Most of the inhabitants in Norway live close to water. Either by living in one of the places along the coast, the fjords or by some inland lake. For this reason it is quite surprising to read that Norwegian' 10 years old children turn out to be on the bottom of the ranking in Europe based on the requirements for swimming skills needed.

According to an article in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten half of the ten years old could not swim 200 meters when a survey was conducted in 2003 ( Hvorfor drukner så mange i Norge? )

But the most worrying part will probably be that compared to the number of inhabitants, more people drown in Norway than in other countries we can compare us with, countries with equal access to water and the sea. Compared to the USA twice as many drown in Norway and four times as many as in the UK and the Netherlands.

So far this year 43 people has drowned, while 104 people drowned in 2007. 2/3 of these victims are considered good swimmers, but drown because the water often is to cold for a person to be able to survive for a long period of time.