I love the Class of 2022, I could start and end there. You are an incredible, inspiring, fun loving, hard working incredible bunch of athletes.

I love how welcoming you are when we have new swimmers amongst us. I love how you accept help to stay in when you wobble and think about getting out. I love how you help each other. I love how well you deal with changes to the plan and to the unexpected.

You are a force to be reckoned with.

Weekly Review

NB Please scroll to the bottom for a selection of the photos taken

Night swim

Friday night saw the first of our night swims of the season. I was gutted for the 3 swimmers who missed out on the fun due to traffic issues. Next time, hopefully. Despite that 40 swimmers took to the water.

I have been managing my post covid fatigue levels carefully during the week and the team concluded that in order to get through the weekend, that I should not be on the beach for this one. I knew they were right, so I complied, but it was tough as it is one of my favourite sessions of the year.

There’s something about the atmosphere and camaraderie and the sight of all those green flashing lights that is just so special. I did get to watch the start from my hotel room, apologies for the dodgy photo (their windows need a clean!!). Even from that distance, the lights are very visible.

This year, we upped our safety protocols further and had two more lit up buoys, making a nice easy square circuit to follow. If you’ve been in previous years I’m curious to know how this was for you - it looked a worthwhile investment to me.

A massive shout out to Paul for the 2 plus hours of work to set up the safety aspects (and later take them down), to Brian for his assistance on the SUP for safety and to Mandi, Claire and Sarah for covering all things safety on beach. It may only be an hour’s swim, but it’s a 5 hour effort to make that one swim happen. Thank you.

Here are some night swim photos:

SwimTayka take to the water

It was lovely to see all the SwimTayka swimmers amongst us this weekend and to see your teams getting to know each other. Well done to all those who nailed their qualifying swims this weekend.

Where better to spend your birthday?! 🎂

I’d like to say a massive than you for all the kind birthday wishes. it’s lovely to spend your birthday on the beach. Thank you to Amanda for the amazing cake (you are so multi talented!). How lovely also to have my daughter turn up to say hello and take to the water on her SUP.

Britain by Beach

We all know how special Dover is and hopefully the rest of the country will find out now too. The Channel 4 TV programme came to Dover to film one of their episodes and spent the day with us on Sunday. Anita, the host was lovely and chatted with Halani, Paul & Lucy about their training & swims. She spoke with Julian about the history of the sport and I’m sure some statistics. She then set everyone off on their swims for the day. She then set to work helping with one of the feeds before getting in herself to try a feed and appreciate the temperature of the water. It made for a fun day and I can’t wait to see how the programme turns out.

Shout outs

Congratulations to:

Beth, Stephen, Peter, Amanda, Kevin, Jane & Joshua for their 6 hour qualifiers (and for Joshua accepting help to stay in when getting out at 2 hours would have been easier).
Paul for completing a 6 hour qualifier even though he doesn’t actually need one!
Sophie, Lucy & Jon for their 7 hour swims
For numerous SwimTayka and other relay team swimmers who completed their relay qualifying swims.

Learnings

We were delayed starting the session on Sunday as the film crew got themselves sorted and gained the permissions needed to launch a drone. You’d think it would be easy to adjust everything and it isn’t. We struggled on the beach and there was a great deal of counting on fingers! You all did very well, still getting to feeds on time and out of the water at the right time. There’s a reason we have routines around this stuff!

Some learned (or re-learned) the importance of suncream and that you need to apply it to everywhere that’s exposed (or may become exposed if your swimsuit moves). We’re a team, if you need help applying suncream, please ask a fellow swimmer or member of the beach crew.

Based on some of the demons that were experienced last weekend, I was going to suggest a demon bashing theme for a future week, I’m not sure it’s quite as necessary now as there seemed to be an awful lot of demons slayed this weekend. Well done all!

Swim stats

Note: Water temperature taken during the swim session in the harbour. Air temperature, wind direction & wind speed taken from the Port of Dover app.

Friday:

Swimmers: 40
Water temperature: 14C
Air temperature: 14C
Conditions: Choppy. S F3 gusting F6.

