Sally Swims

19 swimmers, 12 parents, 2 kayakers, 4 support swimmers and an espresso

The first weekend of the swimming season in Dover! This is my fourth season training in Dover but the first one of which I haven't been specifically working towards a big swim of my own. And it's the first year I've been down to Dover accompanied by 19 kids. Instead I'm taking a break this season to concentrate on working with a group of young swimmers who want to swim to France in a Channel relay (well, potentially two relays).

This is them (and me) on the beach before the start of training

Clissold Swimming Club is a Hackney based kids swimming club. Last year the club's coach, Greg McNeill, asked me if I wanted to get involved in getting the swimmers in the club to do a Channel relay. I said I would on condition that it was not in a pool, but was the real thing... There are 19 swimmers training with the hope of being part of the two teams who are going to attempt to swim the Channel. We only have room for two teams, which means a total of 12 swimmers and 2 reserves. Each individual relay team constitutes 6 swimmers who will, in turn, swim for an hour each until they make land. Each swimmer may have to swim 2, or 3, or more, one hour stints until they reach France.

Since hatching the plot last summer the club has duly booked two boats - number 4 on the tide of the 25 - 31 July and the kids and parents alike have spent much time raising £10 000 for the swim fees, boats and miscellaneous other costs.

It's brilliant helping them prepare for the swim. Some of them are shy and awkward, some extrovert, some charming, some annoying or gobby. No matter what their personality on dry land, when they get in the water and start to swim, they have a fantastic focus and discipline that is great to see. They all have committed a hundred per cent to the swim.

The plan is to have them train in Dover every other weekend between now and the end of July to get them acclimatised to the cold water and the sea conditions. The other weekends we will train in cold water somewhere in London or surrounds. From that we will work out who can hack the cold and the distance and from that we will form two teams to swim to France!

Saturday 3rd May

What better start to the season than blue sky, warm temperatures and virtually flat calm sea. It was like being on holiday but with shingle and tea in polystyrene cups. 19 kids and assorted parents and supporters congregated on the beach to start their training. On the other side of the small concrete wall various Channel aspirants gathered to start their solo training - and were given training plans by Freda. In total the merry band was something near 60 adults and 19 kids sploshing around in mind numbingly cold water...

I dispatched our squad of swimmers off for a 15 minute swim. The plan was to swim between the 'lampposts' that mark the ends of the breakwaters, inside of which a swimmer should not venture unless they want a toasting from Freda and a laceration from a rusty bit of corrugated steel. Accompanying them were 2 safety kayaks and 3 experienced Channel swimmers for support. I set off to swim with them too, but spent most of the swim bobbing around amongst them, treading water, and just watching what they were doing. Fascinating.

I'm so proud of them - they all managed to swim for the allocated time with a minimum of fuss, although keeping their heads in the water may be a bit of an issue (it's hard to put your head in when the water is cold). Will definitely have to work on that one. I thought that they might be freaked out by the murky depths but not a bit of it. A couple of the swimmers complained about the taste of the salt, but that was as far the complaining and protestations went.

An hour of warming up was followed by a second - 20 minute - swim. Again this was completed by all. Some strong swims by a couple of the boys particularly, while the girls had a tendency to swim in a pack. Safety in numbers. Will have to watch out for that - as out in the Channel it obviously won't be an option to swim with a pal. I have to find some way to make them feel slightly more vulnerable (without them being so) and see how that affects them. Hmmm.

All warmed up well and were laughing and joking whilst shivering afterwards. And a parent even offered me an espresso in a proper espresso cup, made on the beach. Now we're talking. Best coffee I've ever had in Dover!

I seem to remember that my first ever swim in Dover was like this: sunny, fun, relaxing. And I thought - wow, this seems more like a day out than hard training. Little was I to know. Ideally - without being too cruel - some bad rough weather and rain will hit us soon, and we can see even more what an amazing journey the kids are going to end up on.

15 mins/20 mins, 10.5 C

Yearning

The winter is a strange time for open water swimmers. More than many we feel the changing of the seasons.

There is nothing quite like an icy cold winter swim at the local lido to wake you up on a Sunday morning. It's wild and frenetic. It's crazy and nerve wracking and over in a flash. It's hilarious. In the winter a ten minute outdoor swim can leave you by turns buzzing and exhilerated; then cold to the bone and exhausted all day, lazing at home heavy-eyed clutching a hot water bottle, longing to sleep off the mild hypothermia.

But for all my love of the comic brutality of winter swimming, sometimes I find myself sitting in the house on a dark winter evening, watching the rain and the trees waving, snuggled up wrapped in slippers and jumpers wondering about that other life I had. Did I really swim in the sea for hours in summer? Was I warm and carefree? Did swimming outdoors seem like a welcome relief from the heat of the day? Did that really happen? Could I go on without the pain in my fingers and on the back of my neck? Was the water really warm enough?

