I'm taking a casual poll of the "Best Places to Swim in the World" for a freelance story I'm working on. The topic is very open-ended: I'm looking for anything from the best place for an open-water swim, i.e. La Jolla Cove, to an olympic pool with an amazing setting, i.e. North Sydney Olympic Pool.
Your ideas would be most helpful to me; from the well-known watering holes to off-the-beaten spots, from swimming holes to hotel pools...And please note why you love swimming there.
Favorite open water swim: parallel to the Coronado, CA city beach. On the Pacific Ocean shore of Coronado, enter the water just south of the perimeter of NAS North Island. Swim south about a mile or so along the beach until you reach a point next to the historic Hotel Del Coronado. Get out, and walk back north along the beach that one travel oriented TV show called the best beach in California. This place makes you understand what the term "golden beaches" means. There are little flecks of pyrite in the sand that make the beach shimmer like gold when the sun hits it right. Also, the surf is usually just right for body surfing. Big enough for adults to use, but not so big as to be intimidating. One of my fondest memories of being stationed in San Diego is a Friday evening masters swim at the Coronado beach, then team pizza afterwards.
They don't run my favorite open water race anymore, which is the 12 mile "Around the Island Swim." Start in the Coronado municipal park on the San Diego bay side of the Coronado peninsula, and swim all the way around Coronado and NAS North Island, passing under the San Diego-Coronado bridge, going by the ship piers at NAS North Island, past Point Loma and out the ship channel, until you clear it and make a hard left (SE) back more or less towards the same Hotel Del Coronado. Twelve of the most scenic miles you will ever swim, and your friends and relations drop their jaws and shake their heads when you tell them how far you swam. It makes them appreciate just how far a 12 mile swim is. I was on the organizing committee one year, but running the event got to be such a hassle, that my old masters team (Coronado Masters aka "The Nightcrawlers" ) stopped running it a few years ago. , I'm getting misty...
Matt
Favorite open water swim: parallel to the Coronado, CA city beach. On the Pacific Ocean shore of Coronado, enter the water just south of the perimeter of NAS North Island. Swim south about a mile or so along the beach until you reach a point next to the historic Hotel Del Coronado. Get out, and walk back north along the beach that one travel oriented TV show called the best beach in California. This place makes you understand what the term "golden beaches" means. There are little flecks of pyrite in the sand that make the beach shimmer like gold when the sun hits it right. Also, the surf is usually just right for body surfing. Big enough for adults to use, but not so big as to be intimidating. One of my fondest memories of being stationed in San Diego is a Friday evening masters swim at the Coronado beach, then team pizza afterwards.
They don't run my favorite open water race anymore, which is the 12 mile "Around the Island Swim." Start in the Coronado municipal park on the San Diego bay side of the Coronado peninsula, and swim all the way around Coronado and NAS North Island, passing under the San Diego-Coronado bridge, going by the ship piers at NAS North Island, past Point Loma and out the ship channel, until you clear it and make a hard left (SE) back more or less towards the same Hotel Del Coronado. Twelve of the most scenic miles you will ever swim, and your friends and relations drop their jaws and shake their heads when you tell them how far you swam. It makes them appreciate just how far a 12 mile swim is. I was on the organizing committee one year, but running the event got to be such a hassle, that my old masters team (Coronado Masters aka "The Nightcrawlers" ) stopped running it a few years ago. , I'm getting misty...
Matt
