Post-swim blogging

So finally I've done it, attemted (and failed) to swim the English Channel. Although failure is potentially a bit too strong.

I swam to within 3 miles of the French coast, where me and a collection of 6 other swimmers were met with a freak random tide, which forced us back out to sea, At this point I had one and a half hours swimming time left to the shore. I swam on for another three hours and didn't move an inch (well, I moved sideways). I'll post the map up here when I can, with some pictures. The facts remain below:

- I swam for 13 hours and 45 minutes, from 5am to 6.45pm.
- I swam 24 miles
- On that day, my projected swim should have been 22 miles but for the freak tide
- 9 swimmers set out
- 3 relay swimmers got to France, no solo swimmers did. two gave up in the first three hours.
- Th fastest swimmer got to within half a mile of the French coast (15 minutes swimming), and had to turn back because of the tide.

All in all, I'm proud of my achievement, in actual fact I swam further than the channel. The bitter fact is, though, that I didn't swim the channel. Regardless I will hold my head high. I did something extraordinary, and mind boggling, that is a long time swimming. It doesn't make me special, and ultimately I failed, but it wasn't my fault and I could have carried on forever - I was forced out of the water by my pilot because success at that point had become impossible.

I'll always look back on my swim with a tinge of frustration and emptiness - for all the physical strength that it has proved, it wasn't a channel crossing, and that victory will only ever be conclusively in my head. I think I'll have to go back one day and try again. With Eric Hartley and my mum and dad, who never left the side of the boat in all that time (although mum will have to admit to partial sea sickness).

Also on board were my erstwhile companions Harry and Max, of paddling fame, and Millsey, who is an inspirational figure anyway for all he's achieved in his life.

One day I'll write in more detail about how it feels to cross the channel through swim. This has been quite an adventure, and whilst I don't have closure one it, and am left with that terrible frustration, I have proved something, I'm not sure what - in actualy fact I didn't find the ordeal too difficult, although my shoulders will argue otherwise.

I'm not Ranulph Fienes or James Cracknell, or Scott and Amundsen. But I know now that I can do some great things, and that I can't stop at the channel. I'll do it again one day, but only to close off a box I already know now that I can tick. Maybe I'll do a 2-way crossing - for some reason just one way doesn't seem a challenge enough any more.

Crossing the channel is not racing across the Atlantic or doing transglobal expeditions. For me, though, it will do just fine!