The Pod: Ocean Swimming

Primrose Freestone, Associate Professor in Clinical Microbiology at the University of Leicester and science communicator, is an infectious diseases expert, and has dived into the debate of whether swimming in a pool or in the natural environment is the safer option. She also takes us through the cleanliness of hot-tubs (hint, they're gross.)

Songs in this episode - all licensed under a Creative Commons License:

• Bugs - GNAAR
• Bugs - Phillip Barker
• Bug's Land - Vadim Krakhmal
• Little bugs - i m p a u s e a b l e
• Sapphire - Tobu

Photo from wikimedia

Seena Mathew is Assistant Professor of Biology, University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. As a neurobiologist, she studies the effects of swimming on the brain, which are many! You can read her article in The Conversation (Swimming gives your brain a boost – but scientists don’t know yet why it’s better than other aerobic activities) or tune in here!

Songs in this episode - all licensed under a Creative Commons License:

• The brain cells strike back - Lofi Factory
• Stuck in my brain - Atch
• Planetary alignment - Dr Brain
• Sapphire - Tobu

Photo from StockSnap

Episode 50! Swimmer's ear (acute otitis externa) is an outer ear infection that many swimmers will have had at some point in their lives. However, it turns out that you don't have to go swimming to get swimmer's ear. Thomas Schrepfer is assistant professor of head and neck surgery in the University of Florida Department of Otolayrngology, and a keen diver and swimmer.

Songs in this episode - all licensed under a Creative Commons License:

• A short earache - Mooge
• Ear infection - Mad Wax
• In my ear - Bbbyugy
• Right ear - Aphickey
• Sapphire - Tobu

Photo by Franco Antonio Giovanella on Unsplash.

Rolf Hut is a hydrological scientist from Delft University of Technology. Or perhaps he's better described as MacGyver scientist, attacking problems from different and interesting angles. One such problem was the infamous 1962 escape from Alcatraz, in which inmates Clarence Anglin, John Anglin, and Frank Morris escaped from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, by tucking papier-mâché versions of their heads into their beds, escaping their cells through the ventilation ducts, climbing through an unused utility corridor, across roofs and over fences, before leaving the island on an improvised inflatable raft made of rain jackets. Rolf helped build perhaps the most sophisticated model of the currents in the bay area on the night of escape to look at the question of whether the inmates could possibly have survived the journey, and then tested the research in his own Mythbusters-esque escape from Alcatraz.

Songs in this episode - all licensed under a Creative Commons License:

• Form Flow - Rolf
• Oca - John Hut
• Chicken Hut Bluegrass - Silverman Sound Studios
• Sapphire - Tobu

Image from Rolf's page at Delft

Andy Donaldson is a world-recorder holding open-water swimmer. In 2023, he is attempting to swim the Oceans Seven in one year, and is making a pretty good fist of it, having already swum the English Channel (in a British record time), the North Channel (only 4 minutes off the record), the Cook Strait (in world record time) and the Molokai Channel in Hawaii. At the time of recording, he was setting off to swim the Strait of Gibraltar - and by time I published, he had broken the British record. He is raising money for Black Dog Institute

Songs in this episode - all licensed under a Creative Commons License:

• Andy - MisfitMediocrity
• Donald trumpet vs delirium (silence) - David (G.RaFF) parton
• Son Lux - Lost It To Trying (Umpire Remix) - Umpire
• Sapphire - Tobu

Photo from Andy on instagram

Pedro Ordenes is an Alcatraz legend, having swum the famous route over 1000 times!! Pedro runs Water World Swim that organizes many swims in San Francisco Bay, California and across the world. I was lucky enough to swim Alcatraz with Water World Swim recently in April 2023.

Pedro is an exceptionally accomplished open water swimmer, perhaps the highlight being swimming the Strait of Magellan in South America, in 3.5°C with 60 km/hr winds and 3-5 feet swells against 12-14 knot currents! He has also swum a double crossing of the Beagle Channel between Chile and Argentina. Pedro is now also a very well respected open-water coach.

Songs in this episode - all licensed under a Creative Commons License:

• Out In The Sticks - Escape From The Alcatraz - CVMR
• Prisonnier D Alcatraz - Deadline313
• Sonus Locus: Doors of Alcatraz - Analog Soul
• Jail - J-Seiei Beatz
• Sapphire - Tobu

Image from Water World Swim

Peta Bradley is a member of the Australian ice swimming team that recently competed at the World Ice Swimming Championships in France. She competed in the 1000m, 500m, and 50m butterfly, bringing home a bronze medal in the 500m. Peta hails from Gilgandra, quite some distance from any coastline, and does a lot of her training in dams. She has also completed the coveted ice mile at Thedbo. Peta is the manager of sheep genetics, within the livestock genetics team at Meat and Livestock Australia.

Songs in this episode - all licensed under a Creative Commons License:

• Ice - Workers
• Ice - whatfunk
• Sapphire - Tobu

Photo from Peta Bradley - it is the Australian team at the World Champs - Peta, Nick Hungerford and Ellery McGowan

Lynne Cox is arguably the most accomplished ocean swimmer of all time. She set the record for the English Channel in 1972, was the first woman to swim the Cook Strait in New Zealand in 1975, famously swam between the US and the USSR in 1987 across the Bering Strait in bone-chilling 3 degree waters, and then even colder in Antarctica and Greenland. She has a list of achievements too long to list here. Lynne is also an author, and has a new book called Tales of Al - The Water Rescue Dog, detailing her experiences with Italy's elite, highly specialized corps of water rescue dogs who jump from helicopters and save lives. Thanks very much to Knopf for sending me a preprint.

Songs in this episode - all licensed under a Creative Commons License:

• Rescue Dog - Dav Blues
• Rescue Dog - Ross J. Miller
• Rescue Dog - Electrophonvintage
• The New FoundLand EP 18 Guest Mix UNK - UNK
• New Found Land - Mojis
• Only my winnings - New Found Land
• Sapphire - Tobu

Photo from Lynne Cox

Professor Peter Ralph is Executive Director of the Climate Change Cluster in the Faculty of Science at UTS, and is partnering with Australian surf brand Piping Hot to develop textiles made from seaweed for surfwear. Nature-derived alternatives for the fashion industry have the potential to revolutionise products and vastly reduce their impact on the oceans.

Apologies for a little bit of building noise in the background!

Songs in this episode - all licensed under a Creative Commons License:

• Seaweed - Offkey Lifestyle
• Sea-weed - Martin Williamson
• Sapphire - Tobu

Image from UTS

Eli Ball is training to swim the English Channel... butterfly. Yes, you read that correctly. Butterfly. He is an exceptionally accomplished butterflying ocean swimmer, having completed a plethora of marathon ocean swims, including the 20km Rottnest Island swim, along the way setting the butterfly record.

Songs in this episode - all licensed under a Creative Commons License:

• Butterfly - takashi_d
• Butterfly - Adam Andrys
• Butterfly - Joachim Heinrich
• Butterfly - ReMiXis
• Butterfly - Britney Starr
• Butterfly - Phòng Thu Âm Nguyễn Báu
• Butterfly - 李雨寰 Lee Johan
• Sapphire - Tobu

Image from Eli fan page on Facebook

I would like to acknowledge the horribly sad tragedy here in Sydney last week, with a swimmer killed in a shark attack at Malabar, a place at which I have swum many times. Sharks are an ever present thought for ocean swimmers, and they are one of the topics in today's episode, which was recorded a few weeks before the incident. My sincerest condolences are with Simon's family and friends.