What an incredible swimming experience in Barbados!  If you’re someone that’s on the fence about doing a destination race for open water swimming, it might be time to take the plunge and sign up for one of the amazing tropical races on the Global Swim Series calendar.
This past week I traveled down to Barbados for the Barbados Open Water Festival.  With races now in all corners of the world, we at the Global Swim Series don’t get a chance to make it to all the fantastic races on the schedule, but we were fortunate enough to make it down this year for the Barbados Open Water Festival… and it was incredible!  In four short years the Barbados Open Water Festival has turned into a major event on the open water swim circuit and now having experienced it, it is easy to see why!
Upon getting to Barbados, we took part in one of the four “guided swims” that take place on the four days prior to the main event. The guided swims are just very pleasant swims on four of the other beaches in Barbados. They aren’t timed and aren’t races, just a chance to have a nice leisurely swim in warm (hot?!) crystal clear waters with over 100 other like minded swimmers. I wanted to see some of the large sea turtles that everyone claimed were around, as I was really looking forward to that… but no luck. But I did meet a ton of people during the swim and then after when we all went to the local “fish fry” and street festival for dinner.
The next day was the 1.5k race, which is the largest race at BOWF.  This year will go down as “the rainy year”!  On Saturday it poured. Torrentially.  The streets flooded.  The beaches flooded.  Everyone was soaked.  As a race director myself, I know that no matter where you are hosting a race, bad weather is always a major concern.  But the race went off without a hitch and nobody was bothered… we were all getting wet anyway!
I had to laugh when I was talking with one of the many kids from the local open water swim team, The Saltwater Swimmers, that were in the race.  She said this was the most rain they had gotten all year and the coldest day! We’re from Canada and even standing around soaking wet it was fine, probably about 77F/25C.  Although it was nice to go into the water to warm up a couple of times.  The water was about 85F/30C!
As for the race, it was awesome.  A single 1.5k loop along the shore with 350 of your closest friends!  And this time I did see a turtle!
The next day was the 5k and 10k races.  3×1 mile loops and 6×1 mile loops of the same course.  This was the first year of the 10k and there were an impressive 33 people in it.  The 5k had an even more impressive 130 swimmers!  It seems like if you were going to make the trip to Barbados you want to get in as much swimming as you could, or at least that was my rational so I did the 10k.
As a great representative race for the Global Swim Series, there were people from all over the world!  I believe I heard from as far away as Australia and 14 other countries.  I heard that in one of the races, I think the 5k, 80% were international swimmers!
There were swimmers of all types and abilities.  From Olympian and former World Record holder, Alex Meyer and plenty of other fast swimmers, to my buddy Cam who completed his first 10k and getting in 30 seconds ahead of the 4 hour cut off time!
I even found someone my speed to race (Sue Ingram from Austin, Texas as I learned later) we raced the final 2 laps taking turns drafting off each other and then racing in the final half mile side by side and “sprinting” up the beach to the finish.  I knew it was going to be close so I didn’t even turn to see where she was and I didn’t let up until I was a step away from the finish line timing mat… which is when I saw her leg step across in front of me!  She beat me by a tenth of a second!  What a great finish to a great race!  Oh, and I did get to see more turtles in the 10k… about a dozen throughout the race.  Not much better scenery than that on a 10k swim!
On the final day of our trip we went for another swim.  One of the highlights for me was that an old swimming buddy from when we were little kids, and who I hadn’t seen in many years, was going back down for his 3rd time to the BOWF.  He had brought his whole family down and they are all great swimmers (although I was able to keep some historical pride and edge him out in the 1.5k! haha).  In fact his 2 sons both did their first 10k race and the younger one (15) won the 10k outright!
So after all the racing we all decided to go out for a fun swim in the sunken ships they have in the harbour.  They are shallow enough that you can swim right down to them.  We also ended up getting right up close to several sea turtles and can’t wait to see how the pictures my buddy took turned out (he’s there for another 2 weeks).
While we didn’t take part this year, our good friends at the “Freestyle Experience” hosted their swim camp in conjuction with the festival the week prior and by all accounts it was a huge hit, if a little bit challenging!  The camp was coached by 2 former Olympic swimmers.
So there is my first hand experience of what the Barbados Open Water Festival was like.  And if you are an avid swimmer like me and most people on this site… you might seriously want to be planning on doing this race next year!

Hours of heavy rainfall did not dampen the spirits of more than 425 swimmers who swam in the first day of the 5th Barbados Open Water Festival (BOWF) in Carlisle Bay this past weekend. Several visiting swimmers, determined to make the scheduled start walked to the venue when flooded roads halted public transport.  The 1.5K race was delayed for just 25 minutes to allow for arrival of all swimmers and the medical team before Alex Meyer and Eney Jones of the USA stormed home to claim the top spots.
