The annual Padstow to Rock swim has its origins in the early 1970s and since 2011 has been raising funds for Marie Curie which provides care and support to people living with terminal illnesses. While pledges are still coming in and the final total won’t be known until September, this year’s swim is on track to raise over £80,000, bringing the total funds raised for Marie Curie since 2011 to over an incredible £550,000.
Rock Rail became one of the event’s main sponsors this year, with its support enabling the provision of professional life guards to help safeguard swimmers as they crossed the estuary as well as providing all swimmers with swimming caps.
Mark Swindell CEO Rock Rail with lifeguards from the Newquay Watersports Centre
An elated and exhausted Mark Swindell said after his swim, ‘Rock Rail is thrilled to be supporting the Padstow to Rock swim as well as the small Cornish village after which it is named. To see so many swimmers up for the challenge and all those who have come to support the swim in aid of Marie Curie is an inspirational sight.”
The event brings the local communities of Padstow and Rock together in an afternoon of swimming challenge, locally produced refreshments and street entertainment. The success of the swim each year is in no small part down to the meticulous planning and organisation of the Padstow to Rock Swim Committee made up of local Cornish residents and the Marie Curie team, as well as many other volunteers on the day.
Next year’s swim date has just been announced … SATURDAY 18 July 2020. Applications for the ballot will open in the Autumn and more details will be available at this time.