And sometimes even at this time of year, the water at the lido reaches tantillisingly acceptable temperatures allowing more than 15 minutes of almost relaxed swimming. And we rejoice and swim for too long because we can, and get even more cold because we've lost judgement in our excitement. And then the warm spell to be quickly followed by yet another cold spell with clear nights that drive the water temperature back down to hard, painful realms again.

Almost every Sunday morning throughout the winter Gee and Cath and Camilla and I have met up giggling and nervous and excited at the Lido. Gee grins like a chesire cat. She loves each moment, laps it up. Cath studiously compares the lido water temperature to that of the Serpentine and the Ladies pond, where she swims more frequently. Camilla is new to cold water swimming this season and has really taken to it. After each swim she articulates for us her experience of swimming in the water - a reassuring echo of everything that we know to be true, and that those who are not cold water swimmers cannot possibly understand no matter how much you try to explain.

And now spring is on the way and the days inch longer and the water gets a little warmer each week. And we wait, like fidgety little children, for the time when we can go out to play again for longer than fifteen minutes.

The desire to be carefree and open and unrestricted is overwhelming.

Round and round the rugged rocks...

Last weekend a group of swimming friends drove down to Pembrokeshire to visit our friends Sarah and Simon, for Simon's 40th birthday party. The weekend involved a lot of alcohol, a swimming pool shaped cake, some horse riding, coasteering, a karaoke machine, toasted marshmallows and the obligatory Sunday morning swim.

Part of the reason Simon and Sarah moved to Wales was to be near the coast. And how nice to be so near the sea. Saturday was grey, wet and brooding. And windy. Windy enough to force the outdoor centre which was running sea kayaking I'd been planning to cancel. Frustrating. White horses were everywhere though.

Sunday however, was lovely. Fresh and calm and almost bright. Hangovers abounded. I woke up having spent the night throwing up - some bug I contracted at work. Feeling weak and nauseous, I couldn't face breakfast. A swim, however, that was another matter...

A few people went to reccie where we might find the sea. Despite being on the coast, the tide was way out and it was hard to find the sea. We had to find a way to get to the water without having to wade half a mile in knee deep water before being able to swim. In the end we chose a 'cockle picker' route, walking for a few minutes along an inlet where the river met the sea, then ceremoniously casting off clothes and shoes and walking in a mad crocodile procession of cossies and bare feet, hat and goggles, with only towels to keep us warm, in the start of winter, across the mud and sand in search of the water... It was some sort of crazy pilgrimage.

Solva, with the tide right out, the sea must be out there somewhere...

Getting into the water was exhilarating and seemed a little crazy en masse. The previous week I'd been swimming in Parliament Hill lido with the water a harsh 5C. This was more like 9 or 10. The sea cools down so much more slowly than lakes or lidos. It was like recapturing the summer, eking it out just a little longer.

Out past a big rock, between a big (rugged) rock, sneaking in the gap between it and a little one, the faster swimmers forged the route and the slower swimmers followed. Everyone processed around the rock, behind it out of sight of the few people on the beach, to emerge a few minutes later back in sight.

Three small figures watched from the clifftops. They surely must have been baffled by the sight of 15 scantily clad swimmers seeming to play a carefree game of tag in the sea at the end of November.

Sightseeing swimming

A few weeks ago I had an email exchange with a man I'd never met before – I just met him on the Internet. He invited me over to Ireland to meet him and several of his friends and so, without thinking, I booked my flights, packed my bag and headed off to sunny Cork.

That man was Ned Denison, a solo English Channel swimmer and very active member of the Irish Long Distance Swimming Association and various other swimming bodies. He was organising a swim in Cork from Blackrock to Cobh, a 7.5 mile swim down the River Lee and out into Cork Harbour. On a whim, I suspect, invited me along. On a whim I accepted. It sounded an adventure and a great end to the season. This is one of the things I love about swimming, apart from the swimming itself. It's a passport to going anywhere and meeting people who feel the same (more or less) as you do about the water... it transcends all sorts of barriers.

The Irish Long Distance Swimming Association, I get the impression, are a hardy bunch. They race in the sea all summer in large numbers, they dodge the great swathes of jellyfish, they produce numbers of English Channel swimmers. They organise an impressive summer sea swimming programme. Nonetheless, Ned had asked me over partly because the swim from Blackrock to Cobh was being attempted by two prospective Channel solo swimmers, and I think he wanted me to go along and 'sing for my supper'. Or swim for my supper I guess. Whatever his reason, I was honoured to be invited. It was lovely to be a guest.

Ned, and Niall O'Crualaoich, who has booked a Channel solo for 2008, had organised for the swim from Blackrock to Cobh. They'd organised safety boats and kayakers for thirteen swimmers, including me and Vince, a 73 year old Cork masters swimmer. The swim had originally been 6 miles but then they added another 1.5 miles on so that we could land at a pub! The swim was tidal so was expected to take between 2 hours and 3 hours depending on swim speed, and was going to be handicapped so that the safety boats weren't spread too far out.

