I lived on an island in the North Pacific for years. I worked on the ocean in a floating house and working on aluminum catwalks a few feet above the water all day.

If course I don’t know how to swim. If I don’t have a floater coat on, I’m fucked. If I do, I bob and hope for rescue. But have your lines in place if you’re out in weather because the ocean does not give a fuck. In the North Pacific, your lifespan is the water is measured in "well fuck"s.

I lived near a lake as a child. I could hold my breath for so long. I dove a lot. Never learned to swim.

Swim lessons were expensive and we were poor. Swimming is essentially a pastime of the privileged and we were not. Same with skiing. Same with hockey and football.

Meh.

Yes, my mom made us take swim lessons up through lifeguard lessons, and some of my brothers were competitive (like very competitive) swimmers. I got my kids lessons through the drownproofing, not more.

Kids drown here every year, it’s not important to have paid lessons but very very important to know how to swim.

Yes, I went and learned as an adult, even. I figured the world is 70% water and I really needed to have a chance in case of a surprise encounter with it.

Nope. Couldn’t afford lessons, no one had a pool and I lived in a predominantly black city. I’d like to one day just for safely but I usually just sink like a rock.

Yes, and according to my parents I didn’t learn how to swim, I just instinctively did it, in a similar fashion to how I just started running one day. I don’t remember learning how to swim either it’s just something I’ve always been able to do.

Yeah but not that well. I can yeet my body off the divingboard something goofy, plunge into the water, and make it back to the edge of the pool, and tbh that’s all the swimming ability that I’ve ever needed. At least I know that I can backstroke fairly effortlessly

No, it’s not common for schools to have pools in my city, never travel to a beach, no paying for a club(I don’t think that’s the right english word for it but I can’t think of another one) to go to a pool. The only few times I got to a pool in friends/parent houses was not enough to learn how to swim.

Yes. My dad was an avid swimmer and scuba diver so he wanted to instill that onto us children.

Nearly everywhere in my country mandates lessons, so yeah

For ~25 years I was too lean to float, so it’s a good thing I could swim.

Its harder to remember not swimming to be honest. School swimming lessons, beach holidays, leisure centres, holidays abroad etc. I actually used to swim competetively (for my age bracket in my teenage years) for a local team. Went on to do lots of scuba diving and was a pool lifeguard for a bit

I think not swimming here is pretty rare, I want to say that maybe 10 or 15% of my year were classed as “non-swimmers” and had lessons separately to the rest.

I can swim. I just have a seriously hard time sinking. No joke. I have to work to go down.

My dad watched his brother drown when he was a kid and was unable to save him Ray Charles style and made sure he taught me to swim before dipping out

Yes. In sweden every child has been taught to swim for almost 100 years.

Yes. Am Dutch