Swimming The Channel – Well, part of it

By Adam Smith

Faced with the unenviable task of swimming from Dover to Cap Gris Nez I thought It might be interesting to compile a detailed and graphic diary of what ended up being the most ‘grim’ 12hrs 31mins of my life. Arriving in high sprits the team assembled on “swimmers beach” for one final swim before the big event. The weather from that point started to turn for the worse and the news filtered down during dinner that swim had been postponed. Slightly anxious, and at the same time slightly relieved, the next 24hrs were a blur of boredom and anticipation. But at 11.30am Monday 23rd of June; six bizarrely dressed figures made the final preparation to set foot on the good ship “Roco”; 33ft of luxury.

Glad to be leaving, the real task at hand didn’t really ‘sink’ in till bow of boat crossed the harbour entrance, and the open sea confronted us for the first time. Having spend the last 7 weeks training in Dover harbour in temperatures of as low as 8 degrees nothing had prepared us for the motion we due to feel for the next 14 hours.

We reached the start point at Shakespeare Beach, a nervous, greased up individual jumped in to begin the swim from the shore.

Brief rules;
“Swimmers must start and finish from the shore, they must swim for an hour at a time, they must not touch the boat or other swimmer in that time, and lastly they must do it wearing nothing but ONE standard costume, ONE hat and a pair of goggles”.

The first hour was spend getting truly clattered by waves and swallowing the odd pint of salt water, whilst trying not to think about what things might be swimming in there with me. When the hour was up I swapped over to the second swimmer relieved my swim was over. However it had turned out conditions on the boat was much worse than the ones in the water, but it was our confident Anglia News reporter who stole show by carrying out interviews whilst filling up her bright orange bucket!

Passing ships the size of skyscrapers through four busy shipping lanes we soon reached the half way point where a wreath was laid in memory of our friend. As the swim went on more and more people became confined to flats of their backs as the almost stationery boat rolled with waves. As the sun set; the shadow of the French coast got nearer and nearer until the pitch black set in. Finally 02.10am it was time to hopefully jump in to complete the last 780 nautical metres; crossing the infamous ‘magic roundabout current’ (which can add an additional 4 hours to the swim). At 0241 I climbed, Walliams esc onto the rocks we had done it! Back in Blighty, champagne was the order of the day as the sense of achievement was still settling in.