Saturday:

Swimmers: 61
Water temperature: 14.0C
Air temperature: 12.8C
Conditions: Sunny to start, cloudy in the middle. F3 gusting F4 SSW

Sunday:

Swimmers: 53
Water temperature: 14.6C
Air temperature: 13.2C (but much hoter than this on the beach!)
Conditions: F1 SSW - flat & calm, sunny. Busy beach!

Volunteers & beach crew

Thank you to everyone who helped out this weekend - either a little or a lot. Thank you to Mandi & Paul and also to Claire, Sarah & Brian for their help at the night swim. Thank you to Donna for your help on Saturday and to Mike & Shona for your help on Sunday.

If you have appreciated the support that you’ve received in the past, why not come along and volunteer for a session or more. Whilst we’ll accept any help on the day, it is really helpful to know that we have support.

Our group is only sustainable at current pricing with your support.

If you want to join the fun, why not pick a date and join the fun on the beach!

The adventures of Dover Dave

Dave continues to live his best life! He had a fantastic week with Tony who seems to have led him astray at times!! This week he’s will Jill, I’m sure that will be a week full of new connections.

If you’d like to host Dave for a week, please let us know on the beach. We’d love to see a photo diary of Dave’s summer in our Facebook Group.

Paddlefish Ponderings - Bar Stools

“Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.”

— Michael Jordan

Bar Stools

Picture the scene. You’re in a busy bar and there are bar stools between you and your favourite tipple.

What do you do?

Do you give up and decide that it’s too difficult or not worth the effort and go thirsty, or even worse, go home?

Of course you don’t!

Neither you or the bar stool is fixed. Both can move.

In this picture there are just a lot of bar stools and no other people, so perhaps you’ll pick up the bar stool and move it out of your way.

If the stool in front of you is occupied you have a choice, find a different gap and use it, or ask for assistance. Perhaps the person and bar stool can move (the person on the stool could even move it!).

Our demons in training are the same, they can be moved or worked around.

There’s more…

It’s better than that.

If you find yourself facing multiple ‘bar stools’ notice that things can only get in your way if you’re making forward progress.

Think about it…..

If you’re standing still, nothing is an obstacle. An obstacle only exists if you are moving.

So, if you find yourself facing multiple obstacles or demons, take it as a sign that you’re making progress.

Reminders

Remember to book your sessions online. By far the easiest way is through the app. This QR will take you to the app where you can book directly and see what you have already booked. You can cancel and reschedule.

Bookings can be made up to 48 hours ahead and be cancelled or rescheduled up to 48 hours ahead also. The system doesn’t arrange automatic refunds, so if you would like a refund, please check out our refund policy and get in touch if you would like a refund.

Those of you with training subscriptions, enter your email address and click in the discount code box and your automatic voucher should appear. Let me know if you have any trouble with this.

Those of you who are members, please remember to cancel your membership when you no longer want it. You can do that within a membership period and still have all the benefits of it, this will prevent it from auto renewing next year. You can do this within your account, by following the link in the confirmation email when you took out your membership, or by asking me to do it for you.

Keith Oiller is the Swimmer Liaison officer for the CSA and can often be found on the beach during training. If you are a CSA swimmer or are thinking of booking a CSA swim, Keith would be delighted to chat with you.

Looking ahead

Night swims

We’re offering one more night swim opportunity this season.

Early start on Saturday 11th June: this is an opportunity for a long swim (maximum of 6 hours) swimming from the dark into daylight

You’ll need to wear two green adventure lights.

As we are not able to assess new swimmers in the dark, we do not accept new (to us) swimmers on these swims. If you want to join us for one of these night swims, you’ll need to join us before as well.

On these swims, during the hours of darkness, we will have additional safety measures in place with a restricted swim zone. This will be explained during the mandatory briefing.

Intensity week

Back by popular demand, we have our mid-season intensity week. If you’re looking for a fun environment to get a solid block of training in, why not come along and join in. We’ll be blending some long swims with some creative ways of training at a variety of intensity levels.

Spotlight in the shop

Swim Badges

£5.00

We have a range of badges to celebrate your training and swim day successes. Which ones have you earned?

NB - our night swim badge is very special - it includes glow in the dark thread!!

Did you know that we have a large range of badges?

Some you can just buy (like the Class of 2022) and some you have to earn. There was an awful lot of badge earning moments this weekend with relay and solo qualifiers bagged.

Why not see which badges you’ve earned or would aspire to achieve?….