Open Water Swimming Around Bastøy Prison Island

Steven Munatones 01/18/2015 Open Water Swimming No Comment

Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California.

Prison island swims are open water swims where swimmers swim between famed prison islands and the shorelines or mainlands nearby. The prison island swims include swims from Le Château d’If, Fort Boyard, Devil’s Island, Île de Gorée, Robben Island, Alcatraz Island, Spike Island, Rottnest Island, and Sainte-Marguerite and their neighboring mainland communities.

While the islands above are no longer used as a prison, the Bastøy Prison (Norwegian: Bastøy landsfengsel) in Norway is a currently used minimum-security prison on Bastøy Island about 4 km from the nearest mainland.

Located about 75 kilometers (46 miles) south of Oslo, the prison is on a 2.6 square kilometer (1 square mile) island and hosts 115 inmates, some of whom occasionally do open water swimming offshore from their prison island. The lifestyle and expectations of its inmates are quite unusual:

Copyright © 2015 by World Open Water Swimming Association

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Steven Munatones

Southern California native, born 1962, is the creator of the WOWSA Awards, Oceans Seven, Openwaterpedia, Citrus Corps, World Open Water Swimming Association, Daily News of Open Water Swimming, Global Open Water Swimming Conference. He is Chief Executive Officer of KAATSU Global and KAATSU Research Institute. Inductee in the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame (Honor Swimmer, Class of 2001) and Ice Swimming Hall of Fame (Honor Contributor - Media, Class of 2019), recipient of the International Swimming Hall of Fame's Poseidon Award (2016), International Swimming Hall of Fame's Irving Davids-Captain Roger Wheeler Memorial Award (2010), USA Swimming's Glen S. Hummer Award (2007, 2010) and Harvard University's John B. Imrie Award (1984). Served on the FINA Technical Open Water Swimming Committee and as Technical Delegate with the 2011 Special Olympics World Summer Games, and 9-time USA Swimming coaching staff. Note: WOWSA only recommends products or services used or recommended by the community. WOWSA does not receive compensation for links or products mentioned on this site or in blog posts. If it does, it will be indicated clearly on that specific post. See WOWSA's privacy policy for more information.

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