The White Horse, and David & Sherrie

It has been a little over 3 weeks since we completed our swim across the channel. Things are pretty much back to normal, but I still have one more post in me.

Just after we reached France and Tim got back in the boat, we took a group picture a group picture at the bow of the boat with France in the background.









Our pilot across the channel was Reg Brickell. If you decide to cross the channel, he's the guy to get you there.

Thank you Reg.




It was a two hour boat ride back to England, and the first place we headed to was The White Horse. The White Horse is the tavern in Dover where all the channel swimmers sign their names on the wall (or the ceiling). As we headed over there I wasn't expecting any kind of a reception, but to my surprise we got one. David and his friend Sherrie were there to welcome us. David and Sherrie are from Oregon, and David swam the channel solo two days after we did with the same pilot and support boat we used.

I have only known David for about six months. I met him on a training swim out at Hagg Lake. We have a cold water swimmers email list. I didn't know most of the swimmers on the list, but when you would want to do a practice swim in a cold lake, and didn't want to swim alone you'd send an email out with your intentions and see if anyone could join you. At one of those Saturday morning meetings I met David. He was smiling and wanted to take a group picture. I think he took pictures both before and after we swam, and he was always smiling. Over the months training I ran into David many more times, and he was always smiling, and always taking a group picture. He must have about 50 pictures of me, but I had to ask my fellow relay teammates for a picture of David. I feel a little embarrassed.


Here is a picture of David and Sherrie. Note that David is smiling.











Now back to The White Horse. When we entered the tavern there was a big banner that David and Sherrie had placed on the wall. It read, "Congratulations". We got a big table, sat down, and David started with the presentations. First he gave each of us a postcard with a personal note. Mine read, "Jim, Big congratulations on your first English Channel relay crossing! Go Oregon Quacks!", and both David and Sherrie signed it. Next gave us all baseball caps with the words, "Channel Relay", and finally he gave us all engraved medals with the words, "Channel Relay 2010". This was all totally unexpected, and very much appreciated.

Next he took a group picture of all of us, and we all handed him our cameras to get a group picture too. Next he brought out a video camera, and wanted to interview all of us. I can't remember what I said, but David was smiling the whole time.


Here we are at The White Horse. Drew, Tim, and myself on the back row, and Natalie, Mirjana, and Joni in the front row. I noticed Drew and I didn't have much of a smile. I guess we were pretty tired. Notice the congratulations sign on the wall.









David and Sherrie,
Thank you for the warm reception you gave us at The White Horse. It made it all the more special. Your the greatest!

Joni,
Thank you for inviting me to be on your team. It was a great experience.

Reflecting on the Swim

We are now all back in Oregon, and I think I am mostly over the jet lag from the trip back. I had planned on putting a few more posts on the blog about the swim itself before now, but we got busy site seeing. The swim was great. I think we were all physically well prepared. We had been training in water that was at times 10 degrees colder than the channel. I found the mental part of it more of a challenge, but even that wasn't bad. We were swimming in "the English Channel". I found it surreal. Ever since I was very young I can remember hearing about people swimming the English Channel and I now I was here.

On the morning of the swim we met our met our pilot and the boat at 2:45 AM at the Dover marina. There we about 50 other people there and about 8 other boats also taking people out to swim the channel either solo or as relays. Not all of the people were getting on the boats. Some were just there to see people off. I think our boat was about the last to leave. We traveled out of the harbor and to a beach about 20 minutes away. It was still very dark when the beach where we started. Joni was our first swimmer. She put a flashing light attached to her goggle strap and a light stick was attached to the back of her swimsuit so we could easily see her in the water. Joni entered the water, swam to shore, and got out on the beach. The boat horn sounded marking the beginning of our swim, and Joni went back in the water and started to swim. I am glad Joni did the first leg. It seemed a little creepy to me. Swimming in the ocean at night with lights attached to you, seems like your just a big fishing lure. Again, I am glad Joni was doing it.

Joni completed her swim, and Drew swam second. Towards the end of Drew's swim we started overtaking boats of other swimmers. We heard from Reg, our captain, that a solo swimmer dropped out after two hours. I wonder what happened. In order to submit an application to swim the channel, you needed to have completed a 6 hour swim in water colder that 60 degrees.

Drew completed his swim and I got in the water. The water was clearer than the harbor. It was greenish-blue, and the visibility seemed to be about 12 to 15 feet. As I swam along the only thing I saw was occasional jellyfish. They were small, about 2 to 3 inches in diameter, and easy to see below me. The water was much clearer than Dover harbor were we had be practicing.

