Open Water Swimming off Coney Island

This article is part of a 30-day series exploring adventurous living near Rockaway Beach, Queens. 

12th Day in Rockaway: Open Water Swimming

While there are plenty of places to swim on the Rockaway Peninsula, this past Sunday I headed to Coney Island area for a more "official" swim with CIBBOWS.

CIBBOWS (or Coney Island Brighton Beach Open Water Swimmers) is a group of open water swimmers who meet every Saturday and Sunday throughout the summer at 10:00AM at the Grimaldi Chair on Brighton Beach to head out and swim in the ocean. As next week is the NYC Triathlon there were quite a few swimmers there as part of a swimming clinic, practicing their sighting skills as well as entering the water for a race (aka running until you're waist deep or so). 

Donned in brightly colored caps (for safety), everyone had their goal distances set for the workout - most of which were dictated by various manmade landmarks along the shore:

While the club is made up of swimmers of all levels (including marathoners and other accomplished distance swimmers), my group found a few other newer swimmers and headed out for a mile swim. For our mile we swam against the current out to the "Large Rocks" taking a few breaks to tread water and adjust to the massive amount of salt water in our mouths. Though we were tired, the swim back was supported by the flow of the current and the promise of drinking water. Arriving at the shore we were proud of and exhausted by our first ocean mile and ready to come back the next weekend.

Join CIBBOWS Saturdays and Sundays at 10:00AM.

By Sarah Knapp as part of the series 30 Days in the Rockaways about adventurous living in NYC.