Originally posted by Tenoshii:

I'd wager the game wasn't designed for the player to be able to simply cross any large body of water by swimming, stopping to regenerate stamina and then swimming some more. What about this is "game breaking" for you?

As a side note, if you are next to an object in the water (even if you can't climb it) your stamina will regenerate. It's helpful in those areas of water with big rocks, but won't save you in the open sea or deep lakes.

I too would like a way to retrieve loot that goes down in deep water, but it's definitely not well suited to how swimming works currently.

your feet have to actually get purchase on something, a sand bar, a rocks edge, etc to regen stamina.