Channel Swim 22: Dover!

note: yes I know there’s a post missing. It’s written, but I’m not ready to publish it. I might add it in one day, which is why I’m leaving a gap.

Monday, July 6th, 2020. 8:15 am.

As the road curves between two hills, the port of Dover is suddenly laid out in front of me, the ferry terminal on the left and what is unmistakably swimmers beach on the right. It’s a glorious day. Sunny but with some cloud cover, and although there’s some wind, the water is lying flat and well behaved. I’m in Dover to swim – but it’s not THE swim, not for me, anyway.

Miraculously, the overall channel swimming picture has transformed almost overnight. The government has released private vessels to work, the CSA has defined processes and procedures to keep swimmers and crew safe, and the french and english together have eased restrictions that would have resulted in swimmers having to quarantine for two weeks after each successful swim.

The first swimmers are going off this coming Friday. I’m envious that they are getting to go, and bemused that some of them have managed to maintain enough fitness to go only seven weeks after lockdown was lifted.

Dover Channel Training offered two week long training camps. I’m not sure they intended to allow it, but I immediately booked onto both. This was my first day in Dover – the plan is for us to swim two hours today, four on Tuesday, three on Wednesday, then seven on Thursday and six on Friday. The 7/6 is seen as the big test of channel readiness – if I can do two over the next two weeks then I’ve got to be in good shape for a swim attempt in September.

Monday, July 6th, 2020, 10:00 am

I’m an hour into the first swim, and I can feel the welcome warmth of strong sun on my back. It’s been a fascinating experience so far. Six of us are swimming; DTC have taken great care to make sure we all are safe, with masks worn on the beach (which, I can’t lie, has impacted communication, ‘WHAT?’ being the most common phrase heard), disinfectant for the beach shoes and everyone being careful, to the point it took me a while to work out the kayak alongside me right now was Paul from our group and not just some local weirdo obsessed with my swimming form. I’m pretty sure the beard was a lockdown special and I hadn’t been able to see it on the beach thanks to the facemasks.

Apparently being greased up is usually part of the experience, but having to do ourselves is just one more hardship inflicted on 2020 swimmers. I paid special attention to neck and armpits with the vaseline, but was expecting to find it easier on following days by looking for the already sore bits.

The water is a toasty 15.5 degrees, and the right hand side of the circuit is flat with golden beams of sunlight that cut through the water in front of my hands as I lope easily along. The left hand side of the circuit is lumpy and irregularly choppy and every time I swim down there heavy black clouds roll over. It’s properly strange.

I’ve not got a huge amount of experience sea swimming over distance, so I was relieved to hear the rest of the group discussing the ‘washing machine’ on the left hand side – it didn’t cause any of us a problem, myself included, but it apparently wasn’t nothing either. It’s hard to explain, but there was no rhyme or reason to the chop – the constrained water in the harbour meant you could get smacked from any direction at any interval.

The sea tastes fine – I was expecting a diesel flavour, but it’s nothing like that, and I manage to avoid taking any mouthfuls of salt water down. As I power across the harbour I look to my right and see a massive P&O ferry gliding past. Later I joked that if someone had been in the right place to take the photo at that moment I could skip the whole ‘swim the channel’ bit, and just framed that.

With the two hours nearly up I turned and headed for the shore. I’d miscalculated slightly and arrived two minutes early. True to form, Mandi from DTC made me swim to the nearest groyne bucket and back again before she let me out.

As I climb out I realise I can’t wait for the four hours tomorrow.

Tuesday, July 7th, 2020, 13:02 pm

Done. The day started with the harbour like glass, the first two hours almost like a romp in a salty lake. Then… it wasn’t glassy anymore. No huge changes, but a bunch of things all started happening at once. Some sneaky strong currents appeared, forcing swimmers against the first set of yellow buoys then making it really hard to bridge from the red to green markers at the right hand side of the swimming area. The waves picked up and it became increasingly hard to sight as the marker buoys disappeared whenever you were trying to look for the next one.

As the increasingly testy water started to mix we found ourselves swimming from warm patches to savagely cold ones that stretched for a couple of hundred meters at a time. After all the training I’m ok with the cold, but I was not enjoying the rapid transitions coming four or five times every 2k lap.

We’d been practicing our feeding, with the first feed coming on the beach at two hours. I’d not had mildly warm energy drink before (I seem to remember the experts advising against it) but I quickly decided I liked it. A fast feed, ‘Nice and efficient’ ringing out as feedback, and I threw myself in for the next hour.

Second feed was from Paul in the kayak – this time it seemed much harder to swallow the fuel, but i couldn’t put my finger on why. Although it took twice as long, I was soon on the way for the final hour. Its worth saying at this point that Emma, Paul and Mandi from DCT were amazing all week, popping up on the kayak, customising our feeds and always on hand for a reassuring or encouraging word when needed. The week’s training was definitely a bargain.

