As a passable but not amazing swimmer I tried to swim not too far from an anchored boat to the beach while carrying my 1.5 year-old, and it was fine for the first 30–50 meters until he freaked out and started flailing his limbs in a way that made it really hard for me to keep his head above water while also keeping us both afloat and moving forward.

Thankfully some other people were also going from boat to shore with us, on a raft, and were close enough that I could shout at them to come pick us up.

I don’t plan on ever trying that again!