What started as a regular sea swim with a friend ended up being one almighty challenge for gran Louise Snelson – who swam in the sea at a Cornish beach without fail for 1,100 consecutive days.
The teaching assistant from St Just first decided to join her friend for a 365 day challenge that saw her swim in the sea every day of the year. It was the last year of the pandemic but when her friend became ill with Covid, Louise, a mum of three and gran of one, decided to carry on.
“I got this far after one year I thought I could go on some more,” Louise said. “2022 had been good. The weather was nice. The tides were right, so come January 1, 2023, I thought I’d carry on. But 2023 was a lot harder.”
After 730 days of arranging her life around her personal cold-water swim challenge, Louise thought enough was enough and nearly hung up her cosy hat for good.
She said: “It was late in December 2023 when I did my last swim after two full years. I thought I could do one more year, but this time, I’ll do it for charity.”
Louise Snelson, 60, from St Just celebrates completing 1,100 consecutive wild swims in the sea with fellow sea swimmers friends
(Image: Louise Snelson)
So Louise started going to her favourite beaches at Sennen Cove, Cape Cornwall, Pendeen or Abbey basin in Penzance, or in rivers, and even quarries when she wasn’t near any beach, but this time the idea was to help the Cornwall Air Ambulance Trust reach its goal to fund a second life-saving helicopter.
She added: “The second year had been hard, but the third was even harder. It was every single day and there were plenty of days when I thought, ‘why the hell am I doing this?’. It takes over your life. You have to plan your life around it. Even going on holiday, I’d be thinking, right, where can I go for a swim?”
Louise said that back in February 2023 when she was looking to go and visit Eastbourne, she had to ‘cheat’ by going in the sea shortly before midnight the night before and again a few minutes later – after midnight – so it would count as one swim a day as it was the only way she could do it and leave plenty of time to travel to the other side of the country.
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The 60-year-old said she has had plenty of lonely cold swims, some among seaweed and jellyfish, some on warm summer days and plenty others when the weather was freezing and bleak, but she was also joined by some hardy sea swimmer friends who helped keep her morale up.
“My final swim was on January 4 this year,” Louise, who is a member of the Marazion’s Bluetits cold water swimming group, added. “I got four or five friends to come and swim with me. We went out together and did that last swim.”
Still, three years of daily swims only added up to 1,096 days. Louise explained: “In my brain it couldn’t be 1,096 I had to round it up to a nice even number so I swam four more days.”
Not only has Louise completed her three-year almighty swim challenge but she’s also raised more than £2,000 for Cornwall Air Ambulance, based in Newquay, which is already twice over her initial fundraising target.
“I still swim and I’ll still do some crazy challenge in the future but I went for lunch on Sunday and had a coffee and it was nice not to feel that I had to go for a swim.”
To help Louise raise even more money for Cornwall Air Ambulance, visit Louise’s JustGiving page here.
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