The Wild Swimming Brothers
Calum, Robbie and Jack on one of their wild swimming adventures (photo credit: Erlend Bodo)
Interview by Bethany Allen
Calum, Robbie and Jack Hudson are three brothers who grew up in the Lake District. Together, they have discovered the fun, adventure and joy of swimming in open water.
Their swimming journey has pushed them to their limits as they’ve voyaged through whirlpools in the Arctic, and out to Alcatraz prison in San Francisco – a notorious area populated with Great Whites. Displaying a thirst for adventure and love of water that we also resonate with. We reached out to them and were lucky enough to interview middle brother Calum, giving us the opportunity to find out about their swimming adventures and what being in the water means to them.
When did you first get into swimming and why?
We grew up in the Lake District. Lakes, rivers, streams, outdoor pools, they were our playground. Wild Swimming hadn’t yet been coined as a concept, it was never a “thing” when we were growing up. But even though it didn’t have a name – everyone was doing it. We were lucky to have grown up in the Lake District, and lucky to have grown up around outdoorsy people. Knowing that the sea is not some evil mistress that is trying to kill you, and that there aren’t wee beasties always trying to snap at your heels meant that we could approach wild swimming confidently from the offset. Through adult life we drifted away from that lifestyle, off to university, into London and into jobs. We became disconnected from the natural world, from our past and from each other.
What instigated your resurgence in swimming?
There was a point when I was doing a lot of ultra triathlons and events, but it began taking up a lot of time. When I started getting into double Iron Man’s, I came to the realisation that I wasn’t allowing much room for other things in my life. I didn’t want to be consumed in the competitive circuit anymore but I still wanted to challenge myself. Out of the three Iron Man sports, swimming was the one that I enjoyed the most. So I began trying to hatch a plan so that I could still enjoy pushing my body to its limits, but do it outside of the competitive circuit. I came up with lots of silly ideas – like running a marathon in every country – but then I settled on the idea of open water swimming.
While I was in the process of formulating this plan, my mum and step dad split up and our family home in the Lake District was sold. It brought on a lot of nostalgia for myself and my two brothers – that was where we had grown up, and it felt like our connection to the Lake District was lost when the house was sold. Then I had a thought, what better way to commemorate the loss of our family home than to swim the length of the river Eden. The river ran past the bottom of our garden and we swam in it all the time as kids. I found out the river is 90-miles and came up with the idea of swimming 10 miles a day. That was when the seed was planted. I immediately asked Robbie if he wanted to join me and wanted to get Jack to kayak with us but his first response was: “Screw that! If you’re swimming, I’ll bloody well swim with you.” So that was it, we decided to do the swim as a trio and got a few friends to come along with kayaks.
Often nostalgia and time make you view things from the past with rose tinted glasses but there’s no doubt that it was a real adventure. It was me and my brothers and we had a couple mates who kayaked alongside us, it felt like being kids again. 9 days no phones, no laptops, no TVs – it was really stripped back and raw. The only thing is that I think we underestimated how much swimming there would be. Which sounds silly but we were so excited about going on an adventure together that we didn’t think about the real practicalities of swimming 90 miles.
We were in the water for 7- 8 hours a day, in certain areas there were waterfalls that we had to scramble down. Even in England no-one knew what 90-miles of the river Eden looked like. There would have been bits that weren’t accessible by land and it felt like a real privilege to be able to have this novel and explorative experience in somewhere as densely populated as England. For us, it was the epitome of a homegrown adventure.
After the swim Jack decided to write a script for a book about our experience and it got picked up really quickly by publishers. He tells our river Eden story in Swim Wild and shares the highs and lows of taking on such a whacky adventure.
Jack, Calum and Robbie during the river Eden swim
When did you start pursuing more adventurous swims?
After Eden our idea was to do a big swim every year and it wasn’t long before we caught wind of a swim that sounded just as adventurous. In Scotland there’s a maelstrom called the Corryvrecken. It’s quite a well-known swim but very dangerous. Maelstroms are essentially whirlpools and there are only a handful in the world because you need certain topographical rock formations to create them. We were immediately drawn to the maelstrom in Scotland especially as it has a really interesting history.
George Orwell was shipwrecked by the whirlpool with his one-legged nephew, Eric Blare, whilst writing his acclaimed dystopian novel 1984. Then many years later, on the anniversary of his uncle’s publication, Eric became the first ever person to swim across it. A feat even more impressive considering he only had one leg. After Eric swam across the maelstrom there was a gap of 20 years until someone did it again. Simon Murie, the guy who runs Swim Trek was the second person to do it. We couldn’t resist the sense of adventure so we swam across the one in Scotland and then we found out it was the third biggest maelstrom in the world. So naturally, we decided that we wanted to swim through the first and second biggest as well. They’re both in Norway in the Arctic Circle, the idea is to swim from one side to the other and you have to time it perfectly because there are certain times when the whirlpool would kill you. The currents and the force of the water is extremely powerful, so you have to time your swim with the tides. To find out what tide would be best we worked with a Norweigen ship captain, who calculated a window for us when the tide was at its lowest. It was a 12 minute window. We made the swim 10.42 minutes, with just over a minute to spare.
