Trent Grimsey (above) will explain his preparation and his actual record-setting swim across the English Channel at the 2012 Global Open Water Swimming Conference. Photo courtesy of openwaterswimming.com.

The thirty speakers scheduled to talk on the Queen Mary this weekend will be sharing inspirational stories, showing intense man-vs-nature video footage and telling heart-wrenching tales of courage and overcoming the odds.

No, this isn’t the lineup for another self-help motivational seminar—it’s the 2012 Global Open Water Swimming Conference, an annual gathering of the most charismatic athletes from one of the world’s most intense (and least-known) sports.

Open water swimming is defined as any swimming that isn’t done in a pool, according to Steven Munatones, who runs the online magazine Open Water Source and helped bring the conference to Long Beach this year.

“The sport attracts a lot of people who want to challenge themselves,” Munatones says. “When you swim 100 meters or you run a mile, it’s pretty close to guaranteed you’ll finish the race. You may not finish fast, but you’ll finish it. In open water swimming, though, there’s a huge uncertainty whether you’ll complete the race or not. Nobody knows.”

It is that uncertainty which brought unprecedented crowds to a lake in Hyde Park in London last month to watch Olympic athletes compete in the 10K open water swimming competition. And it is building off of that Olympic buzz that the Global Open Water Swimming Conference chose this year’s theme “From London to Long Beach.”

For the two-day event, Munatones has used his connections as an open water swimming journalist to bring some of the biggest names in the sport to Long Beach. Past and present Olympic champions, English Channel record holders and national open water swimming heroes from more than 19 countries will be on hand to tell their stories and participate in seminars with titles such as “Dealing with jellyfish” and “Extreme swims.”

“What’s interesting is that people enjoy open water swimming at all different ages,” says Munatones. “I mean, the fastest growing demographic in the sport is women over age of 40. They may not be able to run a marathon, but many of these women can enjoy swimming casually and that’s a big thing.”

Keynote speakers include Diana Nyad—a 63 year-old who will talk about her swim attempts from Cuba—and Craig Dietz (aka the “Limbless Waterman”)—an open water swimming athlete who was born without arms or legs.

Many of the speakers, including Dietz, will follow up their appearances at the Queen Mary with participation in the Sunday’s Swim Across America event, a non-competitive open water swim at Marine Stadium to raise money for the Todd Cancer Institute at Long Beach Memorial.

Like charity runs and walks, the Long Beach Open Water Swim asks anyone interested in helping the cause to pledge money to participate in a variety of distance swims occurring throughout the day. To keep things interesting, however, Swim Across America has created a near replica of the Hyde Park Olympic open water swimming course in Marine Stadium for its own 10K—an event dubbed “marathon swimming” because of the time it takes swimmers to complete the course, not the actual distance.

Los Angeles-born Munatones sees this weekend as a way to introduce the open water swimming community to Long Beach, a place he believes to be truly the Aquatics Capital of America. The year-round air and water temperature is perfect for open water swimming, he says, and the amount of aquatic knowledge among citizens is unparalleled.

“In all my travels—I’ve been to five continents and visited between 50 and 60 countries to cover this sport—Long Beach has everything that you need for our sport,” he says. “But a company based in Boston doesn’t know the benefits of long beach. This is a good time to show off the city.”

The 2012 Global Open Water Swimming Conference runs from Friday September 21 to Saturday September 22. To register, visit the event’s website. Swim Across America’s “From London to Long Beach” Open Water Swim will take place on Sunday, September 23 at Marine Stadium. To create a team, join a team or register as an individual, go to the Swim Across America website.