Ned instructed us to meet at 9.30am at Blackrock slipway on Sunday morning, and said that the first to set off would be at 10am. As a slower swimmer, I'd be first to start off.

Saturday night
I dream that I am swimming around underwater amongst hundreds of black paper-thin manta rays. In my dream I'm swimming around stressing about trying to avoid them as they float in a papery way around me like cartoon two dimensional objects. Wake up at 4am, 6am, 7am, 8am. Finally get up at 8am.

Sunday
Wake up feeling incredibly nervous. Why? Force porridge down. I think, as usual, "the last meal of a condemned woman". God damn it, why are these mornings so awful?

I mix my maxim in the B&B teapot. Fill two 2 litre bottles with maxim and ribena, and make them as hot as I can... I've made too much but better to have too much than too little.

Get a taxi down to the Blackrock slipway. It's quite bright and there is no wind at all which is brilliant, and it's not too cold. I've not got a jumper on, just a long sleeved tee. A few swimmers assembled already. Some chit chat but I feel too nervous to interact properly. Ned does a safety briefing and all the swimmers have to introduce themselves and say a bit about themselves which is nice, to say what their goals are. As I'm going to be the first to swim there is then not much time for chatting as I want to get myself together, to get my stuff to my kayaker and focus.

I strip off, chat a bit to Vince, who is going to get in the water at the same time as me, and give my kit for the swim to Pat, my kayaker (2 bottles of feed, a banana, spare hat and goggles). We're a bit late starting. As I'm standing in my costume, I realise that there are quite a number of swimmers doing the swim in wetsuits. Crikey. I begin to wonder if it's going to be really cold. Ned says, with a wry smile that he's going to guarantee the water will be 'between 13C and 18C'. I'm starting to worry that I've underestimated how cold it's going to be. Hmmm. I haven't been in water colder than 15.6 since the start of the year. Too late to think about it now as I wade into the water to be started and waved off by the assembled crowd of local press and supporters.

10.15am we hit the water from the slipway and enter the River Lee.

I don't feel like it's that cold when I hit the water – it's not my first impression, so that's good. When I swam in Norfolk last week in 15.6C, for the first half an hour my lungs were wheezing alarmingly with the cold. Today there is no wheezing. Good. My first thought, however, is that in my haste I forgot to tell Pat, my kayaker, that I'd like my first feed after an hour. Bollocks. I wonder if I should stop straight away and tell him. No, plough on. If I stop immediately it might look like I'm panicking or freaking out or something. I can tell him shortly. I wonder if he's wearing a watch though? Oh bugger. I swim along trying to see if I can see a watch as he is paddling. Can't see. Keep swimming.

The river is lovely. Flat. Tranquil. Definitely 'brackish'. I have never swum in brackish water before today. It's really pleasant. Very very slightly salty. Like an over salted soup or something. Not intense like the sea, but just a whiff of salt, enough to just notice. Salty enough to make you more buoyant but not so much so that you can really taste it. I can still swim with my mouth open – in salt water I always swim with my mouth clamped shut, but I don't need to do this now. I know though that the closer we get to Cork harbour near Cobh, the saltier it will get.

The water is very flat and reflective. It's contemplative like this. I swim by Blackrock Castle and I try to strain to see the far bank past Pat, a watery kind of sightseeing. It's very peaceful. Especially as Pat is not really doing anything at all except floating down on the current of the river, stroking every now and again to keep with me. Swim on and on – the far river bank is couple of hundred metres away only. It's great to see things passing by. The water is a bit cold, there are definitely cold patches which make you hurry along, and slightly warmer bits that make you want to dawdle. I am still thinking I should tell Pat about the feed on an hour. Then the moment is gone and I give it up. I decide I'll just guess when the hour is up and tell him then. I know it's a gamble, but think I'll just try.

I have a very vague idea in my head of the route. I know that the river is narrow here and then widens out into a bowl and then narrows again before spitting out into the harbour. We are past the castle and I can still see the far bank. After a while the water starts getting a little choppier – imperceptably, but enough for me to pay a bit more attention to where I am. I try to focus my eyes when I breathe and then I realise that the far bank is no longer a couple of hundred metres away but much much further. I sight to the front and see that now we are in a much wider section of the river. It's no longer meandering and peaceful but now more impressive and wider and more dramatic. I can no longer see any definition on the far bank. I can just see colours and shapes – a haze of purple and greys in the distance. I feel smaller in the larger landscape.

