First, let me say: I am a swimmer. There is a difference between someone who swims and someone who plays in it, like there is a difference between cyclists and people who ride a bike (ooh … contentious argument right there, folks).
I don’t jump off towers or bridges; I don’t jump into cold water; I don’t get tanked up in advance. I swim all year round, not just when it’s hot and balmy. I know what clothes to wear in and out of the water; I know how to avoid the shivers afterwards (‘afterdrop’ in the correct lingo); I know the risks to me, and I know my parameters.
Yeah, I might drown. But you can drown in three inches of warm water in a bath, and nobody banned getting a bath yet. Maybe that’s part of the joy of swimming outside – Mother Nature could take you if she wanted, but on the whole she doesn’t, if you give her some respect. Anyway, who wants to die in bed? OK … maybe that last point has a few holes in it…
The love of wild swimming
I swim outdoors in lots of different places. I’m very fortunate that where I live affords lots of choice, from lakes to rivers to … er … not rivers. Ahem. There is a great joy to be had swimming without chlorine; avoiding the red dye because someone peed in the pool (that’s a thing, right?); covid rules about the showers and changing; slow lane swimmers invading other lanes because theirs is full; male swimmers who just don’t like being overtaken by a woman and block your way…
But out in the open, it’s just you and the water, and the place surrounding it. There’s just not the same stress about it that you get in a pool. And there’s a certain camaraderie in the open-water swimming community. People look after one another, eat cake together, take joy in the rejuvenation of the soul that comes with outdoor water. The only competitiveness here is who has the grooviest bobble hat. Bobble hats are a thing in outdoor swimming. Check it out.
Why do I swim outdoors?
Imagine this.
You are in a slow-moving river, the surface decorated with stray autumn leaves. The trees on the banks are coloured from yellow through to the darkest burnished copper, warmed by the rays of a weak sun. There is a silence that exists only outdoors, only away from the city. Yet there is a soft lap of water around you. You feel the sharp bite of cold water on your skin, the tingle in your fingers and toes as they adjust to the temperature.
From your unobtrusive position in the water, you watch the deer graze the bank, unaware of the bobbing human head so very close by. The calling to one another of the birds. A heron flying over the top of you, to land on its feeding post, only a metre or two away. You can feel your heart’s fast beat as it works against the chill of the water.
You glide slowly as the river parts for you to pass, closing in behind you as you move through the current. You know the river could take you any time it wanted, but for now it allows you to commune with it, the greater power wrapping itself around your puny one. It’s a privilege.
This is why I swim
On another day, you are in a large body of still water. It’s dusk, the sun beginning to drop behind the trees of the woodland close by. You are up to your nose in silky water, the surface like black liquid glass lapping and moving, making patterns caught by the dropping sun. Light like this is only caught across the water, and you know you will only see it from this vantage point.
This expanse of water is wide; you are a tiny blip of a human hidden within the folds of the outside world. Only a curious moorhen which has swum up to your face, level with her, gives away proof of your existence. But for this short while, you are one with the world you live in. You are causing no harm to it with plastic and petrol; you are a part of your planet.
The water is cold. It stings. But your skin feels alive – a long way from the cloying warmth it feels from an over-used central heating system back home.
On the edge of the water, wrapped in your big, fluffy wrap, pre-warmed with a hot water bottle, hot drink in your be-mittened hands, you look back at the water. There’s a pang in your chest as if you were leaving a lover. Out of its embrace, the water looks different, separate. But your skin still feels its kiss, burning and fizzing. And already the anticipation of your return hangs in the cooling air.
This is why I swim …
For more information about open water swimming safety, the Outdoor Swimming Society website and the Royal Life Saving Society have a host of information.
