If you want to swim in the ocean in Orange County, you’ve found your peeps.
We have ocean swims usuallyt twice weekly, weather permitting. Most of the time, we muster at Tower 9, about 1/2 mile south of the Huntington Beach Pier. When we have swims, we meet at a time you can see from this page . Depending on who is there, you’ll be swimming anywhere from 1,000 yards to 3,000 yards.
We swim almost every Saturday and 1-2 other weekdays. But, we often don’t advertise Sunday swims. Those are only viewable into group chat.
For upcoming swims, check out our Swims tab or our latest blog posts.
Minimum Swim Standards
To have a good experience in the water, you’ll want to make sure you can keep up with the pack. We move slowly at first till we’re beyond the breakers, so speed isn’t an issue there. Just be sure you can swim 300 yards continuously, tread water for 3-5 minutes, and swim 1,000 yards at one go.
To keep up with the pack, you’ll want to be sure you can maintain a 2:15 per 100 yard pace. Sometimes, the slower swimmers in the pack might keep a 2:20/100 pace, while other days it might be 1:50/100. You can check your time by doing 300 yards in a pool. If you can do it within 7 minutes, you should be fine. You can choose any stroke you want. While freestyle (front [Australian] crawl) is the most popular, heads up / water polo freestyle, breaststroke, and sidestroke are all fine in the ocean.
Keep in mind that if you cannot keep up with the pack, you might be left behind. That’s okay. Just be aware that the pack moves as fast/slow as the pack moves.
Conditions
You can see current footage of Tower 9 via this Surfline camera. Generally, Surfline is mostly accurate with its short-term forecasts. You must allow for wave height variations along with colder or warmer bands of water. Surfline is a good guide for your ocean swimming in Orange County.
There are cameras in and around HB that will show general surf conditions. Some are free and others are on Surfline. Most will give you an idea of what types of waves and texture to expect. For newbies, wave height and wind speed can be dealbreakers. If you’re new to swimming in the ocean, you probably want to choose a day that has waves 4′ and under and windspeed about 5 mph and under. Larger waves and higher winds can be daunting to a novice.
About Me
My name is Martin McSweeney, and though I’ve known how to swim most of my life, I’ve learned proper technique only recently and have since become an enthusiastic ocean swimmer.
I want to share my enjoyment of ocean swimming with you. If you have any questions, please contact me.
You’re Invited!
Hope this helps you. See you in the water soon! Contact me if you have any questions and/or want to get started. We’d love to see you!