The first few hours

As soon as I started swimming, I realised I hadn't got a proper seal on my goggles and water was slowly seeping in. I stopped every couple of minutes to tip my head back, drain them and try to seal them properly but I was getting a bit frustrated.

I didn't want to stop because I'd heard so many times that a minute wasted in England could mean an extra hour swimming in France. Eventually, though, I had to stop as I knew I'd lose more time in the long run having to keep emptying the goggles. I took them off, tightened the strap a few notches and put them back on.

I had also heard about pilots who told their swimmers (with varying degrees of politeness) to stop wasting time and get on with it. I called up to the boat that I was just fixing my goggles and Dave's reassuring Scottish tones wafted over: "Don't worry, love, you just take your time. Better to get them sorted now. You take all the time you need." I instantly felt much calmer. The goggles were soon back on, with a proper seal, and I settled down to swim.

Ten minutes in.

Swimming into the sunrise - magic.

When I breathed I could see the white cliffs on either side and I was so excited. I had dreamed of this moment for so long and now that it was here I wanted to enjoy all that it was.

The water was quite calm just off the coast but once we moved further away from land, it started to get a bit bumpy. The wind was behind us and quite gusty; every so often a wave would pick me up and push me forwards (I was quite happy to surf my way to France) but then the chop would hit from either side and it was hard to get a rhythm.

Just after the first feed, so one hour in, and there were big brown patches. It was probably just silt as it didn't taste unpleasant or smell, it just gave me quite a ridiculous beard which John said he found amusing at the first couple of feeds.

I counted my second feed (two hours in), my third feed (two and a half hours in), my fourth feed (three hours in); I didn't want to be counting them but I couldn't seem to help myself. I don't like to know the time when I'm swimming, I just like to drift along with it all. But this time, I was completely present in every stroke. This was no bad thing, as I was determined to appreciate all of it, but I still didn't want to know how long I'd been going.

On the second feed my only words were, "This is a bit f***ing bumpy." John was using my back-up bottle for my feeds, which I couldn't understand because he knows which bottle I prefer. I was determined not to be a pain in the a**e swimmer (this time (because I have been known to have my diva moments in the past)) so I didn't say anything but I couldn't get a decent airflow with the back-up bottle. By the third feed, though, John had switched to my proper bottle, so I think maybe at some point my diva sneaked out and demanded, "Other bottle." The feeds then went down much quicker.

Three hours in and the water was much cleaner.

I had a rough idea that the first shipping lane was about 10 km into the swim, which I thought would take me about 3 hours. So when the fifth feed came and went and I still hadn't seen a ship, I started to get a bit anxious. I knew I wasn't going terribly fast because I still couldn't find a rhythm in the uneven chop, but I didn't think I was going that slowly.

And then, behind me, I saw it. My first ship. I was ridiculously excited. And it meant that I was already well into the shipping lane.

I was, at this moment, sticking my head up to say to John, "This is so f***ing exciting."

I then looked forwards to see what looked like a solid bumper-to-bumper line of ships cruising down the south west shipping lane. But the shipping lane is four miles wide, so these ships weren't actually in one long line, it just appeared as though they were from a distance.

I didn't see too much of John and Jane during this time. The sides of the boat were quite high, so when I turned my head to breathe, I wasn't rotating enough to see them. The only time I was aware of them was when the feeding pole came down to me.

With the wind behind us, it blew the diesel fumes from the exhaust at the stern towards the bow, so Eddie positioned the boat just ahead of me so that I wouldn't be breathing in the fumes, and I swam alongside the stern.

Hanging off the back was a little dinghy that would shepherd me into shore on the French side. I spent a good few hours looking at that boat, dreaming of the moment I would see it being lowered into the water, meaning I was there! And then I realised that I didn't want to wish the day away; that time would come anyway so I should just concentrate on the here and now, which is exactly what I spent the rest of the day doing.

The only time the diesel fumes were really an issue was at the feeds, where I had to be in the middle of the boat, which meant that while I was trying to drink, I was also breathing in the fumes. Having me slightly behind the boat must have been hard work for Eddie because he would have always had to try and keep just in front of me, while not losing sight of me.

On one feed, Jane told me to swim up by the bow to see if that made any difference. It was probably easier for Eddie but I had been OK at the back of the boat. A couple of feeds later and Jane told me to switch to the starboard side of the boat. The sun had moved over its zenith and they didn't want me swimming in the shadow of the boat and potentially getting colder, although the cold was the furthest thing from my mind. As we headed over to France it was warming up from 17 degrees to 20 degrees.

Fortunately, I started to lose count of the feeds after about four hours and time drifted by. There was a small crisis on the boat at one point when the lid of my drink bottle came off and fell overboard while the A-team was preparing a feed. Not wanting to go back to dodgy back-up bottle, Jane used one of Kevin's feed bottles. It was a perfect drink bottle - good airflow, good nozzle, decent flip top, and a proper screw cap (it's amazing how technical a drink bottle can be to a swimmer!) I'm disappointed I forgot to buy a couple before I came home.

I remember coming into the boat for a feed at maybe six and a half hours and saying, "Having a bit of a sticky patch." I had just started to feel a little grumpy, so I simply reminded myself how bad the Channel can be, how magnificent it was on my day, and how I had nothing to grumble about.

At every feed, Jane told me how well I was doing. John often tells me I'm swimming well but I know he says it because he loves me. But I believed everything Jane said; I thought that Jane must know, having been on a support boat so many times. Her words were reassuring at every feed and kept me buoyant.

And so I swam on. The first three hours were a little tough with the chop, the middle five hours were fantastic - the water had levelled out, I found a wonderful rhythm, I was completely happy, and then there were the last three hours, where getting in to France was as tough as I had imagined.