On Thursday of this week I attempted to swim around the coast from Dundee to St Andrews in Scotland, a route which has not been swum before. As it turned out, it was an eventful and technically challenging day out on the water for me and for all those involved which, while it didn't end in success, has pointed the way forward for the next attempt. In science they say that there is no such thing as a failed experiment because every failure teaches us what we need to do next to succeed. And thus with my swim. I'm disappointed I didn't get to land on the fantastically beautiful sandy beach of the West Sands of St Andrews, but it makes the prize more sought after at the end.
Tuesday
One of my crew, Helen and I travel up to Scotland together, and Annette and Daniel, my other crew members, travel up separately. We rendezvous at my mom's house in Glenrothes Fife, about thirty miles from Dundee, in the evening, and unload the kit. Annette and Daniel and Helen have all given up their time and holidays to come and help me, and I would not be able to do this without them.
Wednesday
Last minute preparations for the swim, I've called Bob Richmond (my pilot) of the MVS Tay Unit and we agree to finally chat at 5pm after the weather forecasts have been issued. Wednesday is a beautifully sunny day and we are all enjoying the sunshine. I hope it's going to be like this for my swim – I'm pretty worried about the cold water and think that the sun will really make a difference. I obsessively monitor the weather myself. At the moment Thursday looks slightly more windy than Friday. In some ways I'd like to go Friday because the wind is forecast to be lighter but have prepared myself for Thursday. Bob says, rightly, that if we aim for Thursday and it's too windy we can still go on Friday, although if we try to go on Friday and are blown off then it's too bad. He also mentions that if there are two days of sun then the following day could have a sea harr (mist) which would make it very hard to navigate.
We speak at five and agree that we will go tomorrow. We're starting the swim at 12 noon, high water is at 12.55pm and so we agree to meet at 10.30am to load the boat in Newport, across the water from Dundee, and finalise any plans. I try to go upstairs and sleep but am way too nervous. Almost more nervous than my Channel swim, because it's so unexpected. I go upstairs to try to lie down for half an hour but get more and more wound up, I keep going downstairs and saying things to my crew, who are all sitting in the living room quietly running through lists in a calm and serious manner. That makes me even more nervous.
Thursday
We're up at 8am and breakfast on porridge all round. I've been awake since 5am on and off, but feel well rested. Try to stay calm. The good news is that the sun is shining in Glenrothes. Everyone is buoyed up by this. I try to tell them that just because the sun is shining in Glenrothes that doesn't mean it's going to be in Dundee, which is about 30 miles away. We set off for Newport where Marigot and Terminator are moored and the crew are waiting for us.
Busying themselves at Newport are Bob, the skipper, and Ken, who piloted Terminator (the rib) when we did our test swim last month. They both give me great big hugs when I arrive, which makes me feel great. I introduce them to all of my crew. After my crew have loaded up Marigot and Terminator we all clamber on board and prepare to head over to Dundee to Camperdown steps in the shade of the road bridge, where we are due to start the swim. Before we start, Bob and I discuss the route once more with Ken. On the way over Annette greases me up with the vaseline.
Just short of Camperdown steps my mom and Freya and I transfer from Marigot into Terminator with Helen and Ken and his assistants who will be doing the first shift on the rib. Ken puts Mom and Freya ashore to wave me off. I get on to the steps and get ready to dive into the water. There are some workmen on the shore on a building site, and they are leaning over to see what's happening. "I'm just going for a little swim" I tell them. "Where to?" "St Andrews". "There is a bus, you know" they say, predictably. "Have you ever been on the bus to St Andrews?" I joke back. It breaks the ice and makes me feel a bit calmer. 12.15pm, forty minutes before high tide, I dive into the water from off the steps, and the swim begins.
This is the plan...
We swim out from our start point in Dundee along the Tay estuary with assistance from the outgoing tide, about 11 miles or so easterly, till we get to the Inner Abertay buoy. We have to swim out this far rather than follow our natural inclination to hug the coast, so that we can miss a huge sandbank called the Abertay Sands, along which there are complex currents and tides and very confused water.
When we reach the Inner Abertay buoy, we turn back in and follow a course to the South West around another five and a bit miles back in to St Andrews and land on the beach. Bob and I work out that we will reach the turn point in four to six hours and, worst case scenario, will have to make little progress against the still outgoing tide, before turning in again to St Andrews with the turned tide. We think the swim should take in the region of 10 hours. Meanwhile, Marigot the big boat will plot the course and be the command centre, whilst Terminator will be my boat and I will follow Terminator and be fed from her, and she in turn will follow Marigot.
(This is a picture of the Tay Estuary and the Abertay Sands I've borrowed from the MVSTay website. See the white water around the bottom left of the picture? That's what we want to avoid!)
This is what actually happens...
