Damien Enright: 'Denser' water in Irish seas makes swimming easier

Greater salt content might make it easier to do the front crawl here

Damien Enright took this photo at 6am when chanting voices woke me in our hut on a beach in Kerala, south India. The sea was 30C, and a mist hung over it. The fishermen had brought a catch of tiny fish ashore. After their wives had collected them, they set off again to sea.

On the recent afternoons of August sunshine in west Cork, my companion and I walk through cool woods to white, sand beaches where the receding tide has warmed the sea.

I think the sea is better for swimming here than in the Canaries. If one is swimming overarm, as in the 'crawl', one feels greater traction, one moves more steadily and farther with less effort. The water feels 'denser' and gives more leverage to each stroke of the arm through it. My wife suggests that our coastal water might be more saline, and one can well imagine that the greater the number of miniscule salt grains dissolved in a cubic metre of water, the more push the water will it give as it is displaced.