A few weeks ago, I went to the Komodo Islands national park in Indonesia. Did a liveaboard which was a cool and interesting experience. Whilst the area is known for the komodo dragons, the series of islands is also a fabulous snorkeling location. I spent more time island-hopping, snorkeling and on the water than on land.
Managed to tick off a bunch of wildlife and marinelife on my Komodo bingo card.
Sea turtles – tick.
Manta rays – tick
Lots and lots of fish – tick
Komodo dragons – tick.
The unexpected and real highlight of the trip was swimming with manta rays. I feel as though there’s a limited time to experience swimming with them, and I was super lucky.
I went out to Manta point on a one-day island-hopping tour and got one jump in where I could see them swimming along the bottom of the ocean.
When I did the 3D/2N liveaboard, we got to do 4 jumps at Manta point and got to see and swim with them on every single jump.
Here’s a few of my best takes on my GoPro up close and personal with a squadron of manta rays. (Yep, had to google the collective noun for manta rays!). Only downside was jellyfish and sea lice etc, and I did not go unscathed. But totally worth it!
Was super lucky with the timing and conditions – I guess it was manta be!
It’s been a while since I’ve written an ows race report! So here we go.
Since 2021 (post-covid era), I’ve been managing to keep up the tradition of at least one ows race a year. And now that I’m in Singapore, I’m trying to tick off swims throughout South East Asia – SEA swimming if you will 😉
I’ll kickstart my backlog of ows race reports with my first (attempted) ows race for this year, which (spoiler alert) was sadly a DNF. Since moving to Singapore, I’ve been partaking in the Oceanman swim series. This year, wanting to tick off a swim in Thailand I signed up for the 5km ows race Oceanman Krabi. But unfortunately things did not go as planned for this race, before even leaving Singapore!
Oceanman Krabi OWS race on 18 May 2024:
I had booked a daytime flight out of Singapore at 11:55am on the Saturday before the race, due to arrive at Krabi at 12:25pm, leaving enough time to attend the race briefing etc, with the swim to start on the Sunday morning. My departure flight was delayed to 3:45pm instead, and didn’t actually end up departing Singapore until 5:30pm. What a waste of a day, having to spend over 6 hours at Changi airport. Wish I had known earlier that the flight wasn’t going to leave until late in the afternoon, then I could have stayed at home! Le sigh.
Ultimately I didn’t arrive at the race hotel in Krabi until 7pm, leaving me less than 12 hours before I had to swim 5km. I didn’t have a chance to see the beach (and it was dark) or the race course, or even attend the race briefing. By the time I grabbed dinner, and checked in and settled into hotel and get gear ready for the next morning, I did manage to be asleep by 10pm. It had a been a long day of being stuck at the airport and travel to get there.
Fast forward to Sunday morning: I woke up at 5:20am to get ready for a 7am race start.
The swim started off ok, with the water temp being a little too warm for my liking, around 32 degrees celcius by my guesstimate. About a km from the shore, the swim then became a jellyfish soup. I literally saw hundreds, if not thousands of jellyfish. You had to actively try and dodge them. The amount of jellyfish was insane. I ended up getting stung soooo severely at around the 2km mark. With no rescue boat nearby, another stung swimmer and I made the decision to swim to one of the course boats we could see around a half km away, so we slowly swum up to it, in a lot of pain. Before we reached that boat, we got picked up on by one of the smaller boats instead and got taken to the bigger medical boat instead.
There were a few of us on the medical boat, where we got doused in vinegar. My face and arm in particular were stinging, on fire and red. I was in a lot of pain. Eventually they took us off the medical boat into another smaller boat which took us to the beach/shore so we could officially DNF. The stinging pain was real!
Back on land, my skin was very red and stinging!
My face and skin were red, everything hurt, and the constant stinging felt like I was fire, with no signs of fading. I grabbed my stuff and went back to my hotel room so I could stand under the shower, and get clean and the salt and vinegar combo off my skin. Post-shower, and over the next 12 hours, the jellyfish effect kicked in. Skin got red and patchy, and the lacerations started to come through. The stinging wouldn’t subside and continued until the next day. It was super uncomfortable and not fun.