The three forecast we look at are all different but put the wind to be somewhere between 1mph and around 10mph for the day and dropping down in the evening. That all seems quite manageable. It's a SSE wind direction which is coming off the sea. The prevailing wind is a SW wind which would be kinder to us. But I figure that a SSE wind will push us in to St Andrews if we are lucky.
As soon as I start swimming all my nerves disappear and I decide that the water is not that cold. I'm so relieved. I feel fine temperature wise. I think it must be around 57F or maybe even 58F. We set off before high tide and in the first 20 minutes, unbeknown to me, make almost no progress against the tide which is still coming in. Although it's pretty calm, whatever wind there is blowing, is heading straight towards us from the direction we are heading. It makes it a bit bouncy. I can already see the Flag Alpha on Terminator standing bolt upright and in the direction from which we have come. Great.
First feed is good, after an hour. It's always good to get the first feed under your belt. We are settling into a rhythm, me and the rib. The rib can almost keep steady at my pace and mark me, although every now and again it has to tack back or forward and then come back in line with me. It all seems pretty smooth. Meanwhile, the tide has now turned and is running out of the Tay, out to sea, and is taking us with it. At the same time the wind has picked up a bit more and we have an interesting 'wind against tide' kind of a chop. It's not that easy a swim already. I feel like I'm making very little progress. Suddenly though, while I'm swimming and feeling a bit hard done by, I look up at the shore and see a village and a lighthouse about 300 or 400m ahead. When I breathe again I'm past them. Abso-blooming-lutely flying! Whole rows of houses and buildings and landmarks race past with alarming speed and I realise that despite the lumpiness of the conditions that I am making fast progress – really incredibly fast progress. And I'm cheered by that.
Apparently the Tay has the combined volume of water of the Thames AND the Severn running up and down it every day. That's a lot of water. And I can feel it's force as I whizz along watching the buildings on it's banks rush past me. At around two hours we do a crew change - Helen and some of Terminator's crew get back on to Marigot, and another lot of crew relieve them on to Terminator. Annette gets on to Terminator for the second 'feeding' shift. We've reached just around about Broughty Ferry which I think is just over 4 and a half miles from the start. So we are moving at a good pace after the first 20 minute blip.
On a bit more and this is where, apparently, around 20 dolphins decide to join me. According to Helen and the rest of my crew, they put on a spectacular Buzby Berkely type dancing and leaping show which everyone (except me - I'm oblivious to the whole thing) really loves. I've instructed my crew that I don't want to be told when there is wildlife in the water – I think it might freak me out – so I don't even see them. One dolphin does swim below me, however, and looks right up at me from about 3 metres below. I catch it out of a cornder of my eye and think "Oh, a lone dolphin". Before I know it, it's disappeared, and I am none the wiser to the show happening on the surface. I think that part of the reason that I am blissfully unaware of the dolphin show is that the waves are just getting bigger and bigger. And I'm still swimming right into the head wind.
It's becoming increasingly difficult to stay with Terminator, or for her to stay with me, as the waves are now too high. She's often in front of me around 10 metres and if one or other of us are in the trough of a wave, I can't see her at all. The wind is now getting up to a force 5 and the waves are getting on for 4m high (so I'm told). I can't see Marigot now as the waves are too big and she's about 100m away. Every time I try to sight I have to stop, raise my body above the swell, and peer over the waves. I'm seeing many lion's mane jellyfish just below (around 1m below) the surface of the water – the ugliest hairiest stringiest biggest meanest jellyfish I've ever seen – and I don't fancy running right in to one with no boat close at hand. And I can't see the boats. And I can't see where the heck I'm going. I'm getting increasingly frustrated, and ask Annette and Ken in Terminator to please try to stay closer to me. They say that they can't as they are worried that they are going to run me down or bash into me. I tell them that I understand that but that when they are even 10m ahead I can't actually see them over the waves. I'm cross, they are cross. From two hours on the plan to swap the crews of Marigot and Terminator have to be abandoned as it's too rough to bring Terminator alongside Marigot. The seas are too rough. We have a three hour feed and I'm thoroughly tetchy and miserable on account of the bad conditions. I don't feel tired or anything. Just that it's so hard to concentrate when the weather is like this – when you can't see the boats or your crew – and feeds are a chore negotiating getting to the boat. It's noisy with the waves slapping over you.
I'm feeling bad, but at this point Marigot is close and Bob shouts to me "We're just at the turn point, we're about to make the turn round to St Andrews!". I'm suddenly invigorated. Wow. We've done around 11 miles in 4 hours and we've got 5.5 miles to go to St Andrews and we're at the turn. Despite horrible conditions I start thinking that this is possible. I know we've been going for 4 hours as I haven't yet lost count of my feeds, so I can work out where I am.
