Sting by Paul Carr

Author:Paul Carr
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Reaktion Books

Wild at Heart

No survey of swimming in natural waters would be complete without a mention of wild and open-water swimming. The current popularity of the pastime, as evidenced by the success of works on the subject by British enthusiasts Kate Rew (b. 1970) and Roger Deakin (1943–2006), provides yet more evidence that a large constituency of swimmers in the developed world are turning their backs on supervised beaches and swimming pools to reconnect with the pleasures of unsupervised swimming in lakes, rivers, estuaries, seas and oceans.16

Wild swimming is subsumed within the broader category of ‘open-water swimming’, but since the inclusion of open-water swimming events in the World Aquatics Championships in 1991 and in the Summer Olympics in 2008, the umbrella term is more closely associated with the competitive and endurance aspects of swimming in natural waters. In contrast, wild swimming, as the choice of qualifying adjective suggests, refers to a non-competitive, unsupervised pastime dedicated to the pleasure of swimming in scenic spots – the aquatic equivalent of hiking in the countryside and mountain trekking – a form of the ‘tourist gaze’ applied to the aquatic environment.

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