Post-shower, my arm was feeling hot and battered, and continued to feel hot and throbby.
Opposite the hotel, there was thankfully a small pharmacy where I showed them my stings and they gave me some pills and cream to help with the burning pain and stinging. Vinegar, ice and meds were my best friends.
Over the course of the next 2 weeks, my jellyfish stings became itchy, inflamed, with dark lacerations to my arms and my cheek. I applied various creams to help soothe the itchiness, and to help with the skin repair. The lacerations have since faded, but geez, this was not a fun experience. I’ve swum in races before with jellyfish, but never in my entire swimming life had I been stung so bad as this. Incidentally, I got stung by a jellyfish on my lip (that wasn’t fun!) on a previous holiday (non-swim race related) in Phuket, so not my first time being stung in Thailand.
Warning: jellyfish sting photos ahead. Some of these photos were taken at various points up to 3 weeks after being stung. The stings went through phases: initial red patchy splotchiness, then the lacerations come though, then the lacerations appear as lines of lumps and got itchy and inflamed, then they appear as brown scars and lines which eventually fade. The scars and discloration for the most part have disappeared after weeks of applying creams to help soothe them and help with the fading. I was predominantly stung on my left underam, down the arm, and side chest area, left cheek/jaw, and slightly on my right arm (but nowhere near as bad as the left underarm). It was like I had hugged a soccer ball-sized jellyfish midswim under the water on my left side, hence my left arm and cheek being the main affected areas.
Post-race, many swimmers complained about the amount of jellyfish. Race organisers acknowledged that given the amount of jellyfish, this race for 2025 has been scheduled for March (instead of May when this took place).
What looked like an idyllic race venue, was marred by what lurked beneath the waters. This is a risk of open water swimming, but also unfortunate when Mother Nature prevails.
The following day after the race, I went for a stroll along the beach and the beachshore was littered with jellyfish, so not surprising I had gotten stung. The race really shouldn’t have been held in such conditions.
I was bummed about DNFing this race, only completing about 2.5km of the 5km course before pulling out.
My quest to complete an ows race in Thailand remains unfulfilled. Nonetheless I recently did a 5km ows race in Vietnam which was jellyfish-free, so swim race for this year is accomplished.
An Oceanman swim in Thailand still remains on the bucketlist for next year….maybe Phuket might be a better (jellyfish) option.
It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post. I shall just say that 2018 has been an EPIC year for me. And hopefully I’ll get around to writing about some various highlight at some point before the year end.
But for the past 8 months of the year, I was swimming. A lot. I achieved a bucketlist item of swimming Tsugaru Channel (that body of water between Honshu and Hokkaido) and one of the Oceans Seven swims. I swam it as part of an international 3-person relay with two friends (also expats in Tokyo). And for the record, I’ve been trying to do this swim for the past 2-3 years and was never chosen for a slot. But at the end of 2017, I was finally notified of a last-minute slot for 2018 (I think due to someone else cancelling).
It was quite the journey in terms of training and build-up and the actual swim itself. Will eventually write an epic swim report, but for now, I will leave you with the EPIC video documenting our channel swim which we did on 19-20 July 2018. The film was shot and edited by my amazingly talented friend (and crew support on the swim) Matt.
For your viewing pleasure: (and yes, we really did this!)
I went to El Nido in June for a swim race. The Philippines is my recent hot spot destination for open water swim races. Flying from Tokyo, I stayed a brief night in Manila before flying onwards the next day to El Nido airport. It’s great that AirSwift has direct flights straight to El Nido airport rather than flying into Puerto Princessa.
The aerial views towards and over the El Nido islands was pretty spectacular. Enjoying a window seat, I was in prime position. And as we flew into the airport, I also got a great aerial view of the actual swim course as well.
The swim course – you can see the colour flag pontoons.
