Wild swimming and snorkelling is gaining popularity around the British coast. Andy Torbet has a few tips for those who wish to add wild camping to the mix
TORBET ON THE TUBE
Wild in the country
Wild swimming and snorkelling is gaining popularity around the British coast. Andy Torbet has a few tips for those who wish to add wild camping to the mix
Snorkelling around the coast to the camp site
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An al fresco, postsnorkel brew is great no matter the weather
PHOTO: RICH STEVENSON
Due to the lead-in times of magazines such as SCUBA, I pen these columns six or seven weeks before you read them. This timeline is based on two assumptions; you read them within days of receiving the issue and that I did not miss my deadline. So, I write this in the midst of what I hope is the true start to the diving season. It’ s the first day of May, the sun is shining, the winds are light and the sky is blue. And on such evenings my mind turns to camping, especially wild camping.
I have always enjoyed camping in remote, wild places. I love the feeling of independence, solitude and peacefulness. You feel isolated from the world, though importantly out of choice. And this agency makes the experience stress-relieving rather than lonely.
In a fast-paced world, which only seems to be picking up speed, wild camping gives us time and space. It’ s a fantastic thing to do with friends and family, giving you time to check-in, catch up and be a community in the way we were meant to without the constant pressure of external commitments. Albeit only for a night.
I have wild camped in many extreme and exotic places, from a glacier in Greenland to a jungle hammock.
I have overnighted in a subterranean chamber cut off by submerged sumps and snuggled down in Scottish snow-holes. But one of the things I can recommend during the warmer months of the British