We tried bog snorkelling in Wales – this is what happened

From Irish Examiner
Forget the Great Barrier Reef. Forget the Caribbean. Forget the Maldives. Forget serene turquoise waters teeming with fish. If you want to go snorkelling, the hardcore go up a hill in Wales.

We tried bog snorkelling in Wales – this is what happened
This is bog snorkelling.

The World Bog Snorkelling Championship will celebrate its 30th birthday this year when it is held on August 30. So we went along to get a sneak preview of what it’s all about. David Wilcock prepares for bog snorkelling.(Chris Pritchard/PA) David Wilcock bog snorkelling.(Chris Pritchard/PA)

This is the deal: a 60-yard (54m) trench cut into the peaty bog outside Llanwrtyd Wells, the UK’s smallest town, in the Cambrian Mountains of mid-Wales. David Wilcock bog snorkelling.(Chris Pritchard/PA)

It’s around three or four feet of brown, murky water with lots of “stuff” floating in it. Just don’t ask what the stuff is. There are a lot of sheep nearby, that’s all we’re saying. There were also some tadpoles. The target.(David Wilcock/PA)

You snorkel through the brown murk up to the white post in the distance and then come back, all against the clock. And it’s gruelling. A bog snorkeller gasping for air.(David Wilcock/PA) A bog snorkeller.(David Wilcock/PA)
The rules are clear:

:: You can wear flippers but you can’t use a recognised swimming stroke other than doggy paddle.

:: You must keep your head under the water most of the time, where the visibility is measured in centimetres, though you can look up occasionally to try to stop this happening… A bog snorkeller crashes into the side.

So what’s it like? Well you wear a wetsuit so the water is not too cold, especially in May. The main problem was breathing. Snorkels are designed for a gentle pootle in the sea, thundering up the bog leaves you gasping for more air than the tube can provide. Panic sets in, and you have to fight the urge to surface like a submarine and gasp for oxygen. David Wilcock.(David Wilcock/PA)

Our reporter David Wilcock finished two lengths in a respectable two minutes and 13 seconds. The world record holder, however, is Kirsty Johnson from Lightwater in Surrey. The 33-year-old, whose mother must have been a dolphin, set a time of one minute 22 seconds last year.

Bog snorkelling is one of the events which form the World Alternative Games, held in Llanwrtyd Wells every two years, with the next games in 2016.

For more on this story go to: http://www.irishexaminer.com/examviral/real-life/we-tried-bog-snorkelling-in-wales–this-is-what-happened-332522.html