Mystical Experience or Medical Emergency? My first experience of cold water swimming in five parts with short video clips

Part 1

I have been coming to Lindisfarne more or less every year since 1992. It is a very special place for both me and Maggie who first discovered the island in 1975 and has been a regular visitor ever since. I am grateful to her that she introduced me to it - and to Northumberland which I also love. I now know Holy Island well and every time I’m up here cross the sands of the Pilgrims’ Way as well as treading the many island paths up in the dunes and along the northern seashore which I particularly love - come rain, shine or wind. The wind is more or less a meteorological constant - whether it blows in from the chilly North Sea and Siberian continental east or breezily finds land fall from the west - still bearing Gulf Stream gathered moisture from the Atlantic. It’s rare for this island to bask in a sense of becalmed luminosity and sustained atmospheric stillness.