Great Islay Swim

In July 2017, Amanda Fornal joined the expedition team for the Great Islay Swim, a multi-day open-water expedition around Islay, Scotland. Swimmers Justin Fornal, Chad Anderson, and Johnnie Mundell completed the circumnavigation on 29 July 2017. The swim was the first circumnavigational swim of the island.

The expedition combined open-water swimming with historical, environmental, architectural, and whisky-related documentation. It was inspired by Alfred Barnard’s late-nineteenth-century survey of distilleries, published in The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom. The team visited all eight distilleries operating on Islay at the time and expanded the historical record through video, photography, field observations, and sample collection.

Throughout the expedition, the swimmers carried the official flag of The Explorers Club United Kingdom Chapter. Sea captain Gus Newman of Islay Sea Adventures helped the team navigate changing weather, tides, and coastal conditions. Kayak crews provided route support, safety monitoring, and food for the swimmers.

Conditions included large swells along Islay’s northern coast, opposing wind and tide in the southeast, and strong currents through the Sound of Islay.

Field Documentation and Research

The expedition’s land team collected water, peat, and barley samples associated with the island’s distilleries. A botanist collected local plant samples, while kayak teams documented marine flora and fauna encountered around the island.

Architectural historian James Sexton examined historic buildings and ruins along the route. Amanda Fornal’s photographic archive documents the expedition, its support crews, the island’s distilleries, whisky production, peat cutting, coastal landscapes, architecture, and historic sites.

The Explorer’s Cask

The expedition transported a 30-gallon oak cask and filled it incrementally with whisky from each of Islay’s eight operating distilleries.

The resulting blended malt became known as the Explorer’s Cask. It was offered through the independent bottler Single Cask Nation as a limited charity bottling benefiting the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.