A popular festive sea swim has been cancelled due to coronavirus.

St Davids Penknife Club has cancelled its popular New Year’s Day swim as the Omicron variant of coronavirus continues to take hold.

It was planned that the 19th annual event to start the new year with a splash would take place on Whitesands beach at midday on New Year’s Day.

However, yesterday, Sunday, December 19, the club announced that it was having to cancel the swim for the second year running.

"Once again St Davids Penknife Club is devastated that we have had to cancel our New Years Day Swimming event," said a club spokesperson.

"With the increased cases of the new Covid -19 Omicron variant and the strong guidance from the Welsh Government for people to leave a day between social events, as a registered charity,  we took the responsible course of action to cancel this event, which is directly after New Year's Eve."

The spokesperson added that this was 'a devastating blow' for the local causes that the club was hoping to raise funds for; Shalom House palliative care centre in St Davids which needs to raise at least £250,000 a year to run and Porthmawr  Surf Life Saving Club.

The spokesperson said that the swim would have made a small but very important contribution to Shalom House and added that many of the surf life saving trainees go on to be RNLI lifeguards, who provide an invaluable service on the coastal beaches of Pembrokeshire.

This year’s swim was due to raise money through swimmers making a minimum £5 donation to register and receiving a free wristband.

"If people would still like to donate to these very worthwhile causes they can by going onto our website www.penknifeclub.co.uk and making a donation" said the spokesperson.

"Every little helps - remember 'Greatness is not what you have but what you can give'."

The Whitesands dip has snowballed in popularity with 350 swimmers braving the waves at the last event in 2019.

With the popularity of cold-water swimming increasing during lockdown it was thought that this year’s swim would attract even more.

The swim was originally organised to raise money for Porthmawr Surf Life Saving Club.

Over the years the fundraising has expanded with £32,000 being raised over 18 years and money going to several other local causes including Shalom House and St Davids RNLI.

In a collaborative approach, the lifesaving club also provides volunteers to man the beaches during and provides the safety cover required to run this event.

St Davids RNLI Lifeboat is also on hand; over those years the crew has held its first training session of the year to coincide with the swim.

For more information on St Davids Penknife club, which runs events to raise money for local charities, see penknifeclub.co.uk or the St Davids Penknife Club Facebook page.