I’m the nearest thing to a Dolphin that you will ever see…
Mum and Dad threw me into an outdoor pool when I was four, the hardest part was untying the rope with brick on the end…Since then you can’t keep me out of a swimming pool.
However, I haven’t swam since I had my pacemaker fitted last December, I just hope it’s waterproof.
Every hotel we stayed in during foreign holidays had to have a pool, and my daughter and me used to search the bottom for coins and jewelry. We found lots of stuff, but we always handed the jewelry in to reception.
I swam a mile while at school, and then I swam a mile in the sea while on holiday in Newquay. More recently, I used to swim 50 or 60 lengths of the pool in Guernsey where we holidayed each year until Covid.
I grew up in Folkestone on the Kent coast, I spent all summer at the beach and had school certificates for swimming 1 mile and used to regularely swim from the beach to the harbour arm.
These days I can float but would tire after swimming the width of a pool and I never go to the beach.
I think most Australian children learn to swim it is just part of the culture. All my kids learned to swim, my eldest son had to get the lifesaving bronze medallion to have surfing as his school sport (same year as my daughter chose snooker as hers 
).
I went to my local baths with the school but always tried to get out of it, like feigning illness. I also nearly drowned once, and could remember seeing the faces of two friends looking down on me as I was under water, looking up! That probably put me off forever.
what about the chips from the pool cafe …a must after a swim
I loved the food and drinks you got after a swim! I was always ravenous and nothing quite hit the spot like vending machine snacks and drinks!
I love to swim and was always a strong swimmer in the sea. Haven’t been for years now, but would love to take it up again.
My friend and I used to go swimming on Saturday mornings from about the age of 8 - we used to have to catch two buses to get to the swimming baths. It used to cost all of our weekly pocket money for the bus fare and entrance fee to the swimming pool but we worked out if we just caught the first bus and walked the rest of the way, we had just enough money left to buy a mug of Bovril and a packet of crisps each at the little cafe next door to the swimming pool.
I used to love that “weak wobbly feeling” I got after swimming, then feeling the warmth of that hot Bovril spreading through me.
If we were lucky, we sometimes were able to scrape enough money together to buy a roll of Rowntree’s fruit pastilles to share on the walk back to the bus stop.
Then in the Senior school, we had to do swimming lessons once a fortnight and learn the basic lifesaving techniques and diving down for a brick, holding your breath under water and all that jazz.
At the time, I wasn’t keen on doing it and I never thought I’d ever need to be able to do all that stuff - but it has stood me in good stead when I started sailing and had to sort out prop wraps or swim down to check the anchor on the seabed.
Fortunately, I’ve never had to test my life-saving abilities in the sea - fingers crossed, I never will.
I much prefer swimming in warm seawater in a sunny climate - but I did used to go for a swim in the local indoor swimming pool at the Council Leisure Centre, after a gym workout in the pre-Covid days -
I haven’t plucked up courage to go back to the gym or the swimming baths after Covid yet. 
Oh eek, that brought back a bad memory. I had my first ever migraine after pigging out at the vending machines after swimming
I was about 12 and had cocacola and those little square Cadburys biscuits you used to get in packets
When the pain hit, and the aura, then the vomiting, I really thought I was dying. I’d never experienced anything like it before
We were taught to swim at School. Our town had good swimming facilities and we got taken to the pool once a week. I can swim fairly well but am a it slow.
I am possibly the worst swimmer ever I have a mixture of strokes all designed to stop me drowning .
I don’t really like the sea unless it’s tropical as warm as a bath but not full of great whites stone fish or box jellies .
This makes swimming rather limited .
My old man was like that, he spent most of the war in India (well, what is now Pakistan) when he returned he never went in the sea again even though we lived by the seaside.
You see, I’m just the opposite, I’m not fond of swimming in warm water, especially not in swimming pools, it reminds me of getting into someone else’s bath water 
Once you get into cold water swimming it’s very addictive. The cold water shock gives you a ginormous adrenalin boost and you come out on a real high, better than drugs!
It’s supposed to help relieve depression and anxiety too
Plus the cold relieves any inflammation in your joints. I never get arthritis twinges when I’m cold water swimming but if I stop for a while, I do
And there’s the joy of warm towels and clothes, a hot water bottle, hot chocolate and cake when you get out! You never appreciate those as much as after an icy swim 
If there was ever a sales pitch for cold water swimming, I think this would be it 
I’m edging closer to the water’s edge as we speak! 
Do it! You won’t regret it 
I suppose I should add cautions about checking with your doc first and swimming in safe places, but what the heck, I’m sure you’ll all survive 
Plus it’s sociable. There are loads of groups you can join that organise to swim together. I’ve made some really close new friends since I started and it’s unusual to make new friends as you get older
I expect it helps that they are all complete nutters like me! 
I will look into it…I do know (vaguely) one cold water swimmer so I shall she if she will let me tag along one day this summer. 
I was much the same, once the sea temperature got above 22°C then its a bit like swimming in soup and not refreshing. in my opinion. On the other hand when my brother visited he went scuba diving on the Barrier Reef and loved the clear, warm water.
UK indoor pools always seemed to be kept at a temperature set for par boiling, far too steamy and uncomfortable.
I’m not a strong swimmer, more a head out of the water breast stroke swimmer
But I am totally confident in the water and can happily float, tread water, just hang around in it. I’ve never understood how people sink
The quote isn’t working for me so I had to c&p maree’s post.
I just wanted to say I’m exactly the same as Maree - head out of water, breast stroke swimmer, I’m also very good at floating & can just lie on the water & let the waves take me anywhere…
Well done, Carol.
I’ve always thought that “floating” should be the first, and most important thing taught when learning to swim.
All we have to do is relax every muscle, but keep breathing, and we float, automatically.
I suspect that it’s panic that gets us drowned.
Just a thought…!
How do you stop yourself from sinking ,when you float on the water?
Your body is about 60% water anyway, so its simply letting the water, carry your weight. Its easy to panic a bit when you can’t feel the ground, but if you have someone with you supporting your back as you begin to lie in the water, you relax more. Then you gradually realise you won’t sink, and so it becomes easier to float. Its a matter of confidence more than anything. You only sink when you are heavier than the surrounding water (wearing clothes, for example…or bricks in your pocket!)