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.