Professional marathon swimmers travel the world to compete in a number of open water swimming competitions.

With swimsuits and goggles always in their carry-on bags, and passports filled with visa stamps in different sizes, shapes, and colors, these swimmers fly hundreds of thousands of air miles to participate in open water swims on various continents.

But professionals are more widely defined in the open water swimming world.

Whether swims are in Asia or America, lakes or lochs, East or West, North or South, these individuals are well-traveled professionals who do dozens of swims each year. American retiree Barbara Held and South African Roger Finch are such swimmers. Channel swimming and marathon swimming, competitions and solo swims, they are swimmers constantly on the prowl for new adventures and new swims. From the Cayman Islands to Catalina, from Cape Town to Cork, these individuals are frequent fliers with destinations centered around open water swims.

“Yesterday Barbara and I swam the International Self-Transcendence Marathon-Schwimmen in Lake Zürich, [Switzerland]. The weather was beautiful with our pace of 4 kilometers an hour for the first 8 kilometers. At halfway, we got hit with a storm which passed. Then we got hit by another bit smaller storm again. After that, there were beautiful clear skies again. It was a really great event,” summed up Finch who will soon start packing his bags for another swim. “Just back home one week today and we will be back at the airport to fly to New York for the Ederle swim.”

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