swimming in the wild

I did wonder at first if it was skinny dipping, but apparently not.

If wild swimming is in out of the way places I can't count Newquay on a busy day then. . The sea is the sea surely? I bet it was a townie who coined the phrase 'wild swimming'.

DS1 and our DDiL swam in a flooded quarry near us and now they are in USA they swim in lakes. Last September DH and I had a wonderful day swimming at Lantic Bay (Cornwall), where we were joined by a large seal. In November we swum from Waikiki Beach. (One plus point of having family in California is being able to spend a few days in Hawaii.)

I grew up at the seaside and we swam most days in the summer (NE coast.)
Great fun jumping the waves and getting carried ashore.
The wildest place was on Skye - below the Bad Step, I have a photo.
You need to be careful though - husband was nearly swept out to sea when swimming off the north coast of Israel, no life guard there either.

* Tanith * Ruislip Lido brings back many happy memories for me too in the 50's. We also used to swim in the river at Runnymede. I suppose the wildest swimming I have done was with the turtles in Barbados.

Ginny its such a shame they closed the pool area now its a restaurant we still have the beach area and the little train still runs in the Summer we walk round the lake regularly. My Thames swimming was usually at Walton on Thames I remember dodging the pleasure boats. Quite what my parents were thinking I have no idea.

I think people must be a lot more wimpy about swimming these days than they were not so long ago. There used to be quite a few salt water pools along the coast around here, but they have all fallen into various stages of disrepair.
When I was young we used to swim on a beach that I now know to have been very near to the outfall for an entire city's worth of untreated sewage. Seas much cleaner now. And rivers like the Thames too as raw sewage not discharged like it used to be - unless there has been heavy rainfall. But there will still be a lot of bacteria and viruses in it when you think of all the sewage works along its length.

Ginny and Tanith it sounds like you were swimming in my locality. We used to swim at Walton and at Chertsey Meads in the Thames. Great fun at the time and part of family picnics! Certainly does not appeal now!

OH and brother grew up in Walton and Weybridge, and often swam in the Thames and the Wey. I remember swimming at Virginia Water in the early 70s too.

Maybe my sea swimming isn't quite wild enough... but I used to love jumping over the waves when my knees were younger.

After school we used to jump on our bikes and go for a swim 'along the shore' in the Firth of Clyde. I never thought of it as swimming-in-the-wild, but it wasn't specially tame either. Lots of fun and very safe.