I know its been a while since I updated my blog but I was in quite a depression following last years attempt! Silly I know - its only a swim!!
Anyway as an update - I tried again!! Well this time as a relay but that didn't go as planned either! I started the year with 4 of us but slowly over the firth coming months people dropped out and then others joined and then dropped out! It culminated in just the 2 of us swimming week commencing 3-5th August - Fred Mardle our pilot.
Dave Fawkner was my other fellow swimmer - thats him above. Dave is lovely and very lean and fit - I don't think he would mind me saying that he didn't have a lot of fat on him and did struggle with the cold!
Anyway we set off at 0403hrs on the 5th August in the dark - I started first and we took it in turns - 1hr each. It was amazing! the water was warm and calm and we made excellent progress. 9 other boats were out in front of us and we began to catch them!
At the 6th hour I spotted something in the water and realised I was swimming with jelly fish - in fact I spent that hour swimming through them and getting stung!
At the 8th hour I swopped sides as the wind had got up and so I swam in the lea of the boat! Unfortunately I nearly ended up under the boat a couple of times and the weather got worse! I looked up at the boat and asked how far there was to go! Fred said we were standing still and had another 6 miles to go! We had covered 20 miles and could see the lighthouse at Cap Gris Nez! We were almost there but it was just too rough to continue!
We stopped the swim at 8hrs 34mins! Foiled again!!
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