Singora Lake Swim

[phuketsub]

The TAT is organizing a distance swimming event called the Singora Lake Swim on the 15th of March. 

 

There are only three days left to register for the event, which will have both 2km and 5km swims. 

 

I came across this last night as I was drinking beer and was initially stunned that anyone would swim in Songkhla Lake. As a lifelong ocean distance swimmer myself I had some immediate concerns about the quality of the water in Songkhla Lake as well as the currents therein.  

 

So I left a message for the organizers and was actually pretty surprised when they answered and asked me to  call them back this morning. 

 

I spoke with race organizer Anusit 'Golf' Sukprasert, who assured me that safety was a primary concern for the organizers and there would be safety kayaks and vessels in position to help any swimmers throughout. Also, every participant would be required to pull along something known as a 'safety buoy' as well. 

 

Asked about the water quality he told me that he had already swum the course on his own. He said he worked for a private organization that had already organized similar events in places such as Phuket and Chumphon. 

 

The even will start at the Red Mill in Songkhla's Old Town area, where there will be related events over the entire weekend including a safety clinic for participants on Saturday morning, the day before the actual swim. 

 

He said that fewer than 100 people had registered for the swims, which have registration fees of just over 1000 baht, which will include t-shirts for the first 300 finishers. 

 

Anyway, the even does appear to be pretty well organized. I am still undecided on whether to take part or not. There is a lot of info available at the facebook site: https://www.facebook.com/singoralakeswim for anyone else who might be interested. Most of the info is in Thai language only, however. 

 

But if you have questions the organizer K. Golf speaks English very well and can be contacted by Messenger via the facebook page.