This summer in August, I completed a 10km open water swim race. The location was remote but amazing. Set amongst the Caramoan islands – a location popular for filming Survivor (the reality TV show) around the world including a US series.
The race was a 10km island hopping swim. My first 10km in open water.
I finished. An official time of 4 hours and 16 minutes which was slower than I would have liked. A great swim though. Couldn’t have picked a better location to do this epic swim.
There’ll be more to write about on this later but here are some pics from the personal milestone and one of many more racecations.
Coming up onto the shore with a smile.
Feels weird to be vertical:
Action finishing shots:
Feeling chuffed to have finished:
The Caramoan 10km swim challenge
I got second place female in my age group which I thought was pretty decent. Didn’t think my time was very decent but compared to the field, it wasn’t too bad.
I hit the proverbial wall at 8km. The first 3km I did an an hour, and I thought I was on track for a 3.5 hour finish. That time lapsed and I aimed for a sub-four time. 4 hours passed and by then, it was just a matter of getting to the finish line. The last 2km took me over an hour. 8-10km was brutal with very little left in the tank. I hadn’t ever swum more than 8km in the open water before, so it was a first and a great personal achievement to even finish a 10km open water swim. Would like to get a few more under my belt.
First open water swim race for the summer and the year was a 5k-er. The destination – idyllic. Water temp – too hot.
I had wanted to do an open water swim race in Okinawa for a while now – Japan’s answer to paradise. Ishigakijima did not disappoint. A really beautiful island for water lovers. Even managed to round a few friends to join not only the trip, but also the swim.
Headed down on the first flight on Thursday and spent Thursday and Friday sightseeing. Saturday May 30 was race day. It was a scorcher. In the mid-30 degrees, but felt closer to 40. And the water was like a bath. Ugh. Much too hot and uncomfortable for my liking.
The race was held at a beach off the ANA resort hotel.
The boys were gonna be fast. Was also going to test out my brand new Garmin in my first open water swim race for the year. My goal time was to do it comfortably under 2 hours, anything around 1hour 45 I would be happy with. The last 5km swim race I did back in November without training, took me just over 2 hours to do. But since then I’ve gotten back into the training.
Pleased to say I swam a time of 1 hour 40min which was on par with my expectations. Not overly fast but not bad for the first race of the season. Got to leave more fuel in the tank this year, as I have decided to do a 10km marathon open water swim.
I got first place in my age group for females, so not bad. Snared me a gold medal. It’s always nice to not go home empty handed. The boys also kicked arse. They took 2nd and 3rd place in the male age group with way faster times than me, both beating me by over 20 minutes.
As for the swim race itself – water was way too warm. Wetsuits definitely not required. It was also quite a shallow swim, as we swum over reefs. Got to see a few fish. Also a bit of a current, but all in all a decent swim. Course was a little tricky though with many overswimming the course. It was a 2.5km course, requiring 2 laps.
And much to my disappointment, something happened to my Garmin. Must have hit a button as a swum. Timing was pretty spot on, but it didn’t register the whole distance.
Another belated swim race report from last year.
Race date: July 2015
Venue: Niijima island
You might recall that I did this race back in 2011. Back then it was the longest distance open water swim race I had done before. Since then I’ve done a few 5km, an 8km and a 10km race. I’ve pretty much gotten to a point where I usually don’t like to enter in swim races less than 4km. Am trying to do more endurance swims, but I’m still pretty slow.
Last year, we got a small posse to come to Niijima island for the swim race again. In addition, a small group of Aussies from the Brighton Icebergs also came to Japan to do this swim and I got to meet up with some them.
The Niijima swim once again involved getting an early jetboat ride from Tokyo to the island. Perhaps too early for some.
Here is everyone passed out or perhaps they are just conserving their energy.
I like this particular race. It’s always well organised and entry fee includes refreshments and a free towel for every finisher.
The bananas this year even had messages of motivation which was a really cute touch.
