Product Description

Following the huge success of last summer's best-selling Wild Swimming (a guide to the very best inland dips), Punk Publishing is launching its brand new companion guide - Wild Swimming: Coast. With this salty 'sea-quel' you can discover and enjoy over 300 magical swims, adventures and days out at some of the least discovered parts of our stunning coast. From the dolphin-inhabited waters off the Cornish coast, to desert islands in Norfolk, award-winning author Daniel Start leads us away from the crowded, commercial beaches to the lesser-known magical inlets, secret smugglers' coves, majestic rock formations and deep blue lagoons. Illustrated with over 250 spectacular photos and five useful maps, this beautifully produced book is sure to inspire you to discover and enjoy all that's great about our British coast.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1357 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

The perfect guide for swimming around Britain
256 pages absolutely bursting with smugglers' coves, sea caves, watery tunnels, deep rock-pools, hidden lagoons. Not to mention lots of the more conventional beaches we've all paddled along, including some breathtakingly beautiful stretches of white Scottish sand.

Ten years of "research" - if having a whale of a time can be called research - has gone into this labour of love and it shows. Daniel has painstakingly (should that be funmakingly?) put together a complete guide to swimming off the coast of our island home. A series of maps divides Great Britain into five: SouthWest, South&East, Wales, Scotland (with an inevitable bias towards the idyllic NW), "North" (everything-else). This makes it easy to plan your trips.

The book shuns the likes of Fistral Beach in Newquay. This makes sense; you can find beaches like that easily enough without a guide-book. No fewer than 350 less obvious locations are described - 175 as "main entries" and 175 as sub-entries. Here's a typical entry:

66.........Lydden Spout, Dover

Grid ref..TR283387
Postcode.CT17 9HH (2km W)
Walk......20 mins, mod
Train......Dover Priory, 4km
Cycle......Route 2 and 17

Remote undercliff beach. Leave Dover on A20, Samphire Hoe is signed to the L 1.5km up the hill after the last roundabout. Continue down through tunnel to car park. Walk to W end of park (1km) to find beach extending 800m to Lydden Spout cabin and Abbott's Cliff. Shingle at HT, deep rock pools and sand at LT. Avoid sea wall area. On cliff above are tunnels of WW2 battery.

Daniel appends a triangle symbol to the above entry, denoting "Caution Advised". (A few locations have two triangles). Whilst he is clearly not a paid-up member of the Health'n'Safety brigade, he does point out places where you should be extra careful in rough weather, during spring tides, etc. This will be of interest to parents with young children, but would perhaps be of most benefit to teenagers Who Know No Fear. Daniel also provides some sound but never patronising info and advice on general water safety. Some is common sense; much however is not obvious - it wasn't to me anyway.

The book is far more though than a collection of locations. Swimming anecdotes mingle easily with more general information about what you'll find along numerous stretches of coast - flora and fauna, geology, history. Do you know which British seaweeds and crustaceans are edible and how to prepare and cook them? Also, there are overviews with titles like: Where to Find Dolphins, Great for Families and Picnics, Best for Jumps, Skinny Dipping, Cosy Pubs, Literature and Legend.

For a balanced review, I feel I should try and find something I don't like about the book. It's difficult. Okay, I'd prefer the road distances in miles not km.

I can't agree though with the reviewer who said this is a coffee table book. For one thing, the images (all 326 of them) are not consistently perfect. Inspiring, evocative, informative, yes. But they won't win any prizes. Well, one or two might, but most won't.

But none of this matters. Because this is not a book to sit on your coffee-table. Nor will it stand pristinely on your shelves gathering dust. No, this book will live in your rucksack or glove compartment, getting steadily more tatty with time. Its pages will be wrinkled from the splashes kicked up by your children. Its cover will be faded and warped from lying out in the sun. When you shake it, sand will fall out. Eventually, it will fall to bits.

Of all the books you will have owned, none will have had a happier life.

You might also like:
Wild Swimming: 150 Hidden Dips in the Rivers, Lakes and Waterfalls of Britain
Wild Swim: River, Lake, Lido and Sea: the Best Places to Swim Outdoors in Britain
Cool Camping: England (Cool Camping)

A total inspiration - I want to fling off my clothes and dive in ALL around Britain
This a STUNNINGLY beautiful and inspiring book - WAY above your average, or even high class, travel guide.

First, it's a total pleasure to open, browse and be mesmerised by the incredible selection of really top-notch photos, which make it a wonderful coffee table WORK OF ART! Really - I just can't stop dipping into it and lingering leisurely over the imaginative, evocative imagery.

Second, it ALSO does its job - I'm now SO INSPIRED to fling off my clothes and jump into a whole host of best kept secret bays, coves, pools and inlets that I would never have found about otherwise.

And the book size is PERFECT for both the sitting room AND carrying around in the car.

I love this book and if there were 6 stars - I'd have given awarded them!

Thank you Daniel Start for your dedication in creating this (gotta check out your other book now!)

All we need is a warm summer!
I will admit to being slightly biassed - one of the photos in the the book is mine - but in fact the end result is simply fantastic. If you like to seek out worthwhile swimming beaches, this is the guide. If you want to find a beach where no-one is using a mobile phone, where the only people with you have also had to make a real effort to access the secret beach, then this is the guide. Like its older sibling, Wild River Swimming, the book is more than a description of what to expect. There are also tidbits of history, local lore and the like to set you thinking about the places you visit.

Some locations are well known, some are not. Some are naturist friendly (or clothing optional) and you soon come to realize that naturists know their beaches better than anyone.

We have bought several copies as gifts to people who we know like to spend time on remote beaches. We just hope they won't all show up at the same time!