The English Channel is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, and on my first leg I to swim in a circle to avoid a big ship. When swimming in the channel you swim alongside your pilot boat. The boat captain does the navigation for you. If he sees a big ship is coming too close, he just swims you around in a circle to let the ship pass. This meant I had the honor of being the only person in our relay that got to spend some time swimming towards England. :-)

I got to swim two legs. The first leg was a little choppy, and the second one was much smoother. With the choppy water I covered must less distance. Prior to doing the swim I was hoping to get some choppy water to swim. I know this may sound a little crazy, but if I was going to swim the English Channel. I wanted it to be the typical choppy English Channel that I have hear about. After a few minutes in the water I decided didn't need the chop. And, when I say, "chop", I don't think anyone in the boat would have thought of it as chop. While swimming, I did run into a piece of kelp. It startled me enough that the people on the boat noticed I jerked.

For my second leg the water was very smooth, and I felt like I covered a good distance. I couldn't see too much on my second swim because my goggles fogged up almost as soon as I got in the water. I kept on thinking I would stop and clear them in a few minutes, but somehow that never happened.

Tim got to be the one to finish up the swim 24 minutes into his second leg. Our total time was 10:24. Where we finished in France there was a rocky shore with a cliff above, and a view point on the top of the cliff. There were several people at the viewpoint as Tim approached the shore. By the time he reached the shore and climbed out there must have been about 40 people at the viewpoint. It was nice to have an audience to cheer us as we finished. When Tim reached the shore we all cheered, and the captain blew the boat horn. Tim picked up some rocks on the shore for each of us, so we all have a little piece of France to help us remember our experience. Tim got a ride in the dingy back to the boat and we headed back to Dover.

It was a truly a great experience and something I'll always remember. My teammates were all great too, and I thank Joni for inviting me to be on the team.

Observer's Video

Here is a link to a youtube video that was done by our observer Mikee. He loves editing with music & special effects.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY4m7qSNOpo&NR=1

Dover Harbor

Now that things have settled down a bit and I have a better internet connection, I thought I would go back and give more details about the practice in Dover harbor and, in another post, the swim itself.

Dover harbor is fairly good size. It has room for small fishing boats, cruise ships to dock, ferry boats to Europe, and an area for swimmers. The swim area is between two large walls 2200 meters apart that extend out from the beach. The walls have two large white marks, and the swimmers are not to go past the white mark. Our daily practice was to swim from the beach out to the white marks on one wall, to the white marks on the other wall, and back to the beach. On the last day I took my camera along and got pictures of Natalie, Joni, David, and myself. David wasn't on our relay. He was here to swim the channel solo, which he completed Monday. Congratulations David! As you can see from the pictures we weren't working too hard. You can see Dover Castle in the background on a few of the pictures.







David in Dover harbor last Friday with the wall in the background.












Jim and Natalie in Dover harbor with the white cliffs of Dover in the background.








Natalie in Dover harbor with Dover castle on the hill in the background. The white building directly behind her is the Premier Inn where we stayed.











Joni in Dover Harbor

Swim Pictures

Below are some pictures of the swimmers as they swam the English Channel as part of the Oregon Quacks relay.

(left) Natalie going strong on her leg of the relay. She pretty much did her swim dead center of the English Channel.

(right) Mirjana on her first swim. She swam in the English Shipping Lane for this swim.

(left) Andrew on his second swim in the channel. This would have been in the French shipping lane.

(right) Jim on his first swim with the White Cliffs in the background as we enter the English Shipping Lane.

(left) Tim on his first swim. This would be in the Separation zone which is the area in the Channel that separates the two shipping lanes.

(right) Joni on her second swim going from the Separation zone into the French Shipping Lane.

And here is what happens after your swim......

Jim took a snooze, but kept his cap in hand to be ready for the next swim!

THEY MADE IT TO FRANCE! (correction)

The time they completed the swim was 1:47.

Also, a big THANK YOU to Joni for all her work in organizing this relay team. The experience for many of the relay team swimmers would not have been possible without her. Thank you, Joni.

THEY MADE IT TO FRANCE!

Tim started his second swim at 1:23 PM. Right before Tim got into the water I received a text stating "France looks really big now." About 30 minutes into the swim, at 1:52 PM, Tim was standing on France soil. The swim took 10 hours and 24 minutes, which is a good time. The boat is now on its way back to Dover and is expected to arrive around 4:00. The relay team will make their way to a pub called The White Horse to sign one of the walls (or ceiling) to celebrate their accomplishment. Only those individuals who successfully cross the Channel are allowed to sign the wall.

Congratulations to Joni, Drew, Jim, Mirjana, Tim and Natalie for your success. Also, thank you to Cameron for filming the swim, which included training sessions. Cameron, Jim's youngest son, will be making a video of this noteworthy experience.