Thank you

Just when you think that you are adapting to the new normal and you know how things are going to be something has to happen to test you again! On Saturday evening at about 9pm I received the first of several calls, texts, messages etc telling me about breaking news that that harbour was now closed to swimming due to poor water quality - EColi levels are too high 😳💩🤢

Firstly, thank you to everyone who thought to tell me, I am incredibly grateful.

So, we couldn’t train in Dover. That’s not ideal at such short notice. However, those of you who’ve been with us for a while will remember the 2017 season when we couldn’t train in Dover on Saturdays due to piling work. That year we mostly trained in Hythe. We learned a lot that season, particularly when it came to being able to read the weather forecast and know whether Hythe would be suitable or whether Ramsgate would be a better alternative.

I took a look at the forecast and concluded that Hythe would be lovely. That’s the easy bit.

I am also very glad that I have continued to invest in and improve my systems. In the old world of paper declarations and signing in books and finding out who was training when they turned up, I would not have been able to get in touch with all those who needed to know. What I was able to do was to email and text all those who had booked for Sunday and put a post onto our Facebook Group so that others who are training independently also knew.

I was impressed to find that all except one person who I was expecting to see on the Sunday managed to find their way there on time. Thank you for being adaptable. Thank you also to those of you who replied to my messages to confirm whether or not you would come. It was helpful to know that the process worked.

I don’t know what next weekend holds yet, I will let you know once I know.

DOVER (AND HYTHE) SWIMS

Saturday:

Swimmers: 15 (over 2 start times)
Water temperature: 19.9C
Air temperature: 22.7C
Conditions: Calm, clear water. Light breeze (F1 SW) and hazy.

Sunday (Hythe):
Swimmers: 12 (over 2 start times)
Water temperature: 21.0C
Air temperature: 19.8C
Conditions: Glassy flat to start, slightly choppier later. Muggy & hazy, rain at the end. F1 E.

Quick facts:

19 swimmers joined the longer swims.
We had 6 swimmers swim both days
Well done to Craig Kerr and Patrick Tschorn on your back to back 6s and to those who combined an independent mid week swim with a group swim for a different way of doing a back to back.
It was lovely to welcome back some swimmers from previous years as well as our regulars
We also welcomed back some of our regular ‘virtual’ swimmers
We met 4 new swimmers

Hythe

For those of you who haven’t trained in Hythe before, it is a beautiful location. It’s good to break things up occasionally. Hythe offers a nice long stretch of water and the experience of feeling how the tide operates. The conditions will likely feel different to the harbour without walls for waves and tide to bounce off of. If we go there again, feel free to join us!

One of the changes that we had to make was to our feeding process. We didn’t have time to relocate the kayak and so we needed a COVID-19 safe beach feeding process. If you want an idea of how that works, this short clip will show you. What you won’t see from this is the fact that each swimmer has their own uniquely numbered bottle which we refill. After each contact it is surface sanitised. You can see the PPE that we wear.

CHANNEL SWIMMER ON THE BEACH

Donna Nicholas looking fabulous after her swim

Oh my shattered nerves, what a week of tracking we had! Overall the CS&PF and CSA websites recorded:

1 new two-way soloist
14 new soloists
10 new relay teams

Amongst them we saw:

Steve Stievenart (everyone’s favourite) on his epic under the radar 2-way solo. I was in the lucky position to meet Steve and Fred in the marina before the attempt started and then to find our relay beside them pretty much all the way over. It was lovely to witness it all unfold.
Chloe McCardel completed her final planned crossing for 2020, taking her to 35 crossings, surpassing Kevin Murphy’s number and putting her in #2 position, with only Alison Streeter having more crossings!
Neil Larkin, Clive Woodcock and Donna Nicholas for each of their solo swims in times of 12 hours 10 minutes, 15 hours 46 minutes and 13 hours 23 minutes. All three of them did a fantastic job with our ramp-up camps in July. Epic swims - well done to you all. I absolutely loved tracking you, even if my nerves were shattered at the end!
Liesl Norris for a brave and amazing attempt. Whilst she didn’t quite make it to France on this swim, she was a huge inspiration to me and I’m convinced that we’ll see her excited on a French beach at some point.
Coronacoaster 2020 relay which I was lucky to be in along with your beach crew regulars of Paul, Mandi & Jon and 2019 regular Paul Cross and 2020 ramp up camp swimmer and new to DCT swimmer Rob Copsey. A lovely day out.
Lunachicks relay which included DCT regular and 2020 ramp up camp swimmer Hayley Brant and new to DCT and the 2020 ramp up camp, Kate Taylor. Well done team!!
Mencap Marvels relay including the incredible Nikki Pope - I loved the photo they shared of Donna near to the finish at the cap.
Steve Henigan (class of 2019) for his 3 person relay

Well done one and all, you are all legends.

It was lovely to see both Clive and Donna on the beach after their swims looking very well indeed.

VOLUNTEERS

This was the first weekend of including new volunteers and we were super lucky to have Hayley and Richard Brant supporting us on Saturday. Thank you so much, you were brilliant.

There are many things that make our group what it is, and our volunteers are one of those things.

It is useful to have a bank of volunteers that know how we work in case any of our regular volunteers need to self-isolate for a period of time.

If you would like to volunteer, we will teach you our Covid-19 processes and provide the PPE. You will be very welcome. You can sign up here.

EMMA’S CORNER - ACCOUNTABILITY

One of the changes this year is how we can support accountability. As you will be aware from my announcements at the beginning of the season that we are operating differently this year due to COVID-19. Rather than having large groups gathering in one location we are following a hybrid approach. Some of you are training with us and following your own plan. Some of you are training independently and using our subscription plans to develop your training plan and some are training with us and taking our advice on training.

The best of you are using us or another source to be accountable to. If you do everything yourself, it’s all so easy to set yourself a target for your training swim and then come up with all sorts of reasons (also known as excuses) why you should actually deviate from that plan. It’s very hard to call yourself out on that.

It is one of my biggest challenges as a leader of the group when it comes to my own training.

If you aren’t already using us to keep you to account, I would seriously suggest you use us or someone else that you trust to be accountable to. Set yourself a pattern of doing what you say you will do and that will serve you very well on the day. There can be moments on the day when you go through a challenging half hour or so, you are not the best person to make a judgement call on that. Hand that over to your crew. If you’ve been accountable to someone in training, it’s much easier to be accountable to someone else on the big day.

PHOTOS

A few photos from this weekend.

BOOKING SYSTEM

This year I have added a booking system to help you to take control of how you interact with us. You can book your weekend swims in advance (a necessity in this Covid-19 world), you can join a community call, book a one to one or sign-up for ur remote training support subscription packages.

If you want to use our booking system, it can be found below.