The Budgie Smugglers: We made it

On Wednesday evening we got the call saying we need to be in Dover for 01:30am ready to start our channel swim attempt as there was a break in the weather conditions. This gave all of us only a few of hours to get ready and travel to Dover but we were going!

When we arrived in Dover it seemed all the other pilot boats were out and had left just before us. Before Reg our pilot arrived Rodger called in the troops and got out the sealed envelope with our swim order. No one apart from Rodger knew what order we were going in so we were all anxious what order we will be going in as some of us will be swimming in the dark! The order given was:

Melissa Dowell
Chris Swainsbury
Angela Greneski
Paul Salmon
Paul Oxley
Michael Longman

Shortly after Reg arrived in the Viking Princess, welcomed us aboard where we met our official Mikey who gave us a quick run down of the rules.

All ready for the challenge ahead

As soon as we got out the harbour wall we met some choppy water where some of the team started to feel unwell and we had not even started:

Paul Salmon not looking so good

At 02:45am Melissa climbed on-board the dingy and was taken to Shakespeare's beach to start our channel attempt.

The start

Melissa gave a good strong swim to start us off and we had already overtaken 2 other pilot boats before the first hour. Chris followed by Angi gave it their all in the dark before Paul Salmon had the sun rise swim.

Sun rise at 6:32am

Paul Oxley had the next swim and managed to keep in a straight line and allowed us to catch up another channel swimmer.

Can you see the other pilot boat in front?

Next was my turn (Mike) and managed to keep our strong pace going. We all pushed hard and during our next swims and we managed to arrive at Cap Gris-Nez in France 11 hours and 28 minutes after the start.