“By sea swimmers, for sea swimmers”: More Accessible, Beneficial and Safer Sea Swimming on the Isle of Wight

 by Fiona Middleton and Giulia Champion

We don’t just sea swim, we also try and spread the benefits and to do that, we need to know not just why people ‘do’ sea dip but also why they ‘do not.’ What turned out to be a chance encounter with another swimmer at St Helen’s Duver with the now Dr Fiona Middleton led to funding to do exactly this. We had 1179 responses from people both on and off the island, and succinctly summed up as follows:

Our project, entitled “Coastal (In)Securities: Swimming Safely through Blue Heritage on the Isle of Wight” (2023-2024) and funded the Centre for the South New Things Fund, aimed to explore these benefits and barriers, support Swim the Wight’s work and engage with policy makers, local stakeholders and swimmers to think of solutions to these issues.  https://swimthewight.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/sea-swimmers-policy-brief-blog-.pdf