How to Swim Faster in Animal Crossing New Horizons

I love a good swim when the weather’s right, don’t you? Though I always preferred swimming in pools to the ocean; the water at the beaches near where I grew up was always puke green and full of seaweed… Thankfully, the waters surrounding your island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons are crystal clear and ripe for exploring. There’s a lot of water to go through, though, so here’s how to swim a little faster in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

The ability to swim in the ocean around your island was added to Animal Crossing: New Horizons in one of the summer updates. Getting in the water is as easy as just walking into it off the beach or jumping off a rock face or dock. Though before you can get in the water, you’ll need to purchase a wetsuit from Nook’s Cranny. Once you’re in the water, you may notice that moving around is a tad different from just walking around on the island. Which… shouldn’t really be that surprising, since that’s how it is in real life.

How to Swim Faster in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

To move in the water, you need to hold down the A button while pushing your stick in the direction you want to go. Your character will do a simple breaststroke, and if you’re not in a rush, you’ll get where you want to be eventually. For those of us who value our time a little more, you can swim faster by repeatedly tapping the A button instead of just holding it for a more dynamic stroke. 

These same controls apply when you dive underwater with the Y button; hold A for a basic stroke, tap it repeatedly for a faster one. Just remember that, unlike the surface, you can only stay underwater for so long, so even if you can move faster down there, it’d probably be prudent to get as close to your underwater target from the surface as possible before actually diving.