The following day the sun broke through and Meyer and Jones repeated in the 5K.  The recently retired US elite swimmer Meyer and former pro-triathlete Jones have both won the 5K in previous years at the event. Jones posted on social media after the event: “It is an incredible event. This little tiny island in the middle of the sea means so very much to me.”
The first 10K ever hosted at the Barbados Open Water Festival will be remembered as the one in which 15 year old Taylor Parker of Saskatchewan, Canada, recorded an epic overall win.  The slender Parker, on his third visit to the Festival with his family, swam to a fifth place finish in the 1.5K race the day before. Parker was the youngest competitor in a field of 28 competitors and swimming in his first ever 10K race. The Ladies 10K was convincingly won by retired professional triathlete Alison Hayden of the USA.  Hayden recently won the 9.2 mile “Swim for the Alligator Light” race (September 17) in the Florida Keys.
Seasoned veteran Eney Jones amazed all present with her flawless performances especially in the 1.5K when up against two 23 year old Olympians: Lani Cabrera of Barbados and Tera Van Beilen of Canada. Cabrera was the second lady home in the 1.5K. Van Beilen, visiting Barbados with swim group “Freestyle Experience” did make the podium on the second day in the 10K relay race when her three-member team was victorious.  Paralympian Benjamin Proctor of the UK who has previously medalled at the 2009 European Championships and 2012 Olympics (competing in the S14 classification) was impressive in his BOWF debut but unable to match the skill of Olympian and former US National champion Alex Meyer.  Proctor was second to Meyer in both the 1.5K and 5K races.
Local swimmers performed creditably with junior Nkosi Dunwoody claiming third in the 1.5K and 5K, Rebecca Lashley taking second in the 5K and junior Ashley Weekes claiming a close third behind Cabrera in the 1.5K . In the 10K marathon swim Andrew Kirby, President of the Barbados Amateur Swimming Association and local open water swimming enthusiast, was the second placed male overall.  The coveted Jonathan Morgan Memorial Trophy, awarded to the highest placed local masters swimmer in the 5K, was won by Rick Peters who was ninth overall.Swimmers from 12 countries competed in the 1.5K on Nov 5 and the 5K and 10K races on Sunday Nov 6.  They came from as far away as Australia and from countries that hadn’t previously been represented like Sweden and Israel. Hundreds of swimmers arrived several days ahead of the races to take part in guided practice swims at the venue and other open water swim locations around the island. The 2017 Barbados Open Water Festival is scheduled for November 1-5 (races Nov 4-5), 2017.  ​https://swimswam.com/usa-swimmer-records-double-15-year-old-wins-10k-barbados/

Barbados enjoys more than 3000 hours of sunshine each year – an average of about eight hours per day – but the weather gods decided to line up something else for the first day of this year’s Barbados Open Water Swimming Festival, which ran from 2 to 6 November.
In the hours before the start of the first event, the 1.5km swim, the rain fell so heavily that roads flooded and public transport was halted. Instead, participants determined not to miss start made their way on foot. In the end, the start was delayed by 25 minutes to give everyone a chance to get there.
In the men’s race, Alex Meyer, who represented the US in marathon swimming at the London Olympics, was the first back in 18:08. He was closely followed by Paralympian Benjamin Proctor of the UK who competed in 2012 Games in the S14 classification. Eney Jones, a former professional triathlete and multiple masters swimming record holder, won the women’s race in 19:32.
As a measure of how competitive this swim was, the top 15 competitors all finished in under 20 minutes – and there wasn’t a wetsuit in sight to assist in faster times. However, while the racing at the front end might have been sharp, over 250 people took part with plenty taking more than 40 minutes. In addition, times and finish positions were not recorded for those taking part in the “Just for Fun” category.
The sun returned on day two in time for the 5k swim, which saw repeat wins for both Meyer and Jones (who have also both won this event in previous years). Jones later posted on social media: “It is an incredible event. This little tiny island in the middle of the sea means so very much to me.”
This year was the first time in the five years of its history that the event has featured a 10k race. This was won by 15-year-old Taylor Parker of Canada, who had placed fifth the day before in the 1.5k race. He was the youngest competitor in the field and this was his first 10k swim. Ex-professional triathlete Alison Hayden of the USA was the first woman home.
Since its inception, the Barbados Open Water Festival has expanded and now also offers guided practice open water swims in advance of the races at various locations around the island. Swimmers from more than 12 countries and as far away as Australia, Israel and Sweden took part. The 2017 Festival has already been scheduled to run from 1 to 5 November, with races taking place on the final two days.