I have taken great delight in jumping in water from various heights in all my 43 years. But swimming for fun never really fired my passions. Maybe it was Redbull’s fault, it had to be full on or not at all. Waves over my head surfing in Cornwall, surfing in Pointe-Noire, Congo, Africa with a really bad hangover, scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef, cage diving with sharks in South Africa and jumping off the Blue banks on the river Teith outside Stirling. I only feared for my life once and that was swimming in Loch Lubnaig.

I have removed sugar from my diet, maybe if I was still on Redbull then swimming would have passed me by. I had been trying to find new ways of keeping slim and on a second reading of Tim Ferriss’s book The 4-Hour Body the chapter on swimming grabbed my attention. Much to my wife’s amusement, the black speedos which were bought in France a few years before, (the French have rules of no board shorts in campsite swimming pools, think it’s something to do with chlorine and cycling shorts.) The French are mad, but you can’t argue with their onion soup or wine or cheese or cider or bread…….mmm I think this might be my next post – “Getting fat close to Bordeaux”.

Anyway, the black speedos were dusted down and the Total Immersion swimming book and videos were digested. My pool session evolved from doing 1 pool length front crawl & 1 breast stroke followed by 3 bombs, 4 dives, 1 splash fight and back to the showers to 40 continuous lengths front crawl. I went to the pool when the weather did not allow for mountain biking or running. It was something to keep fit, not a wake up every morning thinking about where I can fit a swim type of activity.

View from tent on Knoydart

A few years passed and during a walk into the wilderness of Knoydart I was jumping into rivers, from piers and swimming from the beach. I was basically taking every opportunity to get wet. It wasn’t the swimming but the cold sensation and then the shivers, the shakes and uncontrollable hands. I got a real buzz from what transforms steadily into a tranquil pond effect on your soul. I craved it. After Knoydart getting cold with uncontrollable hands completely took over my life. The kids’ school holidays consisted of picnics and camping where we could go swimming round Scotland. Working in Shetland I managed a few small swims around Lerwick and managed to have a nervous swim with seals at Banna Minn Bay.

Camping on Mull

Swimming is great fun and I was fearless, constantly pushing how far I could swim and not really considering the consequences, but Loch Lubnaig really brought home safe swimming rules and how easily it went wrong.

Banna Minn Bay Shetland

From East to West it is only 300m and is easily swum. The water temperatures were not considered. This particular day, I rocked up to the north car park (it has a great wee shop and toilets now, considerably cleaner than a few years ago.) Anyway, I digress, again….. black speedos were on showing off my glorious Shetland tan. The only way I could look more like a mad Scotsman for the tourists and day trippers parked up was if my trunks were tartan, I had a pet hairy cow, and there was a piper blasting old Scottish tunes as I tried not to show pain from standing on the sharp stones entering the shoreside.

loch Lubnaig -across and back in time for tea

The swim from East to West was easy, unremarkable, even enjoyable but on turning around to swim back I was faced with the English channel. The distance had somehow transmogrified into a chasm, my head collapsed, my breathing increased and to try to cool the sweat on my forehead my arms started flailing about like those big turbines on the hillside. I was not going to make it. This was bad. I was gasping for breath. Aawwh no no no no. This was not how I planned for my 15 minutes of fame to make the Daily Record – “Loch Tragedy” – would translate to – “Dafty drowns on lovely September afternoon”. That old cliché of your life flashing in front of eyes, too much to live for stuff went on and somehow in the panic and bedlam I kicked onto my back and took a breath, then a deeper one until the tunnel vision widened and I started laughing which started me nearly choking again. My new found intelligence in the face of adversity still mystifies me. I had a nickname Biscuit once when I went to crumbs under stress.

A week later and swimming not far from the shoreside, a chance conversation in the Plockton Inn with a bloke from Falkirk convinced me, actually it convinced my wife more than me, that I required a wetsuit for buoyancy and safe swimming. My only argument against this was I like being cold, but this was ignored by all.

A few weeks later, I was bobbing about in my new wetsuit close to the wee islands on Loch Chon in mid autumn with the lochside trees turning more shades of red than an auburn haired girl, with a ruby ring and pastel rouge nail polish, painting a scarlet rusty car with a large Coca Cola sign in the background….(you get the picture….). The water temperature was close to 9 degrees so was quite comfortable with no need for boots or gloves. The sky was grey overcast, the leaves on the trees were still, there was not a breath of wind. I remember the scene vividly floating with my chin in the water and my mouth above. My arms and legs resembled the tree limbs by staying stationary. I was marvelling at the perfect buoyancy of my new wetsuit. It was like the time we visited one of my friends in hospital and we spent an hour adjusting the neutral buoyancy of helium balloons to float in circles round her bed. It started raining large drops like small pebbles falling straight down, they were bouncing higher than my goggles, the soft put popping noises like a watery glockenspiel with expanding circles of ripples all combined to feel like an aboriginal blessing. (I stole this phrase from a really nice guy we met in the Olgas, I offered the wrong couple the spare bed that night and would like to apologise to him.)

Loch Lubnaig towards float at the ready

I still want to push my limits, find out how far and how cold I can get, but as the temperatures increase I will take off my boots and gloves but I think I will keep my wetsuit on when swimming solo which is 98% of the time. I would take the “aboriginal blessing rubber suit bloke” to “Sheer panic drowning feeling of trunk bloke” everyday. Life’s too enjoyable to risk for a wee swim, and I can always take the suit off in shallow water and still get a full cold water buzz at the end of a swim.