Do you always seek out adventurous swims like this?
There’s always an element of pursuing adventure with our swims and we also try and promote some form of conservation. For the Arctic Circle swims we got in touch with Nina Jensen who runs WWF Norway. At the time we were going to do the swim they were petitioning against oil drilling rights in the Lufoten Islands; so we partnered with them to raise awareness. During the swim we passed over an area where one of the largest cold water reefs are, it also has a big killer whale population but we tried not to think about that too much! One of the swims was a 10 minute sprint but the other was 8km and we were in the water for 2.5 hours in 9 degree water. It was an experience that none of us will forget.
After that I did some solo swims without Robbie and Jack in the US, in Alcatraz and near the Golden Gate Bridge. There are a lot of great whites and it was the first time I had to deal with that fear, but luckily, I managed to persevere and overcome the fear of Great Whites.
Pursuing adventure and seeking out nature
Will you continue to swim in cold water rather than more temperate climates?
Yes, definitely. We’ve discovered that cold water swimming is much more beneficial, you don’t get the same rush of endorphins in warm water that you get from cold water. For that reason, cold swims appeal to us the most. Also, our Mum lives in Scotland now so we’re always swimming there. I like the challenge of cold water swimming and have done a couple of ice miles – in fact I’m training for one at the moment. It’s been really difficult to organise swims together this year though because of lockdown. Our big brother Robbie lives in Slovakia so finding time to get together and swim has been really hard. At the moment with numerous lockdowns we’re just trying to knuckle down and enjoy our swimming as much as we can, and get our heads around the lido booking situation when they’re open!
What other big swims or challenges have you participated in?
In 2017 we did the Wild Lady of Lochbrun, which is a 13km swim in Scotland. It felt like more than a swim to us because our Grandma is buried at the bottom of it and her house overlooked the loch. It felt like a way that we could connect to her, and we also raised awareness for the Scottish Wild Cat population. Then in 2018 we did the Europe to Asia swim. For this swim you pass across the Turkish divide which is where Troy and Gallipol are. It’s absolutely amazing that once a year they close the shipping lane so that people can complete the 2 hour swim. Only a handful of Westerners do it and the rest are Turkish people. One of the best things is when you see an open water swimming community in another country. I feel like each culture has a different swimming style. For us it’s wetsuits, hats and goggles but for them it’s budgie smugglers and sheer determination.
Can you describe what swimming in open water is like? How does it make you feel?
Open water swimming stands out because it’s like a really intense meditation. You can’t see anything other than the semi-horizon above the water and whatever is underneath you, plus there’s a lot of breath work. All of meditation is about calming your mind and focusing on your breathing and that’s exactly what open water swimming does. It completely empties your mind – all you’re doing is focusing on your breathing and because you’re in a state of perpetual motion it heightens the sense of release that can come through meditation. It’s like when you’re on a really long car journey and you're gazing out the window then suddenly a few hours have gone by. You induce that kind of state when swimming over a significant distance, it feels like time is passing you by and yet you remain suspended in the moment.
The Wild Swimming Brothers open water swimming in the Artic Circle (photo credit: James Silson)
What’s the furthest you have swum in one day?
It’s funny because the longest swim I’ve done I really didn’t enjoy, it was 7 hours in 30 degree heat and I was tired. I was in Malaysia, I hadn’t trained hard enough and I got badly sunburnt. Everyone else was covered in suncream from head to toe but I only had a little bit on my face – it was the biggest rookie error that I’ve made whilst swimming. The great thing about that swim though was the wildlife, I saw a lot of reef sharks, black tips sharks and jellyfish which added a whole new level to the swim. I think the different places you can go and the different environments that you can enter into is part of what makes wild swimming so amazing.
What’s your favourite type of swim?
There’s different things you can gain from different swims. Going without a wetsuit is beneficial because of the effects of cold water, open water swimming is beneficial because of the meditative state that you enter into and the amount of exercise that you are doing. In fact, all manner of swimming is beneficial in its own way.
Finally, what would you say to someone who is considering getting into the water?
The number of people who would benefit from going swimming is everyone. Swimming isn’t cost prohibitive and even if your ability is low you can still go for a dip as long as you’ve got the basics. There’s nothing stopping you from getting into open water and that in itself is extremely valuable. Plus, it allows you to connect to some of our wildest places. For a country that is so densely populated, it’s amazing to think that you can still escape to wild places. And these places are not just in Cornwall, they’re everywhere – all you have to do is look for them.
ENDS
Calum’s interest in conservation has lead to him to create a satirical online newspaper called The Platypus, which you can view here. The newspaper utilises humour as a mechanism to shine a mirror back on our actions and question the status quo of how we treat the environment. If you’re up for a bit of ridiculousness then I wholeheartedly recommend giving it a read.
Calum pausing for breath in the artic next to some of the world’s largest cold water reefs
