Saturday 4th June
Unlike our weekend in Brighton this weekend didn’t start off in true style, with various alarms going off from 5am – 6am across our team members bedrooms to ensure we could wake up and get to Dover in time for a 10am start. When my alarm started blaring in my ear at 6am I thought to myself “What have I got myself into”.
Again we had a “Top Gear”-esque race with me and James getting to St Pancras for the 7:12 hi-speed train to Dover Priory, Adam meanwhile was taking his premature mid-life crisis petrol guzzling motorbike and Taras heading in the complete opposite direction to his friend’s birthday party in Sheffield. It was no surprise to us when Taras didn’t turn up as he did what we in the team like to say “He pulled a Danny”.
Myself, James and Adam pretty much arrived in Dover at the same time which felt a million miles from civilisation as with no shops/cafes open we had to settle for a cheap out of date sandwich from a local petrol station for breakfast
We were then told by Beth “the bearer of bad news” that team Captain Rosie wasn’t turning up for medical reasons. We were down to the bare bones of the team!
Yvette didn’t disappoint as she arrived in style and fashionably late with her soft top BMW. She had to leave however on the Saturday due to a triathlon on the Sunday (Not a traditional triathlon as most of us would know it, but Yvette’s triathlon consisted 3 disciplines of sleep. Light sleep, REM sleep and you guessed it, heavy sleep!).
On arrival to Dover we were greeted by the sight of the solo swimmers in all different shapes and sizes being greased up by a man with a big smile and a blue latex glove. Alongside him stood Freda Streeter a.k.a “The Channel General” barking orders at everyone. Freda is the mother of Alison Streeter MBE who is our Channel Champion having completed 43 crossings.
We paid our £5 registration fee which came with a health warning of !!! YOU SWIM AT YOUR OWN RISK !!! (great just what we wanted to hear before we get into the dark murky diesel drenched waters of Dover harbour).
Approximately 30 people from the Aspire charity got in and started swimming with our required yellow caps (apart from James in a green cap). From the shore of the pebbly beach it must have looked like a big bath tub full of yellow bath ducks bobbing around helplessly. The water started off nice and calm (still freezing about 12 Celsius) and we got into a good rhythm gliding through the sea like a knife cutting through warm butter. We were making good progress until Poseidon the ancient Greek God of the sea decided to set us a challenge and began sending wave after wave of extremely salty sea water crashing down on us. This was too much for me to bear as the sea sickness kicked in I turned brighter green than James swimming cap and began feeding the fish with the remains of the petrol station chicken mayo sandwich from my stomach. Time for me to make an early exit.
An hour later and we were back in for the second swim, overdosed with tablets and with ear plugs in (which pretty much fell out of my ear with the first wave that crashed into my face), we set off in the choppy waters and all managed to stay in for the next full hour. As the fish had already eaten there was no need for them to be fed again and the tablets seemed to have done the trick (although I was feeling quite queasy again).
According to Daybreak, Saturday was the hottest day of the year so far and although the sun was beaming 29 swimmers from the Aspire charity were shivering and getting hot drinks to warm up, but not the beast that is Adam he heard the ice cream van pull up and he was straight in there with a magnum.
The rest of the day was spent waiting for Premier Inn to pull their finger out and give us lunch which we ordered over half hour ago. With some food in our belly’s we were advised by one of the Premier Inn staff the best place to watch the England game was a dive called “Funky Monkey” which according to reviews is Dover’s No 1 Night spot. Can’t complain to much it had a big screen to watch England’s 2:2 draw with Switzerland and a pool table where James thrashed us all. It was a bit difficult for us all to leave, not due to how nice it was inside compared to the outside, but due to the fact that you stuck to the floor from all the spilt drinks. Classy establishment.
Back to the Premier Inn for our 3 course meal with again typically bad service as we were shortly becoming accustomed too and a night cap at the bar. Due to my sea sickness I decided to not drink too much alcohol and despite the beer pressure from James and Adam I was out drunk by Beth who usually gets pissed on half a bottle of Evian.
Sunday 5th June
Early rise and down to Breakfast for some more bad service with a side of fear as the weather had taken a turn for the worse. The sun filled blue sky had been replaced over night by dark grey smog, the wind had picked up and the air temperature had dropped not ideal conditions for swimming.
We were set for a 75 minute swim. It was difficult just to enter the sea due its extreme choppiness. We managed about an hour before myself and James had begun to develop severe shivering whilst swimming, which is obviously not a good sign.
Adam continued for a while longer until he got bored of swimming solo and joined us on the beach where our frozen toes were numb and heavy.
We waited around a while for to warm up and there was another 45 minutes swim planned however we made a team decision to sit that one out and get an early start on our return journeys home.
You will be glad to hear that we weren’t the only ones to leave after the first swim with only 2 idiots (I mean people) from our deciding to get back in for another gruelling 45 mins. By which time we were on our way home and almost back to civilisation.
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