Floating

“Water has always had the magical power to cure…” writes Roger Deakin in his bestseller Waterlog. This reasoning served as the inspiration for Minihane to take his new obsession with wild swimming to greater heights, with the goal of swimming in every river, lake, lido and bay which Deakin visited on his own swimming trip in the mid-1990s. But beyond his plans to use the journey as a means to see and experience the UK’s most scenic locations, it was also a way of soothing his troubled mind and finding a path back to happiness after finally admitting he had a problem with anxiety. Floating is the story of Joe Minihane’s attempt to retrace the greatest swimming exploration of our time while facing up to his struggles with anxiety by diving right in. A very different book than Deakin’s Waterlog, this is a journey of overcoming emotional and psychological problems with swimming as the medium for recovery. But when Minihane’s endeavour is brought to an unexpected halt and he is unable to escape his anxieties in the water, he must discover the means to face them head-on. Turning to professional help and relying on the support of a growing band of swimming fanatics, he learns why his persistent worrying has developed into crippling anxiety and develops the tools to overcome it.