A wild swimming photo essay
Cold wetsuits, cold sand engrained between your toes. The car is warm, dry, and safe in contrast.
I am abandoning this safety, this warmth, for the icy cold embrace of the sea. Some may describe it akin to the embrace of death. To us, it is the embrace of life.
To the small yet growing community that I find myself a part of on the West Coast of Scotland, to jump in the Northern Atlantic, untouched by the warming currents of the Gulf Stream, and scream and shout and laugh, is to find true community and peace of mind.
Before the Water
In a world where entertainment costs money, exploring costs money, happiness, like it or not, costs money, throwing yourself into the freezing ocean in your old swimmer costs nothing at all – and the reward is far more.
We have collected various bits of gear over the years. Some were not always ours, others were an investment. The bright orange of Mum’s tow float has now faded to a gentle sunset, telling tales of salty seas across the country, precious sunlight borrowing the neon to cast warmth across the gentle waves.
Goggles, flippers, neoprene hats…it’s not really necessary. Even a swimsuit, if you’re brave, if no one’s around, is not strictly necessary. All you need is you and the sea. And the ability to not drown – that helps too.
The ‘ocean’ if you’re feeling fancy, the ‘sea’ if you’re normal, claims on average 96 deaths per year in Scotland. Nearly 100 souls descend into murky, cold depths and never return to see the sun again, every trip around the sun.
Willingly or not, accidentally on purpose, the conclusion of a great crime, a great story – in the end, it all ends in the sea.
No matter the story, the purpose, the who-done-it, it’s the same watery end.
And yet here we are – mostly women, finding some peace, some mental clarity, in this life stealing, unpredictable force.
None of these thoughts cross our minds as we pull on gloves. It is my mum and me today – the classic mother-and-daughter duo. Our eyes are the same colour as the sea on a cloudy day – a washed-out green that we both share proudly.
My mum pulls on her neoprene gloves. My hands remain exposed to the elements, operating my familiar camera on muscle memory. Her hands are dappled with age now, marks of sunlight, travels, different countries, different music, and two children mapped across the thinning skin. It’s new, noticing my mum’s age.
She doesn’t notice though, not as she sets her fancy-pants watch to ‘open water swim’ in a generational determination to keep her Strava reflective of the truth. I follow beside her, wetsuit boots chilling my toes already, watching the obscured sunlight paint pictures on the sand.
During the Swim
Shall we do it? My mum asks. It’s a routine, this question. This hesitance. It’s an understanding that what we’re doing, on the first day of spring, is simply mad. Plunging into freezing water in nothing but a swimsuit takes a strange kind of person. And yet, we’re addicted. We always ask, we always question, and yet we always do.
Taking off at a gentle jog, we pace towards the water’s edge. The waves lap gently, welcomingly, on the sandy shore – they’re non-threatening, they don’t mind us.
Straight to my core, the cold washes through me. It chases the breath out of my body, taking the tension in my shoulders, taking the brain fog and daily anxiety, taking my frustration at the uncontrollable capitalist world. In this moment, in this water, in this state of borderline hypothermia, the only things that exist are me, my mum, and the cold, cold water.
I can’t comment on what my mum feels, but her body language tells me enough. Arms stretched to the side, she opens herself up to the stretch of water reaching to the Isle of Mull and beyond. She has nothing and everything to hide. I can never expect to fully understand my mother, but sharing this experience with her gets me closer than most daughters can ever hope to be.
It is a different world in the sea. Different colours that are alien to life on land, darker, deeper, richer than, say, the colours of the woods or the sky. The sea is unexplored, separate, and not made for us. And yet, we are here anyway. Half in, half out. Committed for as long as our bodies will allow, before they submit themselves to the water with or without our consent.
After the Cold
Hot, hot chocolate poured into a poorly insulated tin mug from my childhood, sprinkled with some stale marshmallows from the bottom of the snack cupboard. Poured with love by my mother, handed to me first, a symbol of your child before yourself even when the said child is now 21.
The hot liquid contrasts with the cold of the sea, and yet somehow has the same effect. It warms my core, yet it does not allow that lost tension back in. My anxiety has taken a break, scared away by the extreme temperature changes. My mind feels chilled, easy, at rest.
The marshmallows slowly melt into the drink as I sip it, shivering, staring towards the sea. We say we could go back in now, that we weren’t even that cold, but we know it is a lie. We know the danger. We know the risk, and now, especially now, we know how much we value our human, non-crab-like lives.
The warmth of the car calls us back to reality. Once more, we say goodbye.
We leave the shells in the shape of a heart. The photo is taken, the composition planned and posed and pictured, but we leave the heart, our heart, to the rising tide. A wild swimming photo essay can only capture the surface – what lies below is out of our reach.
Our mess is cleared up, our souls are bared fresh and raw, and the heated seats are on. Our 30-minute wild swimming adventure has ended…for now.
Enjoyed this wild swimming photo essay, and want to try wild swimming in Stirling? Read Brig’s guide here. Alternatively, find out more about the benefits of wild swimming.
All images in photo essay by Alice Pollard
Featured Image Credit: Alice Pollard