The travel writer who discovered the healing power of Scottish island's best wild swimming spots

The Healing Pool, Skye | Contributed

Some people see wild swimming as a transient trend.

However, Cotswolds-based writer Richard Waters proves that it’s more than that, with his life-affirming new book, Swimming with the Viking of Skye.

This inspiring read is part travelogue and a love letter to the Scottish island, but also a memoir and self help read, with a bit of psychology and practical advice mixed in for good measure.

The primary focus is the tale of how guide Matt Rhodes, aka the Viking of Skye, converted Waters to this activity, in cathartic settings like Torrin Pools and Sligachan River.

However, it also details the author’s diagnosis with Parkinson’s disease at the age of 41, as well as his daughter Aggie’s struggles with degenerative illness, and even the affair that broke up his marriage. There are highs and lows, via operations and finding an inner Viking (or, sometimes, a stoic).

That’s partially thanks to the book’s editor. According to Waters, while writing the book, he kept erring towards sharing tales from his many travels, as he’s written for publications including Lonely Planet, but they steered him back towards the personal.

“They said, right now, we don't need to hear about the time that you went chasing bears in Kodiak,” says the author.

Considering, as the book tells us, that Waters - who has co-authored best-sellers with the likes of Tyson Fury and UK special forces soldier Ollie Ollerton - kept his illness secret from friends and colleagues for so long, how does it feel to be so frank?

“I’m a bit nervous, but it was a story that I wanted to tell, as there might be a chance that I’ll be able to help other people through it. I thought we might as well just be honest,” Waters says. “I did keep my Parkinson’s quiet for a lot of years at beginning, and I can understand people who do the same because it's personal pride as well, I think, and fear, because you're worried about appearing in some way not quite normal, not quite functioning. You find that society is a little bit nicer than that”.

As far as Waters’ symptoms go, wild swimming made him feel better physically but also mentally, thanks in part to the beautifully-described endorphin rush that came with every freezing cold immersion.

“It's such a wonderful thing, being plugged into the source. It's like a factory reset and it replugs you into who you are and where you should be, and it’s free of charge as well,” Waters says. “That's the brilliant thing about Scotland. Right to roam. You've got this sort of relationship with the land and everybody can just go swimming or go camping wherever they like”.

As the book reveals, Rhodes took Waters on some rather epic adventures.

They weren’t always the easiest trips. Some involved long hikes, while Waters was suffering from severe tremor, fatigue and other symptoms, and there were huge challenges, such as an overnight stay in a bothy with missing medication.

There were swims that pushed Waters right out of his comfort zone, like the sea cave of Flodigarry - ‘ a calculated risk’, as the author says - which is covered in the chapter that’s subtitled Catastrophising.

Flodigarry Sea Cave | Contributed

Then there was Loch Coruisk - another equally challenging trip. Waters says that this was the most memorable swim in the book.

“That’s where we spent the night camping and where there's sort of mythology about a goat man and kelpies,” he says. “We had to get a boat to it and it was just really special”.

Rhodes, with his plaited beard, tattoos and dreadlocks, took Waters to all the perfect spots, each time he visited the island. They’d initially discovered and developed something of a bromance after this guide had been recommended to the author by the Scottish Tourist Board.

I wonder if, once potential tourists have read the book, Rhodes is likely to be inundated with travellers who also want his expertise. Waters thinks that’s quite likely.

“Matt's a bit special. He is a bit old school. And he brings the toughness that will happen to the surface. He knows how to draw on that in the most subtle way possible. He's just a brilliant guy,” says Waters.

Would the book have happened without him?

“No, never, We knew we wanted to write about Skye, because that's not my speciality at all. It's very much his,” he says. “He's done all the work for 10 years. He was mapping out different places, doing all the walks, he's done all the hard work. So really, I just write my story alongside the special places that he's found. He takes people out every day of the year. So it’s very much his effort as well. I'm just a writer”.

As Waters says in the book, he does have a spiritual pull to Skye.

His first visit felt a bit like coming home. It could be described as fate.

“I think there are lots of lessons to be learned in life and dots to be joined up, and things make you realize that there is a sort of some sort of pattern, if we look for it,” he says.

At the moment, while recovering from the operation that he discusses in the final pages of the book, Waters is keeping up his regular wild swims at places closer to home, including the River Teme and Lake 32 in Cirencester.

He doesn’t have any plans to move permanently to Skye. He’s too pragmatic. After all, that might destroy the magic.

“The problem with human beings is that wherever we stay for too long, we get used to it. You could be next to the Golden Gate Bridge every morning and get bored of the sunshine, blue sky, and lovely orange bridge. It's just the way we are,” he says. “I think contrast is good for us, and I think we keep moving, even if it's just between two places. If we're lucky enough, that's great”.

Swimming with the Viking of Skye by Richard Waters is out on February 27, £17.99, Quarto