Sharing the river

Swimmers witness nature like no other outdoor pursuit, says Sophie Etheridge

There is a moment that only an outdoor swimmer truly knows – the quiet pause between strokes when the rest of the world feels hurried and chaotic. It’s the moment you realise how grateful you are to be immersed in nature, surrounded by things most people never see and rarely appreciate.

Growing up on the south coast, all my early open water swim memories are of the sea. I love sea swimming, but there isn’t always much to look at. These days, most of my swimming is inland, and every time I turn to breathe, I find it exciting that I might catch sight of something new.

Through the seasons, I watch the riverbanks change, but it’s the wildlife that makes each swim feel like a privilege. I regularly see herons, to the point they have names. I enjoy watching the fish, which obviously don’t have names. Swans, cygnets, ducks and their ducklings glide past us. Then there are the kingfishers, those electric flashes of blue that skim the water and vanish into the branches before you’ve even processed what you’ve seen.

But one creature had always eluded me. For ten years I’d hoped to see an otter while swimming, yet every season passed without a glimpse. That changed last year.

I was swimming with a friend who prefers breaststroke, which meant slowing down and keeping my head above the water. If I hadn’t been doing that, I would have missed it entirely. As we approached one of the bridges we often swim under, something moved across the surface – smooth, deliberate, unmistakably alive. It disappeared almost instantly, and for a moment I wondered if it had been a trick of the light. Then a small head popped up.

It took a second for my brain to catch up with my eyes. After a decade of river swimming, I was finally sharing the water with an otter. It crossed in front of me with effortless grace, its body slicing through the water as only a swimmer could dream of. I must have been grinning like a child.

I stopped swimming, and time seemed to stop with me. Watching it move was mesmerising – so fluid, so perfectly adapted to the world I was only borrowing. I couldn’t help thinking how strange we must have looked to it. We were the unusual ones, intruding on its home, its routine, its quiet morning.

That moment reminded me of something important. As swimmers, we enter rivers, lakes, and seas because they bring us joy, calm, and connection. But they are not ours. We are visitors in the homes of creatures who owe us nothing. Every encounter is on their terms.

And when they choose to share a moment with us, even briefly, it feels like a gift.