by Joe Minihane
I breathed deeply and tried to enjoy the slap of cold waves on my face, trying to bring my attention to the here and now. But I could feel a groundswell of worry surge within me as this sense of calm began to dissipate. I had felt it nudging at my consciousness as this Cornish leg of my journey moved on, but pushed it down. I knew that there were only a few swims left before I completed Roger’s journey, and the fact that I had been swimming so much over the summer meant that losing its routine, and the new experiences which my predecessor revealed to me on each and every swim of his, was of increasing concern. What would I do without it? Once again I could see I was beginning to pin all of my hopes, my needs to fix my anxiety, on this journey. I worried about it in the same way I used to worry about work, concerned I hadn’t ‘done it right’. Concerned about what others thought of it. Concerned, too, that I was letting Roger down. The things I had stopped worrying about over the preceding few months appeared to be back.
I had done so well, but was forgetting the bigger picture: the release that swimming in Roger’s wake afforded me, the fact that it was meant to be joyous and not a chore, that I didn’t need it to make me feel better and that I could take the good things from it – the therapy, the strong love of my marriage, the new and rekindled friendships – along with me whatever happened. Instead of seeing all of this in a calm and orderly way, my mind began playing out scenarios, rapidly trying to work out when I would be finished and what I could do to replace this journey with something new, something exciting, anything to stop me from worrying that I wasn’t going to lose all the good things that had come from it.
I went and lay on my towel and slept a while, trying to eke out that feeling of calm I’d enjoyed a few moments before. I was woken by the sound of oystercatchers piping on their way out to sea, Molly waving and shouting about how much she loved the wetsuit.
For a brief few moments I managed to push those worries down, but it was no use. I tried not to feel sad about our trip to these islands soon being over and my Waterlog trip racing towards its end, but I couldn’t shake that melancholy even as the sun beat down and we took a slow stroll back to the campsite.
Our twenty-four hours in Bryher were up. We collapsed our tents, stuffed our rucksacks and took a sad walk back to the jetty. I could see why Roger had opted to come here first, but for me this was the ideal place to come towards the end of the journey. I contemplated whether to end it now. I couldn’t see how any other swim of Roger’s could live up to this. I would have to be convinced that even just one could match those on Bryher, otherwise there was no point in going on.
Later that night, as my sleeper train trundled out of Penzance and passed the old Marazion station, I pulled up the covers in my cabin and drank whisky from a miniature bottle snaffled from the restaurant car, looking back at photos of the summer’s swims on my camera. A creeping sadness came over me as the carriage rocked me to sleep and I thought of the passing of another year and the impending end of my trip.
Back in London, snuggled up with Keeley, I remembered the beauty of Bryher’s sandy bays and the need to make myself better, with or without swimming. The following morning I dropped Mark an email:
‘OK if I come in and see you?’
I eased myself into the same armchair, the tissues pulled just so from their box on the nest of tables beside it, a glass of water poised for when my talking left me dry and thirsty.
Mark pushed the door to with his feet and slurped on a cup of tea as he took his seat opposite me.
‘Good to see you. How long’s it been? And how are you feeling?’
I told Mark what had been going through my mind during that last swim in the Scilly Isles. How I was worried about my trip coming to an end and what I was going to do afterwards. That it was making me feel stressed and anxious in the same way work had done when I had first seen him. I explained that after our sessions had finished, I had got good at learning to say ‘fuck it’, at recognising when I was worrying about fleeting moments, like broken mugs or missed trains, compartmentalising them and seeing them for what they were: brief worries to float past, things that would be forgotten in an hour, a day, a week.
But I also told him I was once again starting to invest too much hope in swimming and the water again, the belief that it could fix my ills. I still loved it, but looked to it too much as a catch-all cure. I explained that I had seemed to forget how to catch myself when I began stressing out, not stopping to breathe and see things as they really were, meaning swimming took on greater significance. I mentioned the wedding ring incident with Tim. I told him about Tim’s advice – to look at the bigger picture, to suss out a logical approach to what felt an illogical worry. Mark nodded and motioned for me to keep talking, taking another loud slurp from his mug.
I could feel the fug of anxiety snapping at the edges of my consciousness again, dominating every thought process as it had done in the run-up to my wrist break and in the weeks after, when I had first come to see him. Everything I did aside from swimming in Roger’s wake now made me feel guilty, as if I wasn’t tending properly to this beast that I had created. If I did a non-Waterlog swim, like going to Brockwell for a pre-work paddle, I felt bad, as if I wasn’t being faithful. It was just how I used to feel when I wasn’t working but swimming instead. The hobby had become the job, and I felt I wasn’t being productive enough. It was nothing I hadn’t told Keeley between getting back from Cornwall and pressing the buzzer at Mark’s clinic door, but it felt more real telling it to a professional. It felt like an admission.
‘Wasn’t this supposed to be a way of getting away from work? Of doing something different?’
I nodded.
‘I seem to remember you worrying about the same thing last year. You’re turning this into work again when it’s supposed to be fun. What exactly do you get from this journey?’
I told him that it was about that feeling of nowness when I was in the water. But, as I had realised in Jura and on the Wissey, it was just as much about seeing friends, being around people I cared for.
