Chris (left) and friends at the Henley Half-Mile, 2021

Having raced the Henley Swim with a few friends as an Otter guest this summer, I was sufficiently inspired to join the club. I’ve continued open water swimming and thought the “4 River Swim” I did last weekend was worthy of a write-up.

A small group of friends aim for an open water swim every year. Our link is that we all swam together in the Oxford University Modern Pentathlon team too many years ago to remember, but swimming is a good way to have an excuse to meet up and to stay in trim. Over recent years, we have ranged from big competitive swims in the sea or lake (Costa Brava, northern Italian lakes, European Masters Champs in Lake Bled) to sea swimming in Cornwall (Sea Swim Cornwall - highly recommended). This year we decided we could make a weekend of it ourselves, based around Andy living near Gloucester and using various of his daughters on their SUP as safety cover.

River Severn (Friday night): Haw Bridge to the Red Lion Inn, just north of Gloucester. 2km

An easy downstream swim in deep enough water with a few deliberately sunk wrecks and rocks at the end of the swim to navigate round (placed there to shore up the bank) finishing at a pub (where else!) to discuss and contemplate the plans for the weekend.

River Usk (Saturday morning): Usk Island to Weir and back. 2km

An organised swim (more of a festival than a race) by Angela Jones (Swim Wild Wye). Beautifully clear water, although at 15 degrees, a tad chilly even in a wetsuit. A bit shallow in parts (pulling with your thumb running down your chest) but entirely swimmable and upstream 1km to a Weir and back – although with no noticeable stream it didn’t seem like the downstream leg offered any advantage. Great fun and good to be with like-minded people.

This lulled us into a false sense of security for the next swim…

River Wye (Saturday afternoon). Ross-on-Wye to Backney Bridge 6km

With Angela having said our original choice of swim would be too shallow, we reassessed and thought this other part of the Wye would be deeper. And emboldened by the lack of flow in the Usk, we thought an up and back would be logistically easier and very doable. These Strava traces tell the sorry story!

2:36 per 100m upstream; 1:30 per 100m back downstream!

In the upstream portion, we were sometimes pretty much stationary (like in a training pool) with a few more manageable sections to recover. More of an adventure than a swim, it was hard, exhausting work and a punishing 3km. But the joy of speeding past the bank on the return leg made it all worthwhile and only once did we have to assume the inverted turtle position and lead with our feet to negotiate gentle rapids. A great swim in all respect and made the cider that evening all the more well-deserved.

Rver Avon (Sunday morning). Eckington Wharf to Strensham Lock. 3km

Jim, Andy, Duncan and Chris at the Fleet Inn, Twyning on the Avon

The final swim of a very enjoyable weekend, but we were pretty tired even starting it. We had grand plans for a longer swim but with deep water (great for swimming) but no stream at all (not great for swimming), going wasn’t quick and having somehow missed the lock and ended up in a boating park spur of the River Avon (yes, you can take wrong turnings river swimming!), we called it a day then. A great stretch of river, and by far the busiest river of the weekend in terms of other traffic, but with a SUP assistant, we were well flagged by the various dingies, dragon boats and pleasure cruisers that passed us.

We feel there are many other stretches of river, lakes and sea to be swum in the UK – so this taster inspired us to do more…and hopefully it will inspire some of you to as well.

Chris Daniels