The Big Swim

We awoke at midnight on August 2 and packed our bags and trekked to the Marina. It was raining and cloudy but the wind was calm.

The boat went out and then our lead swimmer, Chris, with the cool glow sticks on his goggles had to swim back to the shore in the pitch black, get out, and stand on the beach. Then the official time started once Chris started swimming from the pebble beach. His first swim was very choppy and very dark. Chris got sick once in the water but did an incredible job getting us off the shore.

Then Susan jumped into the dark and rough sea and thought.. this is going to be hard, but she had no problem going fast. Jeff followed as the sun came up and at the end was swimming into the English shipping lanes. Shelle & Marcia followed and swam thru the English shipping lanes and encountered a lot of tankers, ships, etc. We finished the first round and Chris was back in for his second swim. Chris and Shelle spent most of the time on the boat in the "infirmary" or with their heads over the side of the boat:) Chris felt better on his second swim and kept us going. Susan had no problems with her second swim and got us thru the dead zone. Jeff and Shelle motored thru the French shipping lanes on their second swims. Then Marcia was off on her second swim, which she describes as a carnival ride, it was big swells and 3.8mph current. Chris was off on his third swim, he swears the last 10 minutes seemed like an hour.

Susan was the one to bring us to France. They idle the boat and take the dingy off to follow Susan into the shore. It was a difficult swim due to breaking thru the currents. It was amazing watching Susan get to the shore and we were ecstatic. This was an experience of a lifetime.

Here is the team at the end of the day with our wonderful crew from the "Anastasia".

Highlights from the deck. Or the low lights from Shelle and Chris in the "infirmary".

• Watching Jeff in his "when pig's fly" pants on the deck.
• Watching our official observer (Martin) puke over the side of the boat.
• Minimal trash and jellyfish, except Shelle almost got hit buy a wood door floating around
• The dolphins and sailboats when we were close to France
• Being surprised of the fans cheering for Susan at the Cap De Griz, France from the top of the cliffs
• Chris and Shelle never seeing much of the outside world and never standing up unless they were getting up to get in the water.
• Greg helping with all the unexciting chores. especially in the "infirmary"

The tradition after crossing the channel is going to the White Horse Pub and signing our names on the wall... with a pint in hand.

Below is the gps map of our swim from Dover, England (top) to Cap Gris-Nez, France (bottom).

Thanks to Greg and Virginia for joining us in England. Also, thanks to all our friends and families for all the encouragement and support.

We have crossed the English Channel

We crossed the channel today in 11 hours and 39 minutes.:) We are all very excited and exhausted. I will update the blog tomorrow with pictures and stories from our big day.

Thanks everyone for all your support.

We r off & going:)

All SYSTEMS ARE GO

We just got the last update and we will meet at the boat at 1:30am and our swim will start at 2:30am, 7:30pm Colorado time Sunday Night. Yipppeee. The order of swimmers is Chris, Susan, Jeff, Shelle, and Marcia.

to follow our boat, the website is:

http://www.ais-doverstraits.co.uk/

Then click on our boat Anastasia

Update

The Captain called and said it is a bit "lumpy" (must be an English word). On the beaufort scale the weather is up to a 5 which means winds at 18-24 mph, wave height 6-9 feet and many white caps. They don't usually take swimmers out unless it is below a 5. The water is suppose to be better tonight (around a 2, 3 on the beaufort scale), soooo our new time is 2:30 a.m. tonight, which is 7:30 p.m on Sunday night in Denver (MST). We are headed down to the harbour to get a swim in and then hopefully a nap before we swim tonight. We will keep you posted.

We have arrived in Dover, England

Okay, funny story. Our team flew all night and got to hotel about 5p.m. We got a text from the boat captain telling us we would be starting our crossing at 2a.m. tonight! I'm pretty sure we were all in shock. We ate some food, got our swimming bags ready, went to the grocery to get food for the journey, in record time...Then, we were going back to the hotel to sleep 4 hours when we got the text to (stand down). The weather was too harsh and that we should be ready to start our crossing tomorrow afternoon at 1p.m. (subject to weather). We are happy we can get a good night sleep before swimming tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed that we get out tomorrow.

The picture above is in front of the Dover harbour.

The swim is almost here:)

The team is crossing the pond to London today and then off to the White Cliffs of Dover. We have packed our glow sticks (for swimming in the dark), space blankets, heat warmers, and sea sick medicine :-( We will be updating the blog when we arrive. The first chance we could do the swim is Monday, although there is a small chance on Sunday. We are all excited and ready to take on the challenge. We hope for good weather, winds, etc. and that we get off the shore in the first couple days.