Saying all of this out loud gave me a sudden jolt of objectivity. I was forgetting to float and look around at the good things this project had created. Thinking only about the end of the trip was another way of lining my ducks up in a row, of setting arbitrary goals that only caused stress.
I was worried about not seeing everyone as much. Of going back into the lonely shell I had lived in before I had begun the journey, spending too much time at home alone.
‘But it’s entirely in your power to ensure it doesn’t happen,’ said Mark. ‘You just need to keep making the effort. You’re worrying about something that hasn’t happened yet.’
I realised that this was another case of my allowing my thoughts to run away with themselves, of not applying the techniques I had learnt from Mark the first time around. This tune-up, with Mark lending an ear and letting out the occasional guffaw to make me feel better about the ridiculousness of the state I had got myself into, was just what I needed before getting back out there again.
I was probably never going to be free of worry and anxiety, so I may as well go out and enjoy this thing I had started, with the people who had come along with me for the ride. We talked through the concept of letting everything float by, of breathing, of recognising thought processes in order to change them, of saying ‘fuck it’ and doing it anyway. It was as invigorating and helpful as a bracing sea swim.
I crossed the stony beach opposite Bolton Abbey and dropped my bag by the water’s edge. It was a dank September afternoon, the warm sun of the Scilly Isles a distant memory up on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales. After seeing Mark, things had begun to get better and I was glad to be back following Roger, looking forward to an autumn of swims and the water touching my skin. Keeley encouraged me to get back out there and make the most of it before it grew too cold.
Dave had driven over from his home near Huddersfield and collected me from Skipton station, a willing taxi driver who had taken a keen interes
t in my last swims. His knowledge had proved invaluable at Kirkby Lonsdale and in the Dales during the summer, and I was happy to have him with me, driving me across this largest of counties in search of far-off swimming spots.
Roger had found this water hole packed with swimmers treating the river bend like a beach in Cornwall. He had come in high summer, though, while I was here on a wet weekday afternoon a fortnight after the schools had gone back.
There were no swimmers today, although a gaggle of walkers stood egging each other on at the stepping stones downstream. A large sign posted by the estate’s owners warned them to take care on the loose cobbles, but one by one they trod out, some showing caution, others striding with reckless abandon towards the other side. A cheer went up each time one of them made it safely back to dry land.
I couldn’t have picked a more picturesque place for my first swim since Bryher. My worries about not being able to top that almost tropical spot had proved unfounded. It was an important lesson for me to learn and keep in mind. The shattered abbey stood high on the opposite bank, standing so tall that if I stared at it hard enough its vertiginous walls seemed to fall towards the River Wharfe below.
I had come north not just to take the water at Bolton Abbey, but to also attempt Roger’s most notorious swim, one which I had been dreading since day one: the descent into Hell Gill. I really should have visited this notorious cavern when I had last been here in the summer, but other swims had got in the way. Having not ‘gone big’ so far, as Molly would have put it, I was determined to finally do so in the one place where my predecessor had almost taken a risk too far. A dip at Bolton Abbey seemed to be the ideal way to ease myself into proceedings.
I was enjoying the thought of an autumn dip, especially as my broken wrist had denied me the pleasure twelve months earlier. To that end, I opened my bag and ignored the wetsuit packed at the top, grabbing my towel, shorts and swimming shoes. The freezing water around the Scillies had steeled me for what I knew would be a tough session, and I wasn’t disappointed as I waded in. The water rushing down from the hills into this beautiful river was extremely chilly, and I made sure to keep my head up and out to avoid any nasty shivers as I pushed off into the deep meander. The Wharfe here was a deep peaty orange, just like the burn I had looked at with longing on Jura and the fast-flowing West Dart at Hexworthy Bridge. It couldn’t have been less like the muddy brown murk of my last Yorkshire swim, in the shallow Leeds to Liverpool Canal just a few miles away in Gargrave.
My head snapped back as I heard a collective hooray from the bank. I thought it was for my swimming endeavours until I spotted an unfortunate soul wading across the Wharfe by the stepping stones, using the submerged cobbles for balance after he’d slipped and fallen in. Even from this far off I could see he looked thoroughly miserable. He may as well have stripped down to his undies and joined me for a swim, although I didn’t fancy my chances of convincing him, despite the fact that he was already half soaked. His pals laughed and called out encouragement as he scrambled out and made his way back across the wooden bridge, doubtless wishing he’d taken the easier route in the first place.
I pushed on upstream, the riverbed dropping deep, its rocky bottom putting me in mind of the refreshing dips in the Dart when summer was still all glinting promise and long evenings. I was glad to be here alone in the water, without the intrusion of other swimmers. After sharing so much water in the past few weeks, it felt good to have the Wharfe to myself, even if Dave stood watching on the bank, snapping pictures and voicing his growing concerns that I might succumb to hypothermia if I stayed in much longer. I heeded his warnings, thoughts of Hell Gill flashing through my mind and the realisation that that swim, not this one, was the big reason for coming all this way so soon after spending time down in Cornwall.
