Travesía Club Deportivo Bilbao

The waters off Playa de Górliz, where the 83rd edition of the Travesía Club Deportivo Bilbao takes place on June 6th, are shaped by the persistent 'sirimiri'. This fine, omnipresent drizzle often defines the local atmosphere, cooling the air and settling over the surface as you push towards the turn buoys. In early June, the water temperature remains temperate, requiring swimmers to manage their pacing against the currents that ebb and flow around the Plentzia Marine Station. The swim itself is a test of navigation, moving from the shoreline toward the Muriola Beach area and out to the open-water buoys before returning to the Astondo Pier.

A landscape in recovery

As you sight the coastline, you are swimming through waters that have undergone a profound transformation. The Nervión estuary, which feeds this coastal stretch, was once so heavily industrialised that it reached a state of near-total anoxia, effectively silencing most aquatic life. Decades of environmental remediation have reversed this decline, and today the ecosystem supports a returning population of sole, various algae, and crab species that you might glimpse beneath you in the clearer patches. This recovery is a defining, if quiet, element of the route.

Echoes of history

While you focus on your stroke, the surrounding topography tells a much older story. The hills rising from the coast—Mount Artxanda and Mount Avril—contain archaeological remains that have been documented for over 6,000 years. These heights form the natural basin, or 'botxo', that cradles the urban centre. The route itself reflects the human effort to master this geography; just as the Deusto Canal was carved between 1950 and 1968 to bypass the river’s natural bends, the race course requires precision to navigate the turns effectively. If you are looking to keep your endurance sharp throughout the summer, the XI Travesía La Sardina follows on July 11th, offering a distinct coastal challenge further down the coast. The event remains a central tradition for the local 'chimbos', a nickname for Bilbaínos that draws from the historical hunting of small birds in these very hills, linking the swimmers of today to the deep-rooted cultural heritage of the region.

A nomadic race

It was born as the Travesía del Abra on 16 September 1934, with 230 swimmers, stopped for the civil war and resumed in 1940. Since then it has followed swimmable water wherever it went: to Lekeitio in 1975 when the Abra grew too polluted, to Ereaga beach in 2002, to Plentzia in 2006, into the ría past the Guggenheim in 2011, and today to the bay of Gorliz — always under the same club and the same name.