Sunday's Swim

Sunday morning was another swim in Dover Harbour, again, three hours without a feed. The water was pretty lumpy for the first hour (it just gets a lot of wind chop as there's no swell given the shelter from the harbour wall) but then settled down. It didn't feel as warm as on Saturday and the water seemed dirtier as it was more churned up. Perhaps some of the novelty had just worn off and I wasn't quite as excited as the previous day...

Kevin made it down to the beach at about 12.30, given that he hadn't got home from observing for the 19.5 hour swim until 4am. He introduced me to Miyuki from Japan, who already has six solo swims under her belt and, last year, a 29-hour swim on an attempted double crossing. Once, Kevin tells me (as Miyuki speaks no English) she completed a six hour training swim in the harbour and then got the call from her pilot to swim that night. Off she went and swam across the Channel.

Kevin also introduced me to Jackie Cobell, the lady who recently set a new world record for the slowest crossing of the Channel in 28 hours 44 minutes. What an incredible lady.

When Kevin (finally) stopped talking and got in the water for his swim, I headed back to Yorkshire to catch up with family. As I drove away I thought about what it must be like for those who live in southern England who go down to Dover every weekend to train for a season or two in the lead-up to their swim. I feel lucky I have been able to change my training locations, from Coogee to Manly to Balmoral, to keep some interest; I imagine swimming between two walls in Dover harbour could get pretty tedious if you did it every weekend. But then to be a part of that community would be really quite special, and I imagine would leave quite a void after the swim.