Laura Quilter is a Masters and Ice Swimming world record holder, a competitive sprint swimmer, and runs a strength and swim coaching business called Aura Move.

Laura retired from competitive swimming (butterfly and freestyle) in 2016, in her mid-20s. Eight years later she discovered that she was faster than ever and qualified for her first World Aquatics Championships. Unusually for a competitive swimmer, she coaches herself. Laura's how-to videos on Instagram have inspired a following of 70K and led to her offering virtual and in-person strength and swim coaching via Aura Move.

In this episode we talk about returning to competitive swimming in her 30s, her strength training, her experiences at the NZ Ice Swimming Champs (breaking four world records in 2024), coaching her dad in his first competitive swim event, and approaching swimming with a spirit of curiosity, adventure, and fun.

Visit Laura's Aura Move website

Follow Laura @Auramovenz on Instagram

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The Z Manu World Champs is now in its third year and is making a splash as a fun water sports event that brings people together. A 'manu' is a v-shaped dive bomb. It has Māori / Pasifika origins and can be performed off a bridge, wharf, diving board, jetty – even off a horse – into any body of deep water, as long as it's done safely.

There are qualifying events being held around Aotearoa NZ (and on the Gold Coast) over the summer and the Grand Finals will be held in Auckland in March.

Manu World Champs founder Scott Rice came on the podcast to discuss what inspired him to create this event, how they judge the best manu (splash height is important but there's an art to a good manu), and how it celebrates people, communities, and the water.

Scott is a former competitive swimmer who also founded the NZ Ocean Swim Series and now runs Ocean Swim Fiji, a 'swimcation' offering three swims across five days (and zero worries).

Visit the Z Manu World Champs website

Follow the Manu World Champs on Instagram

Check out Ocean Swim Fiji

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It's a Swim Chats festive episode!

The seaside town of Felixstowe in the UK hosts an annual Christmas Day Dip to raise funds for St Elizabeth Hospice. 2025 is the event's 21st year and last Christmas there were 650 intrepid souls who made a winter's dash into the chilly North Sea, dressed in all sorts of festive outfits.

The hospice's Events and Challenges manager, James Fox-Golding, came on Swim Chats to talk about the joy of the event, how it's grown over the past 20 years, and its significance as a fundraiser for a service that provides medical attention and support to people with life-limiting illnesses.

• ​Learn more about the Felixstowe Christmas Day Dip
• ​Make a donation to St Elizabeth Hospice
• ​Watch That Christmas, a 2024 animated film that closes (no spoilers involved) with a heartwarming community swim! It's on Netflix.

Leave a comment below the episode to share your own Christmas swim/dip/plunge traditions. Here in Wellington, I enjoy a wharf jump with friends on Christmas morning. We also have the 'Twelve Bays of Christmas' event organised by Kate Camp, who has her own episode.

Photo courtesy of St Elizabeth Hospice

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It's our final swim history episode of 2025! Featuring special guest, ultramarathon swimmer John Hancock who is back for his third episode to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Captain Matthew Webb's English Channel crossing. We talk about:

• Captain Webb's astonishing Channel swim in 1875, a feat that hadn't been achieved before and was not repeated by anyone else for more than 30 years.
• The life story of the Captain – his heroism, his daring escapades, and his tragic final swim.
• The English Channel's swimming legacy, with facts and figures (mostly cobbled together from Wikipedia and the LongSwims database) and high achievers – including Gertrude Ederle, the first woman to swim the Channel in 1926, and Sarah Thomas, who achieved a quadruple crossing in 2019.
• How the English Channel compares with the Cook Strait (John has swum the Strait and was on the support boat for Wellington swimmer Rebecca Hollingsworth when she swam the Channel in 2024).
• Wellington coach Phil Rush's unbeaten records for his double and triple crossings of the Channel in 1987 (Phil also has his own Swim Chats episode).
• Captain Paul Boyton, who in 1875 achieved the first 'assisted' crossing of the Channel wearing an inflatable rubber suit of his own design, just a few months before Captain Webb's 'unassisted' swim.

Photo: Captain Matthew Webb in the 1870s.

A useful source and recommended further reading: Splash! 10,000 Years of Swimming by Howard Means (Allen & Unwin, 2020)

Shona will be speaking at theWild Swimming in Aotearoa: Author Panel event at Newtown Library on November 27.

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If you're an ocean swimmer, you've probably encountered jellyfish at some stage. Depending on the species these watery, tentacled, heartless/ brainless/spineless (literally) invertebrates can dish out a painful sting!

Earth Sciences NZ (formerly NIWA) marine scientist Dennis Gordon came on the podcast to answer my questions. In this episode, we talk about:

• What is the definition of a jellyfish?
• What are their life stages?
• How do they move around?
• How do they still sting people even after they've washed up on the beach?
• Common species such as moon jellyfish and lion's manes, bluebottles / Portuguese Man O'Wars and box jellyfish – how dangerous are they?
• What's the best way to treat a painful sting?
• What are salps and sea lice?

Here's a link to the 'Jiggling Jellyfish' PDF Dennis mentions, with lots of colour photos to learn more and identify the jellyfish we might see in NZ waters.

Have a look at some of Ernst Haeckel's beautiful illustrations from his Art Forms in Nature book (Kunstformen der Natur, 1904).

If you spot anything you can't identify on the beach, in rock pools or in the water, you can send a photo to Earth Sciences NZ and an expert can help to solve the mystery (this is a free service and they welcome new photos).

