I've found two great swim training spots on West Island - Yacht Club and Scout Park.
As both these spots in the lagoon are shallow, high tide is the only good swim time. Allow an hour either side of high tide, keep in mind the rule of 12ths, and always swim with someone - I'll be up for a swim most times if you're ever looking for a swim buddy!
The channel between West Island and Pulu Maraya has a constant rip so you can swim in place for as long as you like and when you get tired it's shallow enough to stand up and walk the couple of metres to shore. I had trouble keeping ground last time so I did a series of 45-60 second efforts with walk back to the start for recovery.
Yacht Club has 2 bouys just out front which look to be about 75m apart. Swim northwards to warm up and then swim back to get a bit of resistance with the current.
Scout Park is about 5km from the settlement and Yacht Club another 500m or so after that.
THE DUATHLON is a warm up bicycle ride to your chosen swim spot, swim for as long as you like, ride home as fast as you can. At the moment I have one of the infamous tip bikes on loan.
THE TRIATHLON adds a run after your fast ride home.
Or after your swim, run to Kite Beach and back and have a nice long relaxed cool down bike ride home.
The Lagoon swim is only 10 months away so start working on your base fitness!