I keep plodding on. It seems that we have been in the water for quite a while now. My hands get stiff and I have to shake them out a bit on recovery. This doesn't really happen until after an hour or more. Now, I wonder how long I can wait before asking Pat if an hour has gone by. I don't want to ask him for a feed and find out it has only been 20 minutes. That would be hideous. I know that after the bowl, the rive narrows again. I wonder if I can wait till the narrowing until asking for a feed. On the other hand I don't want to leave it too late. In the end I just estimate an hour or more. I stop and ask Pat if we've been swimming for an hour. He looks at his watch: "50 minutes". "Can I have a feed at an hour please?" He agrees and I carry on swimming, relieved to have sorted it out. Ten mintues later he waggles my sports bottle at me. I swim over to him, and he tries to delicately pass me the bottle. "Just chuck it in the water" I say. He looks at me as if I'm crazy and then tosses it in. I dive under and get it, take a glug and pass it back. I ask him if I can have another feed in half an hour. I ask him how we are doing and he says "Great. We are about half way along the lough". I didn't realise we were on a lough, but am glad he sounds pleased.

I'm really enjoying this swim. It's beautiful here. I watch the scenery in a haze, I watch Pat fiddle with his sunglasses – he takes them off, puts them on, takes them off, puts them on. We seem to be alone, he and I, in this place. I swim past a couple of buoys. We are closer to the south bank of the lough/river now which I can just about remember is where we need to be before the water narrows back down to the channel again. Another half an hour and we are much further along when it's time for our next feed. The sun has come out and I feel very perky. The water is not nearly as cold here as it was in the river at the start. No cold patches. I feel quite comfortable. I smile at Pat when he waggles my feed bottle at me. "The sun's come out, it's lovely" I grin at Pat. He doesn't seem to think so, either that or he thinks I'm totally mad. He tells me, when I ask him how we are doing, that we are doing really well that we will soon hit the Channel and then the tide will flow much faster and we'll get good assistance from the tide then. That it's coming up quite soon and we are about two thirds of the way. Two thirds? I'm very surprised as we have been swimming for an hour and a half and I'm assuming it is going to be around a three hour swim. Oh! Cheered by this I say OK – but if we aren't there can I have another feed in another half an hour please?

Soon enough the lough narrows back in to a channel – or the river? – and soon the shore is populated by houses lining the waterfront – new posh houses and apartment blocks and a marina. The water is definitely salty now and smells quite fishy. I fantasise that it smells like whitebait and can just imagine tucking into a plate of them. Hmmm. For five or ten minutes the water becomes a bit surprisingly bumpy after all that calm and flat, and we lumber through the choppy water. The tide is pushing us along – I mark my progress by picking brightly coloured houses from the shoreline and watching to see how fast we pass them by. They are flying by. Or we are... It's then that you get a sense of the pace that you are swimming at. Suddenly the water flattens out again as quickly as it roughed up.

Another feed, two hours. At this feed, JulieAnn, a young fast Texan swimmer who is set to swim the Channel in 2009, powers past me. She set off half an hour after me. It's taken her an hour and a half to catch me up... Pat tells me that we're doing great still. He says we only have to swim past the shipyards to our left, and then it's about a mile and a half. That sounds pretty close, closer than I thought! Swimmers – never pay any attention to your crew – they lie! They do!

Swimming past the shipyards, where the scenery has now turned industrial, takes longer than I think. I can see the large cranes used for loading and unloading containers out of the corner of my eyes. They don't seem to be going past as quickly as the posh marina flats were. Eventually, though, they are gone and I can see the greenery of Cobh island ahead. I'm quite excited now as Pat told me it was only a mile and a half.

I keep swimming and swimming and still see the same wretched corner ahead of me. It's taking for ever. Another swimmer passes me. At this point Pat is looking a bit cold and miserable. It makes me feel miserable too. Did he work it out wrong? Is he pissed off? Is he pissed off with me? The safety rib is lurking around behind me too. We are in very shallow water now and it seems like much harder work than it should be. Another feed. I ask Pat, a bit anxiously, "Are we still making progress?" He tells me we are. But I have déja vu about that bloody corner by Bembridge on the Isle of Wight swim – battling the tide and not getting anywhere. Later, one of the other kayakers tells me they think I was caught in an eddy (where the tide turns back in a swirl from the general flow of the current) and lost some minutes here. Whatever it was, it felt like much harder work and slower progress. I don't understand how a mile and a half with the current can take this long.

