Relatively new to the sport of open water swimming and totally hooked from the start we found ourselves seeking out new experiences and began to notice a pattern: the majority of available open water swimming events are focused on crossing from one point on land to another (i.e. crossing the English channel).

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After doing a few of these crossings and staring into the deep blue abyss for hours, it dawned on us that the most interesting part of the experience happened in the shallow waters, at the beginning and end of the race. Shallow waters are where most marine life is visible to us swimmers. Not seeing anything that suited our needs, we decided to create our own routes.

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The Coastal Explorers began with two friends, Sebastian and Frank who fell in love with Coastal Exploration in the waters around La Paz, Baja California Sur.

We came up with four core principles derived from our past experiences that define our Coastal Explorer philosophy.

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1. Experience-driven: even with goals involved, our focus would be on enjoying the journey. Planning ambitious swims, training together for them, tricky logistics problem solving, and building a community in the process. Achieving would be the cherry on top.
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3. Coasting: in two senses. First, the majority of marine life that we are excited to see while swimming lives in the shallow areas along the coastline. Second, it's about the pace and rhythm -moving at a speed where we can notice and then stop and smell the rose coral mid-swim is what this is really about. Its kind of like going on a hike underwater, the point is the experience not speed and in many cases the slower you go the more you see and that includes all sorts of things from vibrant fish to friendly sea turtles.
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5. Doing it together: swimming can be a solitary sport. Sharing the journey enhances the experience in all facets of the project from meeting to discuss our next adventures to training sessions to swimming these epic routes - doing it together is really what it’s all about.
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7. Swimming underexplored routes: there are plenty of extremely promising routes right here in Baja California Sur to keep us busy exploring for quite some time. Rather than take on the Triple Crown or The Oceans Seven, we choose to focus our energy on discovering what our own backyard has to offer. We hope through the documentation of our journeys we can inspire others to do the same.

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It varies, and that’s something that we love about it. There are options for all levels of swimmers. We have swam routes around islands that are less than 1km but have done bigger ones as well. For instance, our upcoming Espíritu Santo Island swim (~45km) is longer than many of the longest documented crossings, like the English Channel.

There is literally something for everyone, and what’s important for us is that we enjoy the journey and finish with a smile.

This is an inclusive project and open to anyone who wants to join our community. We are here to support your Coastal Exploration swim whether it be by sharing knowledge, cheering you on or creating opportunities to share time in the water together. Feel free to drop us a line here if you are interested in connecting with us.