Lion's mane jellyfish (Cyanea rosea) photo by Richard Robertson and supplied by Earth Sciences NZ. This species is the common New Zealand lion's mane (also found in SE Australia). The photo shows the characteristic warty appearance of the top of the bell.

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Liana Smith was thriving as a competitive swimmer when chronic back pain led to a diagnosis of a spinal fracture. She underwent a spinal fusion at the age of 17. At the time, it felt to Liana as if her swimming career was over – she was on full bedrest and had a long recovery, both physically and mentally. She spent the next seven years out of the water.

Liana was working as a high-country shepherd in Queenstown when she went for a swim with the Southern Lakes Swim Club (SLSC). Realising she could still swim well and enjoyed it – and was fast in the open water – Liana set her sights on NZ's Triple Crown, with the support of swim legend Philip Rush (who has his own Swim Chats episode).

Liana became the eighth person to complete the Triple Crown, is the Crown's fastest female swimmer, and also holds the world record for the fastest-ever Foveaux Strait swim (6h19m). Earlier this year she became the first person to swim without a wetsuit from Kinloch to Queenstown (46km) in the 'fresh' water of Lake Wakatipu. Amazingly, that epic distance wasn't the planned total (she was aiming for a Kingston finish but was thwarted by strong winds) so next summer Liana will tackle the 'full' 74km distance of Lake Wakatipu!

For Liana's ultramarathon swims she raises funds for I Am Hope, a charity that supports young people with their mental health.

• Follow Liana's Instagram page, Swim for Something
• Learn more about I Am Hope
• Learn more about the Southern Lakes Swim Club
• Read about Liana's dip in the remote Lake Unknown (Stuff news article)

The photo of Liane was taken by Wayne Martin.

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I watched JAWS as a kid and was subsequently scared to go in the water, just as the movie's tagline promised. Now I swim in the sea regularly and I know a bit more about sharks, but I wanted to talk to an expert.

Clinton Duffy grew up with a fascination of sharks after encountering a bronze whaler, and he has spent much of his life and career in the pursuit of knowledge about these sharp-toothed ocean predators (as well as other marine creatures, such as rays). He worked in marine science at DOC and is now a Curator of Marine Biology at Auckland Museum – and there's a very cool exhibition about sharks opening in December.

In this episode, we talk about:

• What to do (and not do) if you're swimming and meet a shark

• Where (and when) not to swim if you're actively trying to avoid sharks
• The many and varied species of sharks that live in NZ waters (most of them prefer deep water)
• The likelihood of being attacked by a shark (hint: it's not high)
• How shark populations have declined worldwide due to overfishing and habitat destruction
• Clinton's career as a marine scientist, including tagging and studying great whites (he explains how to tag a shark; definitely a job for the professionals)
• Clinton's favourite shark: it can walk!
• The fascinating sharks of the deep sea (here's a link to the Deep-Sea Podcast)
• How to respect stingrays in the shallows when entering and exiting the water, and how Clinton dealt with a stingray that sat on his head while he was diving.

The photo of Clinton holding a tagged school shark was taken by Brit Finucci, Earth Sciences NZ, in Dusky Sound this year. Clinton was assisting Dr Alice Rogers, Victoria University of Wellington, and Dr Finucci tagging broadnose sevengill sharks and school sharks.

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I had the pleasure of interviewing my swim coach Barbara (Barb) Watson, who has dedicated over 60 years to coaching in Wellington. It was recorded while we sat in her car at Freyberg Beach early on a Wednesday morning, watching the sunrise and drinking coffee.

In this episode you'll hear some of Barb's life story and much of it is an oral history of swimming in Wellington, from the early 1950s to today.

Barb was always drawn to the water and it ran in the family because her dad, Frank, was an open water swimming champion in the 1920s before he took on coaching and pool management. He worked at many Wellington pools including Karori Pool, Thordon Pool, Riddiford Baths in the Hutt, and Naenae Pool. He also swam in the open-air (and gender-segregated) Te Aro Baths before it was replaced by Freyberg Pool in 1963.

Barb was a strong freestyle and butterfly swimmer. She competed in national championships and won the prestigious Annette Kellerman Cup for open water swimming. She trained mainly at Naenae Pool, where her father was the manager, under the coach John Hamilton. She started coaching herself at the age of just 12 and has been coaching more or less ever since. As a solo mum in the 1970s she worked hard to make ends meet and today, as a great-grandmother, she still has a houseful of young people.

Barb's coaching philosophy is about enjoyment, accessibility, and community – she teaches us, and also values what we give to her. She has dedicated decades to teaching and mentoring swimmers of all ages and levels, from newcomers scared of the water to ultramarathoners. She coaches at Kilbirnie (WRAC), Cannons Creek, and Te Ngaengae pools, and at Freyberg Beach on Wednesday and Sunday mornings where she gives us a pep talk, looks after our valuables, and provides jet plane lollies after we get out.

Barb has been recognised for her services to the community but she doesn't like a fuss, so this is a rare interview. Our full conversation lasted for three hours and included people coming and going to have a swim and collect their gear, so this is the abridged version of 1h15. Grab a cuppa and enjoy.

Thanks Barb, for all that you do for us! <3

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Image: Barb handing out jet planes to swimmers at Freyberg Beach. Artwork by Fifi Colston to commemorate Barb's 75th birthday in 2023.

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