After what seems like forever we are round the corner of the island and on the home straight. Pat points out the town on Cobh that we are heading for – it seems like a mile away still. I'm excited that we can see it. But every swim it seems has a sting in it's tail. As we've rounded the corner to the exposed side of the island we've started swimming into a headwind which is going against the tide, making the water pretty lumpy. Just what weary arms need. The current is strong here though and although I'm being tossed around a fair bit by the waves I can see that we are making pretty good progress. I'm measuring my pace against Spike Island and the prison buildings on it, to my right. They seem to be moving past quite quickly. Good, I'm relieved. Pat is finding a bit harder now to negotiate the waves and looks thoroughly drenched and cold. Not only is it quite lumpy here but there are a number of obstacles in the water to be negotiated. I swim past a bunch of anchored sailboats – and just as we are passing them, picking our way through, a rib zooms past at top speed and creates a massive wake which nearly throws me into the hull of an anchored yacht and nearly throws Pat into me. Pat shouts after them, very angry. I look up, startled, at the looming hull of the boat that I narrowly missed hitting. I look at Pat quizzically. Neither of us saw that coming. Then there are three huge yellow barrel buoys standing metres out of the water that I swim too close to. I don't want to have to look up to the front to sight (thereby seeing how far I still have to swim) but the water is laughably just littered with obstacles. I pause every now and then to see if there is any random object coming up ahead of me that I may need to avoid. Which in turn makes me think of the end rather than just swimming. The last bit of any swim is just torture and endless.

Eventually though, we get there, swimming past a collection of tugboats and then picking between two of them and to the bottom of some steps. There are spectators at the top of the steps clapping as I'm helped to the steps from the shallow water by Niall who organised the swim. I finished the swim in 3 hours 25 mins, and although I thought it would take me three hours, I guess I'm fine with that. After changing we decamped to a local pub, where the Ned and Niall had arranged hot soup for all the swimmers and kayakers and helpers.

What a fantastic swim, what a fantastic end to the season. A swim of different water, different scenery, lovely friendly people. How often can you have a river swim, a lake swim and a sea swim all in one day? With changing scenery to keep you company and a great welcome for a foreign swimming guest. It must have been one of the best swims I've done all season.

Time and tide (wait for no man)

A couple of weeks ago or so I set out with a few Channel swimming friends to attempt to swim around the Isle of Wight in a relay. It's taken me a while to write about it, but it was an amazing swim and it's still firmly imprinted in my mind. Here's what happened.

Here's the Isle of Wight:

It's quite big. It's a 56 miles swim to circumnavigate the island, two and a half times the distance of the Channel, but with good tidal assistance. So ... it's a big island, and it has strong tides and currents and eddies swirling round it. Kevin Murphy, the King of the Channel with 34 Channel solo swims to his name, asked me if I'd like to be in his relay swim around the island. Kevin swam solo round the Isle of Wight (I think he was the first person ever to do so) in the 1980s. It took him 27 hours or so. I agreed to join the relay team, without knowing what would be involved. I've never swum a relay before. Well, I've swum in a 4 x 25 metre freestyle relay in the Middlesex County Masters, but I don't think that counts.

In the team are Kevin Murphy (King of the Channel), Trevor Coleman (Straits of Gibraltar and length of lake Zurich), Nancy 'Rocket Girl' Douglas (fastest British Channel solo with the CS&PF in 2006), Annette Stewart (Channel solo 2005, and my training buddy for my Channel swim last year), Daniel Stewart (Annette's husband, this is to be his first bone fide relay in the sea), and myself. Three men, three women, between us a pretty experienced bunch of open water swimmers...

Friday
We travel down to the Isle of Wight the night before the swim. Five of us squished into Nancy's car with all our swim gear and supplies for the boat and the swim, we bundle on and off ferries and drink tea and laugh. Trevor is meeting us in our accomodation on the Isle of Wight. We are all excited and discussing various tactics. We have been told by Kevin that the swim might take us 24 hours, but another relay team went the day before us and they made the swim in 15 hours and 40 minutes or so. We have been told all along by Kev that this will be a marathon swim, which we have geared up for, but now we are all beginning to wonder if we could be 'let off the hook' with an easier time of it. We discuss the order of the swimmers...

Kevin outlines the swim, and we meet our pilot, Duncan. Duncan is an open water swimmer in his own right, and also escorts a number of swims around the island with his beautiful yacht. What I have failed to appreciate up until this time is the technical nature of this swim. Timing is everything. It's a 56 mile swim which is helped by the strong tides and currents. We are swimming on a 'spring tide' - which means that the tides run comparitively fast at this time of the lunar cycle. The advantage is that you get greater assistance when the tides are running with you. It also means, crucially, that if you get the tides wrong and you have to swim against them - that you have greater hinderance!

Now... This is how it works. The tides run from East to West for six or so hours and then West to East for the next six hours and then turn again East to West. Basically that means you have to try to swim East to West – from the Eastern corner of the island (well, from Ryde, our start point) to the Western corner (the Needles) in six hours or less, before the tide turns back. Then you have to swim from West to East with the tide running in the opposite direction – from the Needles all the way round the long south side of the island to Bembridge – in the second six hours before the tide turns again. You then use the changed tide (again travelling East to West) to travel from Bembridge round to Ryde again in the last section of the swim. At any point of the swim if you don't make it to the critical corner by the time the tide has turned, you are stuffed. As we discuss it, we all begin to realise that this is a pressured swim. No floating around enjoying the views or having a lark or deciding to do a bit of backstroke. It's a full on race against the tide all the way around.

I see.

