Jul 19, 2012

The Swim is On


News
At last the end is in sight.  The weather is gradually settling down, the sun is coming out, but most importantly, the wind is dying down.  I talked to my pilot Paul Foreman and I will swim most likely at 9am Saturday morning, the 21st July.  He is taking a relay out Friday morning, and if they are delayed, then my swim will be delayed. I will know at about 9pm Friday night.

Crew
In the meantime, Liam & Lisa are flying into London tomorrow and will be in Dover at 4pm. Along with Riana, they make up a super-crew that I know will support me all the way, and if necessary throw things at me if I whinge or slow up. They will also be doing the very important updating of the Twitter machine so that you can keep track of progress.

How do I follow the swim?
The boat has ShipAIS tracking, which updates constantly during the swim.  Click here, and then scroll down to the map and enter Dover for the port, and Pace Arrow for the vessel.

You can follow messages on the Twitter feed on this blog site, or directly here.

Thanks
Thank you everybody for your great support and encouragement. I will do my best to get in touch with you all, but there will be too many things to do in the coming days, so I won't be able to respond immediately, sorry!  After long months of hard training I have travelled an amazing and sometimes difficult road -  I am looking forward to giving it a real shot on Saturday - to just keep swimming until I hit France...

Jul 12, 2012

Dover - Day 4

Today is the first time we can see France since we arrived

On Sunday morning we left a calm and sunny Rosslare and boarded the ferry for Pembroke for a very flat and relaxing crossing of the Irish Sea.  Four hours of driving through Wales, across the New Severn  Bridge, and the weather changed from sunny to cloudy to wet.  Sunday evening traffic meant traffic jams on the M25 but at about 8:30pm we finally arrived at Varne Ridge Holiday Park, a caravan park half way between Dover and Folkstone, and a traditional waiting spot for Irish Channel aspirants.  Craig and Donal had been here for two days already, and we were soon to be joined by Liam and Catherine on my crew, Jen Lane and her crew, and Lisa crewing for Craig.

Pace Arrow
On Monday I met with my pilot Paul Foreman and, along with fellow aspirant Fionnuala who is swimming next month, Paul showed us his boat Pace Arrow and answered all our questions.  Pace Arrow is not a big boat compared to others, so it is fast and shallow - good attributes for getting close to shore and getting back home to Dover quickly.  Paul is a very nice guy and we all got on well.  He said not to worry about the technicalities too much - just get in and keep swimming 'until your feet touch the deck' in France.

Friday's weather forecast
A lot of people have been asking how to follow the swim.  Pace Arrow uses AIS on his boat and this is how people can keep track of the boat during the swim - I will put a link on a new blog entry when I get the go-ahead for a swim, hopefully with a bit of notice.  People can also check out my Twitter feed here, and I now have tweets displayed on the right-hand side of this blog, as you may have noticed.  Twitter is probably the best way of keeping in touch.  Internet access isn't great but I will update when I  can, if I have news.  At the moment the weather has been very bad for swimming - lots of wind.  It doesn't look great before Saturday, and not great even then.  A Dublin swimmer John Downes has today left for home, as his pilot doesn't think he will swim before Monday and he has run out of time for this tide.  It is quite possible that the weather may be too bad for me to swim.  After that, I will have to come up with another plan.  In the meantime, we wait and watch the weather...


Jul 7, 2012

The Prom - Spot The Difference

These two videos were taken at the diving boards in Blackrock, Galway. See if you can tell the difference. Answers on a postcard please..

December 24th 2011

July 1st 2012

Jul 5, 2012

One Last Lap

There is now less than a week to go before my Channel tide opens.  I'm leaving on Sunday for Dover, the crew (Liam and Catherine) arrive on Monday, and the tide opens on Tuesday the 10th, for a window of 8 days.  If the weather is good, I will swim.  It has been a long time coming, but the day is nearly here.  The work has been done, the preparations have reached fever pitch, the plans ready, the packing imminent.  All that's left to do now is to enjoy the tapering - only an hour swim a day rather than 4, 6, 8.  Time to rest, get the mind in the groove - swim swim swim. Then swim some more.  And then some more.

Cork aspirants 2012
Yesterday we had one last lap around the island to celebrate the departure of the first batch of Cork-based aspirants.  Four of us go on next week's tide.  Here's a pic of coach Eilis' swimmers who have trained in Cork.  About 20 of us swam around to the back of the island and waited at corner 2 but no-one had a camera for the opportune moment, so that sight will have to be stored in our collective memories.

Sandycove crew
After the lap there was lots of coffee, cakes, scones, cards, channel chat, good lucks and best wishes.  A very enjoyable training session, perhaps the best yet..