Pre Swim Report
At around 9:30am, Sakura and myself (Nick) are going to try and swim around Guernsey, a reported 28 miles, but tidal thankfully!
It's been done twice before, but none of the knowledge gleaned on those swims has been used for this one! This is the most under-prepared we have ever been for a swim!
We were initially hoping to do a 3-man relay with Deirdre Ward too, but she had to fly home this morning! We saw the boat today, and didn't fancy spending any time on it more than necessary, so decided to swim side by side all the way round, ie two solos!!
We have borrowed about 400g of maxim and have plenty of jelly babies and mini rolls now. We have none of the required kit for a solo!
At their club swim tonight we managed to find a kind swimmer, Becky, who has agreed to crew for us. She has no crewing experience. Without her, it would have been Barry (the politician) our pilot doing all the steering and feeding us, as we only found out today it would be just him on the boat, that he's borrowed from a fisherman mate
Really rather windy down at the harbour, and this is the non-windy side; not a good omen!!
Post Swim Report
So how did it go?? Well...BADLY!!
When we got down to the harbour on the protected side of the island, the flags were standing firmly to attention and it was jolly windy! Not promising! Our pilot assured us that it was going to die down, and that before coming to the harbour, he'd checked out the other coast and all was well!!
Then to reassure two already nervous swimmers, our pilot got out his photos. There were a dozen photos of sharks they had caught recently where we were swimming! One, I am sure docile, was a 3m thresher shark. This had us brimming with confidence, along with the fact that he'd never escorted a swimmer before!!
We motored round to the start anyway, and when we got close Sakura and I suncreamed up (pointless) and then applied the usual grease. Thank you to Deirdre for giving us her suncream as we had little of our own due to the 100ml airport limits. We then were driven out from the sheltered bay and told to get in by a large yellow pole, so we did. After a quick wee and google faff we started swimming, at 9:30am.
The first hour of the swim was miserable. We were both cold and it was rough. I got stung by a very nasty jellyfish, and have nasty welts on my arm from it today. At the first feed, after one hour of swimming, we both agreed we weren't having a lot of fun.
All of you open water swimmers will appreciate that you want the boat next to you, and you are guided along. The first couple of hours we had this, but from then on it was a game of cat and mouse, and we had to follow the smelly, diesel spewing fishing boat which was between 20m and 100m from us for the rest of the swim. Lots of sighting and feeling lonely!
By two hours we got to the top of the island, and started on the exposed side, and it was far far rougher! This went on until the end of the swim.
We enjoyed hourly feeds of "borrowed the night before" unflavoured maxim until 4 hours, and at this point we were incredibly miserable. Sakura decided it really wasn't for her and wanted to get out, but swam on for another half an hour to make sure. Clever girl got out at the 4.5 hour feed. A very wise decision!
I was then even more lonely, as I have lost my companion, was chasing a boat and as I only breath to the right, an anticlockwise swim is DULL. I just had waves, the odd sea gull and a grey sky to look at!
I then had the pleasure of seeing Sakura chucking up off the back of the boat, which I then had to swim through. FUN!
I dug in, and thought I really ought to get the job done, so I carried on until I made it back to that crappy yellow post 9 hours and 44 minutes after starting. This was only of the hardest and most miserable swims I have ever done! We shouldn't have gone out in that weather, and we shouldn't have done a solo with zero kit or preparation. Foolish to the extreme!
In life and swimming, one should always look for some positives; not easy this swim, but here they are:
- Neither of us got sun burnt as we didn't see the sun all day!
- I got to swim through Sakura's vomit!
- A Serpie is the third person to ever make this swim
- Our pilot turned out to be INCREDIBLY knowledgeable and attentive; amazing chap.
- Becky Simmons who jumped in to crew for us, was absolutely exceptional! She had just finished a night shift and came straight to the swim, then had another night shift 2 hours after we got home! A display of selfless support and love; humbling!
- Sakura made a good call, and I am a stubborn idiot!
- Swimming for nearly ten hours must have helped my diet!!
If any of you are tempted to do this swim, do please drop me a line, as we'd be more than willing to help!
Guernsey Solo Completed
