sea swimming in dublin?

zero_mac

hi,
i've just moved to ranelagh and i'm hoping to find a nice place for sea swimming. i don't know how clean the water is in dublin bay, or where are places to avoid for currents etc.
does anyone go sea swimming and know of a good place for it? i don't mind biking a few miles to get there. i'm a reasonably good swimmer but not as serious about it as a club swimmer. just for something to keep fit and get me out of bed in the mornings.
cheers
tim

cousin_borat

Get the DART out to Seapoint, theres a nice spot for swimming there.

Gilgamesh

wouldn't the irish coastguards be able to tell you that?

zero_mac

hi, thanks for the reply.
yeah i suppose the coastgaurds would know. i was just asking around to see if people had any suggestions. i'll try seapoint for starters.
thanks

eth0_

Dublin Bay!! Eww! It's utterly filthy.
Killiney is lovely beach and pretty safe to swim in as there are no rips and wave swells are almost never dangerously big!

Might be a bit cold now though. Was lovely the past few weeks.

You should be able to find listings of 'Blue flag' beaches in Ireland which are beaches that are safe to swim at, in terms of water quality and tidal activity.

zero_mac

that's great, i took a look at the blue flag list and dollymount,seapoint and killiney are the dublin ones. seapoint is about 5 miles away so that will give me plenty of exercise on the bike even before i get there.
a rashy will help with the cold, as well as that awful feeling of bumping into a jelly or whatever else

eth0_

hooray for rash vests!

Chucky

I agree with Killiney and I agree on the 'it might be cold at this time' issue...


...But wait! It's actually colder at Killiney during winter I used to swim there with my friend if we had time off in between classes in college.

rubadub

Seapoint is nice, if the tide is in, it a shower and toilets (open in lifeguard hours). If the tide is out go to 40ft, though it can be full of scumbags, theiving scumbags. hawks cliff on the vico road is a great spot, you can swim when the tide is out, no scumbags (I think they are afraid of being branded queers since it is a clothing optional place). white rock and killiney are ok, but again the tide may be out, though seapoint is the worst for low tide swimming.

zero_mac

hi rubadub,
thanks for the tips. i tried seapoint at very low tide yesterday, and there were a gzillion jellies on the beach and at the shore. normally i wouldn't mind but the water was so murky i wasn't able to see them in the water with my goggles on! i chatted to one guy who said the east wind does that to the water.
how serious do you think the jellyfish warning at seapoint is? i've seen that many jellies on the west coast often and not worried too much about it, just steered clear of the giant brown ones which give a bad nettle-type sting. is there really portugues man-o-war jellies out there?

rubadub

They had signs up at seapoint a few weeks ago. The lifeguards had those loudspeaker things warning people, but letting them in. A few kids were stung and went to hospital. I was there on monday and only a few were swimming due to the jellies. A guy in forty foot said there were a few there but further out, same in hawks cliff.

There were lots of people about to spot them and shout out warnings. An old guy told me most were harmless, it is the brown/orange ones that sting. never heard anybody say the were the man-o-wars, one guy said that antiseptic should cure you. Maybe the kids brought to hospital were just over concerned mothers, but maybe not. forty foot now has lifeguards, hawks cliff has none but all the old guys would shout at you to be careful