Snorkeling in the Slime of a Welsh Bog

The British have a tradition of doing weird things. Every year in August, in Llanwrtydd Wells, crazy guys and gals don masks and snorkels and compete to see who can swim the fastest through two lengths of a 180-foot stretch of peat bog with a yard-long water-filled trench cut into it.

The water is dark and smelly, and the competitors admit to being completely bonkers as they ignore the unknown slippery creatures that brush along their bodies.

Wales has some wonderfully picturesque lakes with gin-clear water and a coastline that's a favorite with dive clubs, so why get in a peat bog? Englishman Neil Rutter, 5-times world bog snorkeling champion, says it's because it's mad. Maybe there's no coincidence Rutter rhymes with nutter, and we're sure that the kids he teaches during his full-time job as an art teacher would agree.

Bog snorkeling can be a real trudge through the sludge, especially as conventional swimming strokes like breaststroke are prohibited. It brings a new meaning to doing the crawl. Instead, competitors must rely on their legs and snorkeling fins to propel them.

This year there had been plenty of rain so the bog was favorably diluted, but the water was still black and stank to high heaven. The massive event, made possible through businesses sponsoring and more than 200 volunteers, coincides with other bog-related contests, like stone skipping and the bogathlon, which includes the bog snorkel followed by a two-mile cross-country cycle and a one-mile run.

As our old much-missed friend Stan Waterman would have said, "Good for you, Neil Rutter."