I joined the Viking Princess at Dover Harbour and we were soon joined by DAVID WEBSTER, David was accompanied by his trainer Josh Crosley and his family and friends Suzzie Flatt, Carolyn Webster and Martin Webster.
It is an absolutely beautiful day, calm sea, blue sky and the full swim fleet out taking advantage of the weather and tide. David slaps on a load of grease as we steam down to Shakespeare Beach. "Go David Go" banners are raised and after a brief farewell, at 09:04... he goes..
David has a very slow stroke, slow but very stylish, it is very relaxing to watch. We head south steadily, when we hear on the radio that Galivant has had to turn back as one of the swimmers helpers has had a stroke. David meanwhile had settled on 52 strokes a minute and he certainly knew how to keep his energy levels up, his half hourly feeds saw him consuming a quite prodigious amount of gels and juices.
At 10:00 a fog appeared, rolling in from the north west and reducing visibility to a few hundred yards, this stayed with us until at 12:30 we entered the south west shipping lane. The fog lifted and once again we were bathed in sunshine.
Although the sea was calm there was a very large flood tide and we took the scenic route as it carried us well up the channel until we were off St Margaret's Bay and clearly in sight of MPC buoy. At first the S/W lane was deceptively quiet and then a whole row of seven ships made a close pass to us and the lane was suddenly very busy, David swam on barely noticing their passing and then at15:00 just before we entered the Separation Zone a tug towing 2 barges passed us, it was an unusual arrangement with a steering rudder attached to the bow of the final barge.
As the day progressed we settled into a cruise ship mentality, relaxing in the sun, sipping cool drinks in the shade and watching the aquatic cabaret on display. David took us into the Separation Zone at 15:10 and 40 minutes later we were in the North East Shipping lane. About this time David complained that his left shoulder was quite sore, but it was not mentioned again, in fact it was the only complaint from David for the whole day, he just swam, fed and swam.
The next 3 hours slid by, little shipping, a lot of swimming and then at 19:20 we entered the French Coastal waters and at 19:50 the glorious sunny day ended with the sort of stunning sunset that can only be seen at sea.
And so with the moon lighting his path David was carried on the tides beyond and the back past the Cape until at 22:19 he went ashore on the beach just to the west of Wissent. In a time of 13 hours and 15 minutes.
I went down with flu after this swim and missed the last two weeks of the season. Later in November at the Annual Dinner & Dance I met David, shame on me that I didn't recognise him in his clothes.
He told me that he had been hospitalised with pleurisy ( I think that's what he said, Mr Whisky and I had been chatting) after the swim. Swimming the English Channel is the ultimate endurance swim..
Look at David before and after!
Well done dear boy!
Proud to have been there!
Monello
;-}~
Music kindly provided by: Atomikdog23 it is called EARTH.. But I think I will rename it WATER for this video..
thank you, please check him out
http://www.youtube.com/user/ATOMIKDOG23
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Englands Lane - Our Timeby GigabitTV643 views
Great vid monello.....the guy looked Dog tired at the end......lol.....
ATOMIKDOG23 3 months ago
@ATOMIKDOG23
thank you..
and thank you for flogging that joke to death
;-}}~
monelloswim 3 months ago