I’d spent the entire swim racking my brains trying to work out where I knew Phil, in our group, from. As I started the final leg, my subconcious finally came up with the goods. Turns out we’d spent some time together before. It’s amazing how complicated but connected the OW swim community actually is, and with hindsight it’s really not surprising that two people mad enough to swim in a icy lido have similar goals in mind.

Everyone felt a bit wobbly when they got out. As I watched half my team race for warm clothing and the other Iying on the beach groaning quietly feeling sick I realised that I may be one of the slowest swimmers in the group, but it did feel like I was dealing with the swell and the cold a little better than the others. It may make me a small minded individual, but this was a massive confidence boost I really needed.

Wednesday, July 8th, 2020, 12:02 pm

The three hour swim today is a bit of a weird one. Normally long enough to be boring, the seven hour swim tomorrow is on everyone’s mind, so it’s a more somber group entering the water. The fact it’s chucking it down probably doesn’t help anyone mood. Fortunately for the shore crew, it stops raining pretty much as we hit the water, and although it remains gloomy and dark it stays dry for the rest of the swim.

I was concentrating on gliding along efficiently, expending the bare minimum of energy and making sure I was in the best possible shape for the next couple of days.

I did have an epiphany in the water. I’ve been desparate to get my pace above 3 km/h, which I’d hit before lockdown. I’d convinced myself if I didnt, I was facing a 19-20 hour swim. As I swum, two things occurred to me. The first was that the 3 km/h had only happened in the pool, with dead flat water, people to chase, ends to push off of and all sorts of little rests as you take a drink or check the drill sheet. The second was that even 2.5km/h, assuming a 33k distance, puts you at the finish line in just over 13 hours.

My easy, loping, all day pace is pretty much bang on 2.5 km/h. Faster is always better, but if things stay as they are, I still should be able to get across in a lot less than 19 hours.

Almost before we knew it, the three hours was up and we all scrambled out. Everyone was in a better place today, and holding up to the repeated punishment well. I headed off as soon as i politely could, intending to spend the rest of the day under a duvet stuffing as much food down me as I could handle.

Thursday, July 9th, 2020. 2:05 pm.

As I rotate to take a huge breath a wave breaks over me from behind and I have to hurriedly shut my mouth and hold on for another couple of strokes. With a force five gale blowing outside, this is happening every four or five breaths, and because we are in a harbour with three big walls the waves can be coming from any direction. It’s brutal and bruising and we’ve been fighting this for over five hours now. The constant fight is taking a toll on our small group of soloists, and has slowed my pace a bit. Although I feel just as strong swimming, I’m fed up with being smacked in the face by waves when I sight, when I breath, when I sit up to adjust something or when I wade back into the water after a feed.

On the positive side, we’ve only got two hours to go. I’m not going to quit now.

I’ve been enjoying the feed, with chocolate Ucan being my favourite. Emma made me a tea for the second feed, and my salt nuked tongue couldn’t taste anything, while I spent the next twenty minutes burping my way around the course. Being able to chalk tea off my swim feed lists is a valuable discovery in itself.

Before I knew it, there was a couple of minutes left and I pulled into the beach and eventually managed to drag myself up the stones. My knees are sore and I can’t work out if its the swimming or being smacked repeatedly on the steep beach exit. I’d spent the last two hours fantasizing about pineapple chunks I had in my bag and demolished them in seconds. I quickly moved on to a banana. I would later consume a large McDonalds on the drive back to the campsite, then have a normal dinner.

While munching I tried to assess the damage. I flexed my elbows and rotated my shoulders; no issues. I stretched my back, lower and upper, no issues. Just as I thought I’d got away with the day without any complications, I took off my swim hat and everyone fell about laughing. I had what was uncharitably described as a ‘Reverse Friar Tuck’ tan where the cap had been sitting. By the time I get through the second week, this could be a long term issue…

On the plus side, I think I’ve made a bunch of new friends. In particular, Helen is an Ice Mile Swimmer and has promised to show me the ropes.

Heh. I swam half the channel today.

Friday, July 10th, 2020. 3:05 pm.

I was expecting today to be a painful endurefest, but woke up feeling good. It took twenty minutes or so for the muscles to loosen, but I was soon bombing up and down the harbour at a solid all day pace. The sun was shining again, and the water was flat, so we all felt good. This lasted for the first four hours, and although I was tired for the last hour or so, I could have done more if I’d needed to – but because our friend the chop was back, I was glad I didn’t have to.

As I dragged myself up the beach for the final time this week, Max from my crew turned up. I think he was expecting me to be in bits, so I’m hoping he was pleasantly surprised as I waved cheerily at him over my tea. We were all in reasonably good shape; although I’d had enough of swimming for the week, Donna and Helen were planning to join the night swim organised for later.

I said goodbye to the rest of the group – It’s been great spending a week with everyone and I’m going to enjoy watching them make their way across the channel later in the year.

It was a fascinating test – I’ve swum over 50k this week. I’ve got a weekend off, then I’m doing the whole thing again. I’m hoping knowing what’s coming will make it easier.