Roger had attempted Hell Gill in a skimpy pair of speedos and wetsuit boots, with only a rope to aid his attempts to crawl back out. It was as foolhardy as it was dangerous, but it remains the most exciting passage in Waterlog, where he realises that if he can emerge from the underworld unscathed, he can achieve anything. ‘I had never delved so far into the earth before, so alone, or so naked. It could have swallowed me up, but here I was, the other side of it.’
The cold of the river sat heavy on my chest, and I slowed my breathing and tried to meditate and stay focused on the moment, eking out this feeling of quiet bliss while remembering that, like everything, it was only fleeting. I held on to this peaceful feeling as we left the broken abbey and drove up through Wharfedale, tracing the river’s upper reaches as it grew narrower and flowed faster, tumbling white over massive boulders, creating tantalising little pools at the bottom of every waterfall.
In the village of Hubberholme we stopped at the strange little church of St Michael and All Angels. Its thick, twelfth-century walls provided a tranquil haven at the end of a long day of train travel and swimming, and I padded along its cold flagstones, touching the odd little wooden mouse sculptures cut into the pews, carved by the artist Robert Thompson.
Despite being a long-lapsed Catholic, I offered up a short prayer for tomorrow’s descent into the Dales. My nerves were fraying and I began to worry about what to expect from Hell Gill as I returned to the car and sat staring out at the end of Wharfedale in silence, contemplating what was sure to be the biggest challenge of the entire journey so far. I deepened my breath and remembered that ultimately, it didn’t matter. Being here with Dave, enjoying the moment, was all that was important right now.
The main thing was that I had a plan. Roger had tackled Hell Gill alone, drawn to the ‘roofless cave’ after hearing it discussed by potholing fanatics at the climbers’ café in Ingleton. He slid into it in just a pair of swimming shorts, with a rope for company. But there was no way I was going to be that cavalier, especially as autumn had arrived in this corner of the country.
There was a claggy mist clinging to the hills around Hawes when we woke the next morning. We had spent the evening before studying a beaten-up OS map and a thirty-year-old copy of Tony Waltham’s Yorkshire Dales: Limestone Country, an indispensable guide to going underground in God’s own country which had been on Dave’s bookshelves for as long as I could remember. Compared to Roger’s poetic prose, Waltham gave a more practical explanation of the Gill, which sits bang on the border between Yorkshire and Cumbria. He talked of the enveloping darkness at the heart of the narrow gorge, trees crowding its high opening to prevent any light from entering. He also spoke of entering it from the bottom, rather than sliding down from the top, as Roger had done with almost disastrous consequences. For this, I’d need Wellington boots and a strong dose of gumption. I could get the former at the farm shop in town.
At the county border I popped on my uncomfortable new footwear and checked over the contents of my rucksack: swimming cap, neoprene boots, wetsuit, flask, a change of clothes. I was not going to slide into this thing without a care in the world. This, I knew after so long following his trail, was where Roger and I really differed. He was bold, sometimes to the point of recklessness. I was cautious, often to the point of inertia. I had felt it at the Medway and down at Fowey and numerous other times on this two-year odyssey, but never as keenly as I did as we walked up towards Hell Gill. I tried to recognise it for what it was, but right then I could have done with this last of the great English eccentrics being there in person to lead me onwards and down into the underworld.
The weather was miserable, a steady drizzle settling on my waterproof jacket and soaking into my trousers as we followed the hidden stream up towards the farm where the gill itself opened out. A shepherd screamed at his dog from atop a quad bike, its high-pitched engine soaring and fading as he traversed the low hills. His sheep were being penned in right next to where the gill spread itself out into open ground, and with a high fence around it, there was no way Waltham’s suggestion of going in from the bottom was going to work. If I wanted to do this, I was going to have to do it Roger’s way. I imagined him beaming with pride and tramped
on.
We carried on by the path upstream, the gurgle of the gill deep below us to our right. The sound calmed my fears. But as we reached the stone bridge which crossed the deep-cut stream, we saw that everything had changed.
The upper left-hand bank of Hell Gill had had a severe haircut, the pines which once crowded up and over its lip shorn back to nothing, creating a ten-foot space between tree line and cliff. Light poured in and we were able to lean over and see the white rush of water as it hurtled downstream through the narrow cleave in the rock.
Trepidation was replaced by excitement, and I was now beginning to think that I could not only get into Hell Gill as Roger had done, but also go one better and slide all the way down. I turned and stomped up the hill, around the denuded pine forest and past stacks of logs, sap dripping from their freshly cut ends. The changes were recent and favourable, and I could sense Roger’s hand at my back, egging me on.
We hopped over a low drystone wall and saw Hell Gill’s entrance beneath us. The series of plunge pools were just as Roger described, each one deeper and wider than the last. I remembered that Waltham had called this descent a one-way trip if tackled from the top, and even with the extra light it looked like a dangerous expedition. Beyond the final pool, all was dark and gloomy, the only thing visible the brightness of the rushing water.
Before making my attempt, I walked downstream along the stripped-back bank, lay on my front and crawled to the edge of the cliff. I could see the narrow natural alleyway down below, but could not tell how deep it was. If I was to get there, I would surely have to go without wellies.