UKC

Wikipedia etc give the 1970s as the birth of DWS, but I've just found a suggestion that as climbers were working well within their capabilities, they might be better able to push their true potential above a warm sea in "Action and other stories" by C.E.Montague published in 1928...

Mike

Looks like the sheep farmers of the Faroe Islands might have been doing it for much longer... not sure water depth is going to be much consolation if they come off up there though...!

https://www.swimmersdaily.com/2013/10/04/behold-faroese-guys-herding-sheep-...

DWS, but not under that name was certainly being practiced in the SW long before 1978. AW Andrews was certainly carrying out serious sea level traverse expeditions in West Cornwall between 1902 and the 1930s. His concept was horizontal navigation between the high and low water marks. Sections of swimming were encountered and for the first time the sea was regarded as an integral part of the experience, rather than as an entity to be avoided. 

The next phase of development occurred in S Devon during the late 60s as members of the Exeter climbing club began to repeat some of the sea level traverses ropeless. 

These weren’t quite DWS as we know it now, but we’re certainly the beginnings of the activity as we know it now. E.C. Pyatt who wrote the first Cornwall guide with Andrews coined the term ‘coasteering’ with reference to the activities of the Exeter club. 

James

DWS traversing was done in Sark in 1914. Teenagers there for a long holiday wrote a guidebook to circumnavigating the island at sea level.