The Ausbil Palm Beach to Shelly Beach 26km ocean swim – also known as the ‘Palm to Shelly’ – is Australia’s longest ocean swim, organised by one of Australia’s top marathon swimmers, Tim Garrett.

The not-for-profit swim is internationally recognised and is one of Australia’s Triple Crown swims. The swim was initially established as a preparation swim for the English Channel and has gone on to become a great opportunity for marathon swimmers to gain experience right here in Australia. Solo swimmers get to test their ‘mettle’ by swimming distance, practice feeding strategies and experience the mental aspects of endurance swimming.

The swim is also perfect for swimmers who want to step up from the 5km and 10km ocean swims and potentially swim more by competing as a team and having a prearranged swim roster between them, where they might each swim 6 or 7km each in a team of four. Teams of two would swim a total of 13km each. Teams set their own changeovers by either time or kms.

In addition to the full 26km distance, there is also an Olympic marathon swim distance of 10km where swimmers set off from Narrabeen, finishing at Shelly Beach.