Photos added

Apologies for not having got these up earlier. Work has been relentless pretty much since I got out of the sea in France !

A full account of the swim and some videos will follow soon.

The morning before the swim with Dover Harbour in the background

Loading up the escort boat

 Getting ready to go - with Tania...

 ...and Christian (a true hero and top level triathlete who helped coach me during my training)...



 ...and Wayne (an absolute legend who did his swim the previous Saturday and dropped everything to come and crew for me)...

On the boat before the swim - nerves starting to kick in

 

Lots of factor 50 !!!

 and some more factor 50 before the grease goes on

 Leaving Shakespeare Beach in Dover

 Getting underway

 Several hours off Dover and you can only just start to see France in the far distance

The first shipping lane coming in to view

 Powering on

Powering on

..and on...

..and on...

There were a lot of big ships to avoid

 As night set in I had two flashing green lights attached to me and carried on into the dark

We finished at 3.36am on the morning of Monday 13th September

Because of the extremely strong tides we were swept in a large S shaped curve. Towards the end my speed had dropped so I narrowly missed Cap Gris Nez. 30 minutes quicker would have meant 3 hours less swimming ! Compare this to the swim (credit to Hoffyswims.com) below which was on a neap tide

This is the beach we landed on (we went back the following Saturday to have a look), though this is at low tide. When we landed the tide was up to the base of the cliffs on the left and waves were smashing me against the rocks. If it had been low tide then I think I may have finished a bit earlier given the size of the beach !!!

A re-enaction of the landing...albeit in daytime...and without the 5 foot waves...and without 16.5 hours swimming to get there. The ferry was much easier !

Dover solo (vernacular for a single person channel swim !) - 16.33 !!! Excellent photo taken by Christian who, being a good lad, did get the restaurant's permission first - thanks mate