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.