Simon says let's swim to France

I'm not sure why all my channel swimming stories seem to revolve around food.  But they do. So there you you go. Maybe channel swimmers like it that way. They're like that- It sort of goes with the territory.

The enormity of the task ahead slowly dawns

Anyway. Whatever.

At 7.45 on Wednesday night I was sitting down to supper. The phone rang. It was Simon Fullerton. "Hi how are you?"
"Not too bad."
"Do you ever say yeah I'm great?"
"I've just completeld a back breaking 12 hour day working on a roof somewhere near Oxford."
"Oh, well you're gonna love my news. I've had the call and we're meeting at Dover at 3.30, hoping to set sail at 4.30!"
"Oh... That's great."
"Are you still ok to come?"
"Er.... yeah."
"Great."
"Cool- see you in the morning."
 
I met Simon on DYST and have swum a couple of times with (or more accurately, trailed far behind) him in Brighton and/ or Hove. Most notably the famous Mark Radcliffe's now almost well known 'Mark Radcliffe10k', from King Alfred car park in Hove under/ through both piers to Brighton marina and back.

Simon had thoroughly researched the wind, tide and currents that day and using his data, we planned a slightly harder outward swim to leave us with an easy swim back with the current behind us.

In practice we got smashed on the massive tombstone rocks getting out to eat nuts and feed at the Marina, then had a (very, at times) gruelling swim back to Hove.

Simon spoke to me a few weeks before his swim and asked me if I would crew for him. Luckily on this occasion Simon would have an expert (Mike or Lance Oram) to work out what the water was going to do.

The dawn slowly dawns

So it was yet more deja vu as I got into bed at 9 and set my alarm for midnight. I missed the message saying to meet at 3 instead of 3.30. So when Simon rang me at 3.15 I was still 25 minutes from Dover. He told me the boat was leaving at 3.45 and he would do his best to stop it leaving without me.
I raced into the car park with only moments to spare. This saved me the effort of loading Simon's exhaustively labelled boxes, if not the embarassment of making the Channel aspirant, his pilot, crew and estcort boat wait. I was quickly introduced to the rest of the crew. David, Simon's dad, Mike, Simon's swim coach and Jeffrey, Simon's sea training swim buddy. "This is John, my er...."  "Ballast?" I thought quietly to myself.

Bizarrely I was Simon's most experienced crew member, having unsuccessfully swum and successfully crewed all of one time.

Mike Oram, after a very busy week had fobbed Simon off onto his son Lance and his eclectic boat crew.

There was an informal, fun atmosphere on the boat, but they were always in control, even when the engine threatened to pack up 10 hours in.

Laughter and clouds of cigarette smoke wafted up onto the deck throughout the swim.

We greased our man well, but forgot to apply sun cream. Simon was in a comtemplative mood as we chugged around to Shakespeare beach.

One very big ship and one very small ferry

The light of the morning was much like the one I swam into. It was a 4 am start albeit two months further into the summer. The weather was calmer and the wind was south westerly. Lance had gambled on an earlier start than any of the other boats leaving that morning, risking a rough start, but wary that the weather might deteriorate towards the early evening.

It was a slightly bumpy beginning there was a fair swell at times and a bit of chop. Simon had decided to have a big bottle of maxi and water every feed. He had a load of cold boiled eggs too just in case and not much else. I had a feeling he was maybe taking too much feed, but decided to see what unfolded.

David insisted on mixing all of his boy's feeds. It was beautiful to see the love and admiration he felt for his son. I imagined if I was crewing for my little boy that I'd probably do the same thing. Simon is quite a bit bigger and uglier than my son, mind you.

After about 4 hours the water became stiller and the sun grew stronger. Simon  swam on like a trouper, occasionally corrected on some monor aspect of his stroke by Mike, but largely unmolested.

As we neared the separation zone his stroke rate began to fall off and he looked visibly messier and slower. And more crestfallen. You could see everything wasn't good in Simon's world.

He said he'd want a support swimmer at his next feed or the one after. The rules are that after 3 hours you can have a support swimmer join you for an hour at a time. They musn't swim ahead and mustn't touch you. After that hour you can have no support swimmer for the next two hours.

Jeffrey got his trunks and some grease on, started fiddling with goggles. He seemed really excited to be about to get his chance to have a dip. The flow of little lion's mane and those nasty purple whatever they're called jellyfish grew steadier. To that exact proportion did Jeffrey's face drop and his anxiety level rise.

"Jellyfish is the one thing I don't like about swimming in the sea," he said. "No fucking shit," I inwardly opined.

De rigeur channel sunrise shot

Harmony reigned on deck. It was a perfect day out. David, voluble, optimistic and happy, Jeffrey self contained and content lapping up the constant sunshine, Mike watchful and supportive of his charge. There was no excessive drama and no conflict.

Next feed, Simon sank his vast portion of lovingly prepared tepid maxi and almost immediately began to disgorge at high pressure that latest feed and judging by the prodigious volume of vomit, at least several of the previous few as well.

Having suitably unburdened himself, off he swam, his stroke rate and his mood picked up to its former level. "Right, let's swim to France!" he said, grim, but firm.

Lance came running up onto the deck and told us to only give him tea on the next feed, because he'd obviously overdone the carbohydrate feed.

Next feed Simon said, "I don't need you Jeffrey," and " there's too many jellies for you anyway, you big nancy." He told us a nasty sting had fired him up. We decided that we'd tie a jellyfish to a string and lash him with it every time he started lagging.

 Anything to help really.

A couple of hours later Jeffrey did get his chance to swim. You couldn't be as relieved as he was that he didn't swim into any jellies. Mike was trying to get me to be the next support swimmer. I had a sense of impending doom because I hadn't really swum since my aborted channel attempt. My confidence was low. I was scared that I would either slow Simon down or else have to bail out before the hour was up.

Jeffrey dodges the lions manes

In the end I told them I didn't want to do it.

Lance kept coming up from below to check everyone was ok. He gave Simon the obligatory, "I'm going to need a fast half hour out of you." Si didn't bat an eyelid, just dug in, grunted and gasped.

Simon is from Belfast, which I guess means he carries with him something of the dichotomous history of that place. In his case he combines a sincere sensitivity and social conscience with a laddish demeanour. 

What Simon maybe lacked in subltety, he more than made up for with his passion. At feeds he variously hurled abuse at or punched the channel, using vernacular language I either didn't understand, or that decency precludes my sharing here (if you would credit such a thing).

In the end all of the huffing and puffing, Mike and Jeffrey's support swimming, David's mixing and, of course, my nutritional advice, put Simon exactly where he needed to be, on a conveyor belt straight to the Cap with 4 knots of current behind him.

The perfect landing bang on the Cap Gris Nez

We all swam in after him, clambering onto the rocks, I got a gashed shin as a memento. David, who came in in the dinghy, whooped and swung a bottle of bubbly, the childlike exstatic joy on his face made Simon's mere very happy face look downright miserable by comparison.

There is a certain irony (for me anyway) that Simon swam for about 3 minutes longer than i did, but atually made it to France.

Envious? Me?