I began with Keith Williams' title when I posted this thread because its appearance in 2020 underlines the modernity of sea, lake and river snorkelling as a worthwhile aquatic activity in its own right. His
Snorkelling Rivers and Streams: An Aquatic Guide to Underwater Discovery and Adventure is by no means the first publication in the field, however.
Swimming Free: On and Below the Surface of Lake, River and Sea.
Geoffrey Fraser Dutton. William Heinemann Ltd, London. 1972. Hardcover, dustjacket, 154 pages.
There follow the opening paragraphs of a British book (dustjacket image above) published five decades ago and written by a man who climbs, skis, walks and swims as he travels. The volume focuses on what the blurb on the dustcover calls "adventure swimming", namely swimming in open waters, such as rivers, lakes and the sea, with the aid of fins, mask, snorkel and wetsuit, while hiking and camping across country. What he describes largely resembles what has come to be called "swimhiking" in the new millennium. I admire this book because it is very much "before its time" and because its robust portrayal of snorkelling as a cold-water means of getting from A to B while enjoying the view above and below the waves is so different from some people's perception of snorkelling as an activity confined to remote, expensive, warm, tropical resorts on ocean islands devoid of culture and nightlife, an exclusive pursuit for the overpaid, the effete, the very timid and the very young.
What can we do with ourselves - what is there to do - once we have learnt to swim? I hope to answer this question in the following pages. I hope to show that there exists for every swimmer a new and unsuspected world-not thousands of miles away or hugely expensive but here under his nose in river, lake, sea, even in pond and ditch and flooded meadow, available now with the simplest of equipment. You no longer have to brave frigid waters - warm rubber suits are for all; with fins and mask and snorkel you enjoy a confidence and freedom of the water never before offered to Man. You merely need to have learnt to swim - well. Then you can begin to look around you, at your new inheritance.
I offer in these pages a personal solution - but it applies to everyone who longs to explore aquatic worlds more imaginative than a swimming pool, and more accessible than the Red Sea; and who wishes simply to swim, and not be burdened with expensive specialized apparatus. It should whet the appetite of those who are not yet competent swimmers, and refresh those who are happy just to be beside loch, river or sea-everyone, surely, who finds adventure in our despoiled terrestrial environment becomes ever less satisfying and ever more mechanical. Here is simplicity and freedom, uncontaminated, unsuspected.
Dutton insists that he is offering something inclusive to his readers, open to everyone with basic swimming skills, a pair of fins, a mask, a snorkel and an exposure suit. We don't have to fly anywhere first, the nearest patch of open water will do. I can relate to this simplicity, because as often as I could in the not-too-distant past I headed off to the coast, 8 miles away, to snorkel in the North Sea in my vintage-style fins, mask, snorkel and drysuit, all new but a close copy of what the skin diving pioneers of the 1950s wore when exploring their own home waters, whether the Mediterranean, the Southern California Pacific or the Great Lakes of the Upper Midwest. I can recommend this book unreservedly to everybody, but particularly to those aquatic enthusiasts who see themselves as rugged individualists.
I always enjoy reading about people taking pleasure in swimming and diving in their own home waters rather than abroad. After all, that was how most people in the early days developed their passion for the aquatic environment. The Riviera and the Caribbean were for a privileged few back then. The activity of swimhiking has a strong connection with the part of the United Kingdom where I live, the North East of England. There's even a book about swimhiking hereabouts:
Swimhiking in the Lake District and North East England by Peter Hayes:
I just wish the swimhiker on the front cover had opted to wear an exposure suit for a less chilly experience and to use a diving mask, which would enable him to enjoy a view of life both below and above the waves. For me, open-water snorkelling is an improvement on swimhiking without gear, which is an improvement in turn on wildswimming a single body of water.
