Another Level Performance Palm to Shelly 26km swim

The Another Level Performance Palm to Shelly 26km swim is an open water marathon swimming event held along the open sea of Sydney, New South Wales. Covering a course between 24 and 26 kilometres down to the protected cove of Shelly Beach, the crossing forms an official leg of the Australian Triple Crown of Ultra-Marathon Swimming. For those seeking a shorter test along the same ocean stretch, a 10-kilometre course launches mid-way down the coastline, starting one to three kilometres offshore opposite Narrabeen Surf Life Saving Club. Swimmers on both routes stroke through open ocean waters that typically hover between 20 and 22°C (68-72 °F), flanked continuously by the swell and the rhythmic company of an escort vessel.

Race regulations mandate that every competitor must have a dedicated support boat positioned within ten metres at all times to navigate safely. Taking on these distances requires proven stamina and strict ocean preparation. Entrants in the 24-kilometre marathon must have completed a qualifying swim of at least 19.5 kilometres, while 10-kilometre participants need an official 10-kilometre open-water finish within the preceding twelve months. Swimmers face strict cut-offs of ten hours for the full crossing and four hours for the 10-kilometre event, and while wetsuits are permitted for safety and warmth, athletes wearing them remain ineligible for podium prizes.

Long Reef and Turimetta: exposed headlands and Triassic sandstone

At Turimetta Headland, ancient perched sand dunes support endangered Themeda grassland communities right at the cliff edge. Tucked below these bluffs lies the 350-metre strip of Turimetta Beach, an exposed stretch notorious for powerful rip currents that develop near breaking waves and funnel water rapidly offshore. Rather than battling the pull of a rip directly, swimmers stay calm and track parallel to the shoreline, safely clearing the narrow outward flow. Continuing down the coast, swimmers bypass Long Reef, a prominent headland anchored by a tombolo and surrounded by an extensive wave-cut platform of Bulgo sandstone. The ancient stone here has deep roots in natural history: in 1986, paleontologists discovered the fossilized jaw of Bulgosuchus gargantua, a giant Triassic amphibian preserved within the bedrock.

Beneath the surface, the waters around the reef conceal dramatic underwater topography, including a 200-metre submarine shelf known as 'the wall' and an open cave formation named 'the cathedral'. Deeper down at 48 metres lies the historic wreck of the coastal steamer SS Myola, which foundered in 1919 and was relocated decades later.

The deep offshore seabed and the M24 submarine site

Roughly ten kilometres out from the race corridor, the open Pacific seabed conceals a dramatic relic from wartime history. In 1942, during the raid on Sydney Harbour, the Japanese midget submarine M24 became the only vessel of its flotilla to successfully launch its torpedoes and slip back out into the open sea. The vessel vanished beneath the waves and rested forgotten at a depth of 55 metres for over sixty years. It was finally pinpointed in November 2006 by a team of recreational divers exploring the outer coastal depths. Today, the historic submarine remains undisturbed on the seafloor, strictly protected by a 500-metre exclusion zone that keeps modern traffic safely away from the submerged war grave.

Cabbage Tree Bay Aquatic Reserve: the marine sanctuary at Shelly Beach

The sanctuary features vibrant kelp forests, seagrass beds, and rocky reefs teeming with more than 160 documented fish species and over 50 varieties of invertebrates. In a surprising ecological twist, the bay even shelters an isolated colony of Pocillopora aliciae hard corals, a species normally associated with tropical waters further north. The surrounding rocky shores around Manly also support the only mainland breeding colony of little penguins in all of New South Wales. The swim culminates on the sandy crescent of Shelly Beach, a 100-metre reflective shoreline nestled inside the bay. Facing west and sheltered from heavy ocean swell by an outer protective reef, the cove offers glassy water where divers frequently visit an old motorbike lying on the seabed at a depth of eight metres.

Manly oceanfront: the coastal oceanway, Fairy Bower, and North Head

Rising immediately behind the bay are the commanding 115-metre sandstone cliffs of North Head, the towering plateau that guards the northern entrance to Port Jackson. Swimmers stepping onto dry sand can trace the pedestrian oceanway that winds from Shelly Beach back toward the heart of Manly. Along this path near Fairy Bower, ancient Aboriginal shell middens preserved near the shore provide lasting archaeological evidence. The oceanway opens out onto the broad, open sweep of Manly Beach, segmented into Queenscliff, North Steyne, and South Steyne. The shoreline is watched over by the storied Manly Life Saving Club and dedicated seasonal lifeguards, while just behind the promenade, the bustling pedestrian avenue of The Corso connects the open Pacific surf directly to the calm harbour foreshore. It makes a fitting landfall after completing one of Australia's premier ultra-distance ocean swims.