to have a holiday.

Answer 8

You could do the Rottnest Channel Swim, 20km from Cottesloe beach to Rottnest Island in Perth, Australia. Beautiful spot, water a nice temp, you might just have to battle a bit of seabreeze and the odd shark. You can enter 2 or 4-person teams as well, and each swimmer has a boat and kayak support crew.

Great party on the Island once everyone gets over as well.

www.karmagroup.com

Answer 9

If you really want a triathlon, there is the Ultra-Triathlon Napoleon this summer in Corsica (France):

• A 15 km swim across the "Bouches de Bonifacio" (from Sardinia to Corsica)
• A 600 km biking race around Corsica
• A 200 km running race on the GR 20 (cutting a diagonal from South East to North West)

All that from August 15 to 19.

There are about 50 registered participants for now...

Answer 10

Maybe you could try out this one:

http://traversee.qc.ca/en/natation/solo-traversee/

The site is a bit glitched in english, so here's a link to the entry form.

It goes from the marker to the star:

I don't know if there is an entry price, but places are very limited. Swimmers have boats following them for safety, which is nice. I linked to the "solo" competition, as the main event is with FINA, which you probably can't just try and enter as a one-time thing.

Answer 11

The longest freshwater swim race in North America is the 36-mile Extreme North Dakota Watersports Endurance Test on the Red River of the North on the border between North Dakota and Minnesota. It's inexpensive and attracts people from all over the country.

Answer 12

If you want an extreme, quite difficult challenge, why not swim from Europe to Africa? You can swim from Spain (or UK if you start from Gibraltar) to Morocco! Its about 12 miles, but its sea water.

Fun fact: big transatlantic ships would need to stop if you want to cross, because "pedestrians" have priority over ships. Nice story to tell your grandchildren about.

Answer 13

The Arctic and Antarctic are challenging places to swim at. It is not expensive to go to Svalbard and the Antarctic is reachable for a reasonable price too. Wim Hof, shown swimming in Iceland here offers courses that will allow you to swim in ice cold conditions for a long time without suffering the usual symptoms. This involves doing hyperventilation exercises and taking regular cold showers, over time this causes the body to crank up the metabolism when you breath faster instead of hyperventilating (instead of excess oxygen and CO2 levels dropping, these levels stay the same due to increased metabolism).

This video shows a few people undergoing Wim Hof's training.

Answer 14

Off the top of my head, and with a little help from SportOutdoor24:

• The Waikiki Roughwater Swim is a good starting point, with its 3.78km ocean swim off the coast of Hawaii
• You could join the Messina Straight swim, whose linked site (in Italian) says that you must be a licensed athlete to participate
• The Manhattan Island Marathon Swim also looks promising with its 45km tour or Manhattan Island
• The 45km from San Francisco to Farallon Island is quite challenging since only 2 people ever managed to complete it
• You could also try the Monster Swim, a 1.5km swim in Loch Ness, although the last organised event seem to have been in 2013
• If you're feeling adventurous, why not try the swimming part of Norseman Xtreme Triathlon in Alaska?