Saturday
We assemble at the marina and load all the gear on to Duncan's yacht at 10am, ready to motor round to the start point in Ryde. Duncan has a beautiful spic and span yacht which he has given us the run of for the duration of the swim. He does a safety briefing and then lays down the rules of the house. I've never been on such a swanky escort boat.

It's a beautiful day with little wind – and little forecast – and the sun is shining and everything is set to be a beautiful pleasureable day on the water. Spirits are high. We are starting the swim a little before high water so will be doing the first section of the swim with the tide a little tiny bit against us and then at slack water. We are joined in Ryde by our other escort boats and pilots - Gordon in a littel dory and Andy paddling in a kayak. It all looks like such fun.

On a relay of this sorts, the rules are this: the swimmers specify in advance the order in which they will swim. Once this has been stipulated they cannot deviate from that order, or they will be disqualified. They swim for an hour each, exactly. When a given swimmer's hour is up, the next swimmer jumps in the water behind the one about to get out, overtakes them, then the retiring swimmer gets out of the water. The swim carries on in this fashion until the swim is complete.

Kevin starts off from the end of Ryde Pier right beside a big yellow seacat which is busy embarking passengers at the end of the massive pier. No wind and it's sunny. So far so good. He's swimming a bit against the tide but eventually starts making good progress. We all wish that we'd been in first as the conditions look beautiful. Nancy takes over next and steams through the water, making excellent progress now the tide is with us. The wind starts to pick up and it clouds over a bit. By the third hour Trevor is in the water and the sun is gone and it's definitely pretty windy against us but the tide is building steadily. Fourth hour in and the wind is now pretty high (around a force 4 to force 5 against us) when Annette gets in to get us past Cowes - weaving between all the yachts and ferries. The boat traffic takes a fair bit of navigation and negotiation by the pilots in this section. Funny, when you are doing a solo swim you are totally oblivious to all of the piloting that goes on and the onboard discussions. The constant broadcasts between pilot and coastguard, between Duncan on our yacht and Gordon on the dory about the wind speed and tide speed (all of which can be read from instruments on the boats) and the 'speed over ground' (the speed of the tide plus or minus the speed of the boat/swimmer also accounting for any effects of wind and so on). They are constantly checking, double checking where we are, what progress we are making, how far on we should be by now. It's quite a nerve wracking commentary if you let it get to you.

Swimmer in the water with Andy in the kayak, the Dory in the background and an Isle of Wight ferry as well...

I let it get to me. By the time Daniel gets in for his swim and I only have an hour to go before entering for my first swim, I am pretty hyped up and nervous. I've been for a pee about 15 times already and my throat is dry as a budgie's cage. I've never been this nervous before a swim. We need to get to the Needles before six hours is up and we can't even see them yet. Where the heck are they? Duncan tells me they are around the next headland but can't see them at all yet. It seems like we have to get an impossible amount of ground covered in the next two hours but Duncan seems positive that we can make it. It's still relentlessly windy against and we are all wrapped up in warm clothes now. What Duncan knows but I don't is that this is where the tide gets really strong in our favour – it's the narrowest channel between the Isle of Wight and the mainland and all the water squeezes through a narrow passage and makes the currents flow stronger. Soon in the distance I can see a huge building in the water. It's Hurst Castle, which is actually connected to the mainland at the end of a spit although it looks like it's in the sea. Duncan tells me all about it while I'm waiting to get in the water. He also tells me that the water around the castle is quite rough and to be prepared.

In for my first swim, it's around 4.15pm. I know I need to get as close to the Needles as I can – to that safety we need to be at before the tide turns – in my hour. There is no hanging around. I ask Nancy and Annette to tell me when I've done half an hour and then again at 45 mins so that I can put on a final burst. I start swimming as fast as I can. The tides are pretty strong as I swim along but it's also pretty bumpy (force 5 wind against now). I just swim and swim. The sun comes out! All the time I'm expecting to see Hurst Castle pass to my right and know that I've made good progress. It never passes and I swim along thinking that I must be swimming really really slowly. Soon Nancy gives me the signal for 45 mins and I realise I've missed the half hour signal. Bloody hell – that went quickly. I try to put on a real sprint for the last fifteen minutes. It's agony. There's no time for sight seeing when you are swimming like this. The hour is up and Kevin is back in to relieve me. I look up once I stop and realise we are really close to the Needles and Kev is going to get the honour of going through them. When I'm back on the boat I look back and realise that I swam right past Hurst Castle without even noticing. We must have flown along.

