Heart rate monitors and GPS toys have gone from geeky gadgets to must haves on the outdoor treks, this year in the ocean I just had to swim with my Garmin 301 Forerunner.

Not a small order as it’s not even waterproof, our friends at Garmin have come out with a nifty orange 310x this year that they claim you can swim with, but that means timing, not tracking. GPS is all about line of site to the 27 satellites (3 spares) in the great wide open, if your watch is under the water, it will not create a breadcrumb on your outing, leaving you with a sparse trail at best.

A top level “how it works” for GPS – satellites orbit and transmit, your gadget receives and tracks, this happens through the air, not the water so it’s important for your receiver to be out of the water and facing upward in order to receive locations from at least three satellites at once.

It took a couple of tries trying to figure out where to put the Garmin to get a reading, the recipe that worked was a clear series 1000 Otterbox tied to the back of my goggles with an extra bungee goggle strap.

By tying the device to the back of the goggles in an otterbox, it was always facing upright and out of the water; I would turn it on before we got in and turn it off after the swim.  Otterboxes float and are water tight, I just wanted to know how straight we were swimming, how far the course was, our pace, etc., which could all be studied on the pc later, immediate readouts would have to be taken by a friend or by removing the goggles.

I hope your GPS gets to go swimming with you soon.