Uaimh an tSolais & Uaimh na nÉan film by Sam Krohn with Donal Buckley on the Copper Coast in Ireland.

Men’s Journal published its 15 Best Beaches in the World issue.

Not surprisingly, the beaches almost exclusively consisted of warm, tropical beaches with coral reefs, light-blue or light-green waters. The beaches – located from Hawaii to Florida and sprinkled throughout the Caribbean – are known for sunbathing, strolling along white sands, skin diving, scuba diving, paddling and kayaking.

This selection is all quite good and includes beaches that most open water swimmers would love to train in…at least occasionally and outside the tropical heat of the mid-day sun.

However, what about those beaches where the water is not only cooler, but darker-colored and more rough?, not just calm tropical waters with mellow sea turtles and ankle-slapping waves. Open water swimmers love a challenge…like swimming along the rocky, jagged coastlines of the British Isles or up and down the pounding surf of California or among the larger marine inhabitants of the South African coastlines. If you consider people not on a honeymoon or someone more hardened and aquatically-oriented, where are the Copper Coast, La Jolla, Cape Town, Sydney, Okinawa, or any of the innumerable beaches of the Mediterranean, Brazil or the outlying islands of Europe in this list?

As Men’s Journal writes, the Best Beaches include 15 destinations for every kind of beach lover on every kind of budget:

1. Tobacco Caye, Belize
2. Sea of Abaco, the Bahamas
3. Railay, Thailand
4. Bonaire, Caribbean Netherlands
5. Fernando de Noronha, Brazil
6. Îles de Saintes, Guadeloupe
7. Barbuda, Antigua and Barbuda
8. Saba, Caribbean Netherlands
9. Anegada, Antigua and Barbuda
10. Hanalei, Hawaii
11. El Nido, Philippines
12. Cedar Key, Florida
13. St. George Island, Florida
14. Anna Maria Island, Florida
15. Ruta 10, Uruguay

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