Kevin goes through the Needles escorted by Andy in the kayak whilst we go round the long way and take photos of the Needles, Kevin, and the setting sun. Nancy is ready to get in and power through the water. It's getting darker now. We're getting out the lightsticks and putting on more clothes. This is the hardest bleakest bit of the swim. We are in a huge bay which is going to last about 10 miles or so, I think, and we are four or so miles from the coast, which is bleak and unpopulated. Whereas all the rest of the swim we have been close to the shore with lots to look at, this is like being out to sea. And the wind is still strong, although now behind us. It's hard to keep the escort boats with the swimmers – when I take the helm to allow Duncan to do some chores on the boat, I keep having to put the engine in reverse to keep with Nancy. It's stressful. Meanwhile Kevin and Trevor are starting to feel a bit sick. Kev's sleeping and Trevor is getting ready to go back in again. Now it's dark and it's cold as well. While Trevor swims I cook everyone food and the wind picks up more. Nancy is feeling sick, and wishes she was back in the water – where you are much less likely to be sick. Trevor gets out of the water and can't eat the food I've made and just sits and comforts Nancy on deck. Neither of them can go below.

Annette gets into the water at 8.15pm and is swimming strongly. Despite this there are mutterings from Duncan and Gordon over the radio, that we can hear, that we aren't going to make the times and it's not going that well any more and it's touch and go. They are also discussing on the radio what to do at St Catherine's Point. St Catherine's Point is the bottom tip of the diamond shaped island. At that point there is what's called a tidal overfall. This is where (I think I understand this) there is a big sudden change in the depth of the sea bed. It suddenly goes from deep to shallow. Basically all the water that was in the deep bit suddenly has to all fit into the really shallow bit and has nowhere to go and therefore just goes up – in the form of waves and pretty bad turbulence. So. Duncan and Gordon are talking on the radio about St Catherine's point and the overfall and the water and the health and safety and what to do with the swimmer. And what to do with the kayaker. Should they or should they not have the kayaker in the water with the swimmer? No, it's risky enough having the swimmer to worry about. Sandwich the swimmer between the two boats. And so on. And this is the point that I realise that I am the swimmer who will have the pleasure of swimming this section. I am so nervous that the previous nervousness looked like nothing. Daniel is in next. This is the fist time that Daniel has ever swam in the dark and he just gets in and gets on with it with absolutely no fuss. What an amazing guy. Meantime I'm fretting and freaking out. Asking Duncan about the overfall. How long does it last (a few hundred metres)? How bad is it (pretty bad)? OK. I plead with Nancy and Annette to keep an eye on me at all times when out in this. By now it's pretty wavey, it's pitch black and we are miles from land. I put on not one, but two, light sticks behind my goggles. Boy I'm nervous.

I take over from Daniel at around 10.15pm. I'm so completely wired. I have no idea when the tidal overfall is going to happen. It's pitch black. I'm swimming along and the tide is running so forcefully I feel like I'm flying along. Suddenly the yacht is lit up by a huge flashing light. And again! I wonder what the hell it is. Is the dory flashing a light for some reason at the yacht? What's going on? Then I realise it's the light from the St Catherine's Point lighthouse, flashing regularly and lighting up the yacht – and looking alarmingly close. It freaks me out a bit. Shit. It's the middle of the night. It's pitch black. There's a lighthouse and it's there for a reason. I beg the boat to stay close to me – I'm a bit fricking scared. After about fourty minutes of swimming suddenly the sea goes wild! I'm tossed and turned about. I look up immediately at Nancy and she yells over 'this is it, Sally!" (meaning the overfall) "Keep on swimming!". I think - the quicker I swim the quicker I will be through it. I'm also watching the yacht crazily tilt and turn at wild angles of the overfall and think that I'm glad to be in the water and not on that boat! Within what seems like five minutes it's all over and the sea is relatively calm again. Now I see that the lighthouse light is dim and I can see the moon, almost full, and the Plough and the Seven Sisters constellations. Knowing that my stint in the water is nearly over and that the overfall has over fallen, I can relax and enjoy myself. Soon, Kev takes over again and I'm back on board, grateful to have not got lost at sea. What a drama queen.

Kevin swims for an hour again, and then Nancy gets in. Nancy is under strict instructions from Duncan and Gordon to make as much ground as she possibly can and she powers off at a great pace, slicing through the water, past Shanklin and Sandown bay, where strips of lights running along the waterfront mark out the line where the land meets the sea. It's much less desolate here. Nancy makes good progress again. Duncan then briefs Trevor. He too has to make much progress. He's got to get in to the cover of Culver Cliff. We've now been in the water for 14 hours and the tide is about to turn. If we don't get to Whitecliff bay before the tide turns we may as well call it a day. We'll be swept back towards the Needless. I wave Trevor off and try to get some sleep - my first of the night. The mood on the boat is very tense. It's make or break.