But I haven't really done the math, and I don't really know where we are. We started 45 mins before high water and we've taken 4 hours to get to the buoy to turn back in to land. That means that the strong tide which has shoved us out to this point is still due to run out for three hours. And we have to swim against it. And also unbeknown to me, we've been swept out one further buoy than we meant to go, adding at least another mile and a half to two miles on to our swim.
I ask Ken on Terminator if, when we turn, we will have the wind against us, and he says yes, we will. I feel cheered by that. We swim on for another half hour to the next feed. At this feed, I notice a huge red buoy beside me. Annette tosses me the feed, I tread water and gulp down the feed. It takes about twenty seconds. The next thing I know it we are 150m further back from the buoy than we were. We've lost 150m. Shit. I say to Ken "The tide is still taking us out, isn't it?" He nods. Shit. I suddenly realise just how strong the tide is still taking us out. I had thought that if we'd got to the turn buoy in the 4 hours and not the 6 hours, that we'd just have to mark the time and make little progress. I didn't realise we'd be positively swept back further and further. But the tide is still ferocious. And the wind is higher than ever before. I'm really miserable. It's higher sea than I've ever swum in before. I keep saying to Ken and to Annette that I need them to be closer to me and I need Marigot closer to me, and if they are not closer then I'm going to get out. There is a certain amount of a huffiness about me saying this and general discomfort, but also genuine confusion. I keep glancing back to see our position relative to the big red buoy. It has hardly changed. We drift south a little but we are no closer east towards the coast or our destination.
It's hard to explain how you feel when the seas are wild and rough. You just have no time to think or to concentrate on anything except that split second – there is never a moment's lull or relaxation. It's just constant battering and adjusting and fighting and trying to avoid swallowing whole waves, coping with the noise of the waves crashing around your head. Once or twice I have huge breakers just break over my whole body. I say to Annette "It's too rough Annette! I think we should stop" I don't know whether I mean it. Land is very very far away. And not getting any closer. Annette gives me another feed. She says "Swim to the next feed, Sally"
I just obey her because that is what we have programmed ourselves to do.
However, I think to myself "At the next feed I will see where we are relative to the buoy again. If we haven't moved substantially I will stop the swim". I know we still have at least five miles or more to swim and this is getting a joke. In three hours it will be dark, and we cannot even stay with the boats in the light, and it's impossible to be safe where we are.
At the next feed, I look up. We have moved perhaps 200m south in the last half an hour. I signal and yell above the crashing sound of the sea to Annette and Ken on Terminator "That's it. I want to stop. There's no point in going on. We're making no progress." I'm expecting an exhortation from Annette to swim to the next feed, to keep swimming. Instead "It's up to you, Sally, it's your call, we've made hardly any progress." To my suprise, Helen on Marigot shouts "Swim over here, Sally". They are all encouraging me to get out. This is not what is meant to happen. Your crew are meant to keep you going no matter what. That's one of their crucial roles. I am hauled on to Terminator, which is about 6 inches deep in water. There is no chance of getting me back on to Marigot as it's too rough. Everyone claps when I get on board and I'm wrapped in Annette's towel. We motor back a few miles to calmer waters in the estuary where we transfer on to Marigot. I feel fine - although relieved to get out of the hellish waves. We've ended the swim 5 hours and 59 minutes after it began. Everyone agrees it was the right call to abandon the swim – we got the timing wrong, and on top of that the sea was just too rough to make amends.
On board Marigot on the way back to calm waters again, Bob and I discuss what we've both been thinking – how to do the swim right the next time. "Maybe we start three hours after high tide?" I suggest. Bob agrees somewhat. He says "And we don't go out if the wind is Southeasterly – only in a Southwesterly." "Perhaps we start in St Andrews and finish in Dundee?" After a general discussion on the boat we realise that everyone assembled is keen to do the swim again – Bob and Ken are both really keen, and amazingly, despite my cross words and general frustration with the conditions, Annette and Daniel and Helen also seem willing to help again.
We disembark in Newport. The whole crew is obviously disappointed that we've not made it, but we've learnt an amazing amount and the crew are unanimous in their agreement that it was the right call to make to stop the swim. I have leant more in one day about planning a new swim than I could imagine, and have swum in rougher seas than I would ever like to again. I've seen around 5 different types of jellyfish (including many horrible Lion's Mane jellyfish – all of which I amazingly managed to avoid – and a beautiful Bluefire jellyfish); I've swam with (one) curious dolphin and apparently was stared at by a seal. I was battered into submission by the waves and wind which were certainly not 1 or 10 mph, and earnt respect for the strength of the tide that carried me out of Dundee – and kept carrying me out when I didn't want to go any further... but what doesn't kill us makes us stronger and as a friend said to me "It'll make it all the sweeter when you do complete the swim and know that it was hard won".