The Chameleon

Waterlog celebrates the magic of water and the beauty of wild Britain. In 1996 Roger Deakin set out to swim the British Isles. He swam in the sea, in rivers, in streams, tarns, lakes, lochs, ponds, lidos, swimming pools, fens, dykes, moats, aqueducts, waterfalls, flooded quarries and even canals. This funny, wise, delightful book documents his journey. It inspired a movement, creating wild swimmers out of many readers. Detained by water bailiffs in Winchester, intercepted in the Fowey estuary by coastguards, mistaken for a suicide on Camber sands, confronting the Corryvreckan whirlpool in the Hebrides, Deakin discovered just how much of an outsider the native swimmer is to his landlocked, fully-dressed fellow citizens. Waterlog is a personal journey, a bold assertion of the native swimmer's right to roam, and an unforgettable celebration of the magic of water. INTRODUCED BY OLIVIA LAING'A delicious, cleansing, funny, wise and joyful book, so wonderfully full of energy and life’ Jane Gardam''Roger Deakin is the perfect companion for an invigorating armchair swim' Daily Telegraph