Last modified on Sun 4 Jul 2021 08.41 EDT
The emerald-green water in Bristol’s floating harbour shimmers invitingly in the warm morning sunshine. A group of seven swimmers check for signs of the harbour master, then for the third time this summer slip quickly into its cool, refreshing embrace, with delighted gasps and gentle splashes.
“It’s so nice. I’m not usually a morning person, but this is like a shot of coffee,” calls Lindsey Cole, 38, before turning and flicking her mermaid tail to break the mirror-flat surface.
Cole and others are not there just for pleasure though: they are deliberately flouting bylaws that prohibit swimming in the docks as part of a mild-mannered civil disobedience campaign aimed at securing public access to urban waterways in the city.