I did the 4.5km distance and my time was super slow. 1 hour, 49minutes. The last time I did this swim, I did it 1hr, 36min. I was 13 minutes slower.
Last year was not a great swimming year for me. In 2014, I ramped up my training to do some endurance swim races so last year I significantly cut back on swimming. This year, I am trying to ramp up again with my eyes on a couple of marathon races.
I’ve signed up for 4.5km swim race again this year on Niijima island and I’m hoping to improve on last year’s time. But I feel I’m getting slower as I get older.
Out of the goodness of my heart, I have compiled a translated list of open water swim races in Japan for 2016. This is mostly for the benefit of the foreigner community in Japan, who can’t navigate through Japanese. Also, there does not appear to be a consolidated list of open water swim races in Japan (even in Japanese), and I have scoured the Internet to compile this list of races all around Japan. Mind you, I’ve already done quite a fair chunk of the swims on the list over the last 5 years, so I kinda knew what was out there, plus found a bunch more as well. There are about 50 swim races to date around Japan with probably a few more to be released. Not all dates are confirmed yet as it still early in the season.
The list can be found on a Google docs I’ve created here. Please note that this is a working document and I will try to update it regularly as and when race dates become available.
I’ve compiled and translated all the necessary info for free as a community service. Please do not republish or rip off this list. Instead, please link to my blog. This will ensure good karma!
I’m more than happy to help people out if you’re interested in the open water swimming scene in Japan.
So, last year I didn’t get around to posting up any open water swim reports. But I did do about 5 or so races last year. Here is a belated account of the first open water swim race from last year.
Race date: 21 June, 2015.
The event was the Katsuura swim festa and the race was held at Moriya beach in Chiba. I had actually been to this beach before on a day trip where we SUPed and snorkeled.
Race distance was a short one and I went with a couple of friends. We did the 1.5km swim (which was the longest distance on offer). Water was a cooler side, I think about 21 degrees. It was a bit fresh without a wetsuit.
This was a slow swim for me. I’m not 100% sure, given that it was nearly a year ago, but I think my time was a shameful 45minutes for a 1.5km swim. Can’t be sure that is right though but it was the first race for the year and a cold one at that.
Overall a nice easy race doable from Tokyo. But yes, was a bit a cold and I was a bit out of practice. It’s always good to do a short distance swim to start off the season.
Another year, another Onjuku swim. This one is tradition on the racing calendar with a decent enough following with fellow swimming friends. We had a small contingent of us turn up for this race, back in September last year.
It’s a 3.84km swim at Onjuku beach, one of the better beaches around and a favourite in the summer. Had also swum in the previous year.
It was a nice day for a swim with a good atmosphere:
Water conditions weren’t great. There was lots of seaweed upon entry.
I have also spent quite a fair bit of time at Onjuku, and what was surprising this year was the amount of jellyfish out there. I was a bit worried and thought about pulling out when they had warned us of jellyfish. I thought I’d at least start the race.
Holy moly, I have never seen jellyfish this big. These were really big ugly jellyfish that were the size of soccerballs. It really was quite phenomenal. I, of course, got stung on the hand by a big one, but decided to still swim on. It was a bit of a tough race trying to dodge all the jellyfish. I always find the Onjuku course quite tough. It requires swimming into the ports at each of the beach.
My time was on the slow side and it was slower than last year as well. For 3.84km, my time was 1hr 31min. But ok considering I was stung badly on the wrist and had to actively dodge jellyfish for the rest of the race. Had never seen jellyfish so big and so ugly. They were nomura jellyfish.You should google them. Ugly things. I ended up getting quite a bad reaction from the water here and ended up with a rash. Last year was particularly bad for my swimming rashes. I get really bad allergic reactions.
Another funny thing about this swim was that both The housemate and I featured on the race promo poster! It was an action photo from the previous year’s race that was used for the 2015 event.
I’m the one that is basically stacking it in the water, yes, ever the clutz am I. We were able to score a few of these posters as well.
Memoirs of Aleisha 
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