I'm woken up an hour and a half later by Daniel just going off to swim. Duncan briefs me, in my groggy state of the situation. Things have changed. Annette got in after Trevor, and we are now beyond Whitecliff bay heading towards Foreland and the safety of Bembridge. If we can only get to Bembridge and turn the corner and start heading West again we will be home and dry. Annette made progress but now the tide is turned against us and is building. Duncan is positive that we can still make it despite our bad situation. The yacht is out in deep water but the little flat bottomed Dory is right in against the shoreline trying to avoid the worst excesses of the tide. The stars are out and littering the sky and the sea is calm. It looks like it will be a joy to swim in. Duncan asks me if I will got out now in the Dory which has come to get some supplies, and then sit in it and wait the 40 mins for my swim. I'm excited at the prospect of the swim finally taking a positive turn after we've all thought it were touch and go for a while. Of course I will! I grab my swim stuff and warm clothes and light sticks and wait for the Dory and jump on it when it arrives to pick me up.

It's bloody freezing now and I'm feeling groggy from the sleep and the coziness of having been in a sleeping bag for an hour or more. There is nothing I feel less like doing that stripping off and getting back in to the water for my third time today. Getting in to the Dory changes all that though. There are inches of water on the bottom of the boat and I'm glad I got in with bare feet. Immediately my trackie bottoms suck up the water sloshing around on the bottom of the boat. I perch precariously on the only free chair on the boat and try to find somewhere dry to put my stuff. I sit and watch Daniel swimming for forty minutes while I'm waiting to get in. It's dark still but I can see enough detail on land to realise that no matter how hard he is trying, we are not moving forward at all. We are staying exactly level with a clump of trees which are about 100m away from us beyond the beach. Now Duncan and Gordon, who I can hear discussing the swim on the radio, are getting more concerned again. Has he made any progress or hasn't he? Are we still moving forward?

Daniel gets out and I start to swim again. The water is flat as a pancake, the stars are out, we're close to the beach. It seems a perfect night now for a lovely relaxing swim. Except that I know from watching Daniel that I've got one hell of a fight on. If I can only make 100m in an hour that will be something. We are only 500m or so now from the safety of the turn at Bembridge. We can all see where we have to be. It seems like no distance at all. I start to sprint like a person possessed. I am lucky at this point because I breathe to the right and the land is to the left. I can't see the land at all so I have no idea if I am making progress or not. I just sprint and sprint and sprint. I'm working so hard that I am convinced that we must have made some progress. After about half an hour of gut busting work, the paddler, Andy, cuts right across me. I look up and he says "We've got to get closer in". He sounds very frustrated. I look to the left. We are still in exactly the same place we were half an hour ago. Those trees are still there. They were there for Daniel and they are there for me. Shit! Shit. Andy takes me closer in. Now, although it's dark, I can see the bottom of the seabed closely. There are lots of rocks and boulders and we get so close that I almost run aground. Sometimes the tops of my feet are scraping the rocks as I kick. I'm swimming in literally about a foot of water. We sometimes make a bit of progress, and I see rocks move as I pass over the top of them. Then suddenly it's like someone has grabbed my legs by the ankles and pulled me backwards and we go rushing back, caught by some eddy or the tide. The tide is so strong. This is possibly the most frustrating and miserable and absurd bit of swimming I have ever done. I am putting in supreme effort and getting absolutely and categorically nowhere. The rocks are so close that I am almost lying on top of them. I could stand up in calf deep water and walk the 500m. I could pretend to swim but grab hold of the rocks and pull myself along to Bembridge. Still I swim. Finally the gut busting hour is over and Kev gets back in the water.

I'm back on the Dory and then back in the main escort boat. Nancy and Annette are awake but Trevor and Daniel are asleep. There are yet more discussions between Duncan and Gordon. By now the tide is in full swing in the wrong direction and despite best efforts by Kev, who is a faster swimmer than me, we are going properly backwards. Gordon and Duncan think it's now pointless to carry on. If we are to carry on we will have to be another nine hours in the water. We will have to allow ourselves to be swept back by the tide to Whitecliff bay and mark it out (or rather, swim it out) until the tide turns again. Neither Duncan nor Gordon have had any sleep at all and it's now around 5am. The decision is made to not carry on. We are not happy with how tired the crew are and how fair it might to ask them to carry on. We are all OK as we've had some sleep. They, however, have had none.

The swim is called off after 18 hours and 40 mins. We are 500m (still!) from Bembridge and have swam 51 miles and had 5 to go. With all back on the boat Duncan turns the engines on full to 7 knots and it still takes us a good hour to get the last bit to Bembridge. This confirms to us that we made the right decision to call off the swim. If the boat takes an hour, what would it take us, who swim at 2 or 3 knots!

The Isle of Wight is a spectacular swim. Tidal races and overfalls, eddies and mysterious tides, spectacular scenery and land falls, white cliffs and inviting looking marinas. It's a great shame we didn't make it. So near but so far. We have many 'if onlys' on this swim. If only we'd started later, hadn't had a head wind for the first six hours, had swum harder each time, even 50m per person per swim and we would have made it. And so on and so on. We can rehash, as a team, what we might have done differently. Although we all know that we swam as hard as we could when we were in the water. I think that all of us would like to give the swim another go. Sometime.