Port to Pub, live.

Leighton Beach to Rottnest

Port to Pub is an open-water swim from Leighton Beach near Fremantle to Rottnest Island, finishing at the Hotel Rottnest, over 19.7 km or 25 km.

The 2027 race day is Saturday 20 March. Registration opens on 6 October 2026 and closes on 18 February 2027. Swimmers start in waves of about 50, every 10 minutes, from Leighton Beach, and the finish at the Hotel Rottnest closes at 5:00pm.

The direct course is 19.7 km and can be swum solo, as a duo or as a team of three or four swimmers relaying from their own support boat. The 25 km ultramarathon adds a 5 km loop north and back before joining the direct course, and a paddler is compulsory on that loop.

Solo swimmers on both distances need a support boat and a paddler, must be 14 or older and must prove a qualifying swim of 10 km in open water within 4 h 15. Team swimmers can start from age 13. The course is marked by buoys, with a rescue corridor for safety craft, and the organiser publishes the buoy coordinates.

The event was first held in 2016 and now takes up to 1,700 swimmers across the channel. The first recorded swim to Rottnest was in 1956, and the organiser tells that story on its history page.

On Livebib you can follow a swimmer live if they choose to share their own position from the phone they carry, for example in a tow float or on an escort boat. That position comes from the swimmer, not from the organiser's timing, and the official results are published by the organiser.