Main Content
Northern California Open Water
Swimming without boundaries.
IT'S MORE THAN JUST A SWIMNorthern California Open Water
With each sunrise, we find ourselves amongst some of the most beautiful, challenging, and iconic open water swimming venues in the world and truly consider ourselves fortunate that this "Golden State" of ours is also our home.
San Francisco Bay, flanked by a world-class city, two fantastic swimming clubs steeped in tradition for more than 140 years, memorable day swims, and three challenging marathon swims, offers swimmers of all levels many amazing and challenging open water swimming opportunities year-round.
Lake Tahoe, a short 3-hour drive east into the Sierra Nevada mountain range is North America's largest, 2nd deepest, and most amazing alpine lake. Tahoe is nothing short of inspiring and stunningly beautiful. With three of it's own world-class marathon swims, different levels of challenge presents themselves, namely limited buoyancy, altitude, and course length.
In short, open water swimming venues don't get much better than what you'll find in Northern California. Whether you want a simple dip in San Francisco's Aquatic Park, an 'Escape from Alacatraz', a six or eight hour training swim, or the 12-Mile True Width, or 21-Mile Length of Lake Tahoe, we have amazing open water swims for athletes all abilities and look forward to sharing it with you!
Our Goals
San Francisco Bay, flanked by a world-class city, two fantastic swimming clubs steeped in tradition for more than 140 years, memorable day swims, and three challenging marathon swims, offers swimmers of all levels many amazing and challenging open water swimming opportunities year-round.
Lake Tahoe, a short 3-hour drive east into the Sierra Nevada mountain range is North America's largest, 2nd deepest, and most amazing alpine lake. Tahoe is nothing short of inspiring and stunningly beautiful. With three of it's own world-class marathon swims, different levels of challenge presents themselves, namely limited buoyancy, altitude, and course length.
In short, open water swimming venues don't get much better than what you'll find in Northern California. Whether you want a simple dip in San Francisco's Aquatic Park, an 'Escape from Alacatraz', a six or eight hour training swim, or the 12-Mile True Width, or 21-Mile Length of Lake Tahoe, we have amazing open water swims for athletes all abilities and look forward to sharing it with you!
Our Goals
Clarity of Purpose
Quite simply, we strive to implement safety, leadership, professionalism, and transparency to our Open Water Swimming courses, swim attempt observation, and swim ratification while making the sport accessible to athletes of all levels and ability.
WHERE TO SWIM
WHERE TO SWIM
Marathon Swims
SAN FRANCISCO BAY
MARATHON SWIMS
Unlike any other marathon swim venues, our three marathon courses and numerousd day swims provide advanced swimmers some rather unique challenges: Current, tide, weather, visibility, vessel traffic, and water temperature must all be carefully considered to be successful in any of our three, stunning marathon swims. You've been warned...
LAKE TAHOE
MARATHON SWIMS
Completing one of Tahoe's marathon swims is quite an accomplishment. With the lake's popularity increasing, we've raised the bar for those who love swimming the lake as much as we do. We've now created the 'Lake Tahoe Triple Crown award and our sister organization dedicated to Lake Tahoe:
Lake Tahoe Open Water Swimming Association
Simple Ideals
We believe in putting the swimmer first and supporting our amazing sport by promoting Open Water Swimming as a self-less, non-profit organization with leadership provided by some of Open Water Swimming's best...
Swim Ratification
Swim Ratification
Certification & Recognition
By providing un-biased, professional marathon swim observers, all completed swims comply with our Marathon Swimming Rules and Guidelines and demostrate respect of the History and Spirit of Marathon Swimming. Our highest priorities are to observe, document, ratify, and report all marathon swims in a prompt and professional manner, giving the swimmer due recognition for their efforts and accomplishments.
LEADERSHIP
LEADERSHIP
Experience Driven Leadership
A board of nine... Our board of directors are accomplished, long-time members of the open water swimming community and decades of open water swimming experience, numerous successful channel crossings, and seemingly countless marathon swims. With this team's direction, we've been able to establish strong leadership, fair and reasonable guidelines, and world-class experiences for everyone involved in Open Water Swimming in Northern California.
MEET THE TEAM
MEET THE TEAM