Guest Blog from Seabirds.
Who are the salty Seabirds? We are Kath and Cath, sea swimmers heading into our 3rd winter of cold water swimming.
We loved the positive impact on our mental and physical health, the sense of community and the ‘play’ of cold water dipping. We wanted to spread the swim love but we didn’t want to be a charity reliant on the vagaries of grants and funding. So we formed Seabirds Ltd a Community Interest Company with online wild swim shop to promote outdoor swimming as a way to improve wellbeing. The aim is that we sell high quality swim stuff and the profits fund our ‘Wellbeing and Water” courses.
Our social swim group – Salty Seabirds‘ is currently at over 1000 members (but thankfully they do not all turn up for a swim at once!)
Safety in the water is our top priority.
Safety while in the water is our top priority. ‘Puffin’, therefore, met two important needs for us – a beautiful ethical product we can sell and promote while also keeping our swimmers safer. We found Puffin on Instagram (and LOVED the logo – another Seabird!). Puffin is another small British company at the beginning of its journey, just like ourselves and, as sea lovers trying to minimise our environmental impact, the Billy Eco with its biodegradable material was a perfect match for us.
Popular Puffin Billy
Puffin Billy Eco15 Drybag Tow Float is now one of our most popular products. Many of our swimmers have bought them and we make quite a sight swimming along the shoreline, fastest at the front, chatterers at the back. Our favourite use for them is more aesthetic really than safety – we put bike lights in them for our moon swims – we light up the surface of the sea – Salty Fabulous!
Love it! I take it each time I swim. I put my keys and phone in it and it also helps kite surfers and SUPs to avoid me. And when I swim at dusk I put a flashing bike light inside it. Disco time! ” Salty Seabird Sally.
This guest blog is written by Seabird Cath
Photo credits Seabirds and Rachel Goddard