MIMS 18/6/2011 - Swimming Around Manhattan With My Eyes Shut

A 45km swim race is not the time to make ‘school boy’ errors but less than an hour and a half into the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim race my vision was blurring and my eyes were stinging so badly I was struggling to see. I couldn't initially work out what was wrong but even with a change of goggles I knew I was in trouble.

Four days earlier I had arrived in New York for this iconic swim. One 45km (28.5mile) lap of the rivers around Manhattan Island. Starting at the southern tip you swim up the East river under the famous Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. Hopefully navigate the volatile currents at "Hells Gate" as you enter the slow moving Harlem River. Swim steadily up to the northern tip of Manhattan where you meet the massive, unpredictable Hudson before swimming the entire length of Manhattan back to the start. I had taken a ferry around Manhattan on my second day and tried to spot as many landmarks as possible to help me navigate myself on the swim. Two hours into the swim I was thinking to myself that all my research and preparation was getting wasted as I struggled to see my kayaker 2m away from me never mind the skyscrapers of downtown New York.

The start of the swim had gone well, I had started in the 3rd wave of fastest seeded swimmers. As the siren started I set off at a fast but manageable pace and only Erica Rose, the American Champion swimmer, had set off quicker. I was very conscious of three-time-winner Johnny Van Wisse being the man to beat and I also knew he had such great stamina that if he got away from me at the start I would never be able to reel him in. As it was, by the time my eyes started playing up I was holding 2nd place and we were passing many of the swimmers from the earlier waves.

By two hours we were well into the Harlem, the swift but churning waters of the East River were well behind and the unpredictable ‘Hells Gate’ had been expertly navigated by my kayakers. I then hit my second problem I was starting to bonk! Bonking has several meanings, but in endurance sport it refers to the dropping of blood sugar levels and the resulting deterioration of performance. I shouldn't have been feeling depleted at such an early stage and I had already had several feed stops so fueling shouldn't have been an issue but for whatever reason I had hit a wall. I eased back the tempo and just tried to grind through it knowing I would hopefully bounce back as the feeds kicked in but along with my increasingly blurry vision and a sharp ache in my right shoulder I was starting to think it wasn't going to be my day. At that moment Johnny swam past me and I thought to myself ‘well that's the last I'll see of him!’

The Harlem River is the slowest section of the race with the least tidal assistance but it is also the most dotted with bridges and I used each consecutive bridge I swam under as a little mental marker to note progress. By half way up the Harlem I was feeling noticeably better, I had increased the frequency of energy gels and my right shoulder, while still twinging occasionally, was bearable. The best boost however was that I was gaining on Johnny. I upped the tempo as I reached the top of the Harlem and moved slightly ahead of Johnny and back into 2nd place. The low swing bridge that marks the junction of Harlem and Hudson came into view and in an instant we were swept through into the expansive Hudson River. Nearly 4km away the massive vista of the George Washington Bridge was blurry but obvious. I also knew the tides were yet to swing into our favour and it would be almost an hour before we passed this last bridge. Johnny and I continued to cat and mouse, his very experienced paddler (Richard Clifford) had taken him much closer into the shore at this point where he later confided that the currents moved quickest. We had made some progress on Erica who at one point was less than a 100m ahead of us and it was all to swim for!

Behind us, one by one the following swimmers were coming into the Hudson and getting the increasing benefit of the rising tide. It was about this stage though I was really struggling with my eyes. My left eye was so sore that I had to stop every 15minutes or so to rinse it and try to relieve the intense pain I was feeling. I swam mostly with my eyes squeezed shut only opening them momentarily to check I wasn’t going off course. I had wondered whether it was sunscreen that had run into my eyes at the start but then I remembered the anti-fog spray I had liberally applied before the race. Usually I rinse the goggles thoroughly after applying the spray but we had jumped in and started so quickly I had barely immersed them before the siren had started.

As we progressed down the Hudson my vision was so blurred I could see very little of other swimmers, I could just make out some of the bigger structures along the Manhattan shoreline and I looked out for the more memorable buildings that I had seen during the boat trip a few days before. Johnny and Erica had slowly pulled away as I struggled to cope with my eye problems. Finally we hit the large piers that marked an hour or less to go and I tried to give it one last push to the finish. As we came to the last kilometers the support boats directed Johnny’s crew and mine to come closer to the shoreline, some of the trailing competitors took a wider line and made better use of the faster moving currents. I finally made out the large buoys that marked the last few hundred meters and I could suddenly see a swimmer just 20 meters ahead of me. With no idea who it was I kicked as hard as I could (which after 7 and ½ hours was a struggle!), I was making slow progress but the final bouy was suddenly upon us and we turned into the finishing area. I touched the steps just seconds behind the swimmer who turned out to be 3^rd placed Evan Morrison, he had swum the better tactical line to the finish and nipped me at the end! Johnny was less than a minute ahead and Erica a few minutes ahead of him.

My emotions at the end were a mix of happiness at completing such a memorable and iconic swim but tinged with disappointment at being so close to 2^nd and 3^rd place and falling just short. Erica swam fantastically and at the end of the day I was beaten by great swimmers in Johnny and Evan but I had gone into the race with a belief I could challenge for a win and I fell just short.

Every swim offers you opportunities to learn and improve and sadly I learned a fairly basic lesson on this one but the increased feeding regime had worked well in the end and New York is definitely a swim that inside knowledge can be a huge benefit, so if I ever get a chance to swim it again I will be very much the better for it!

This was my 8^th official marathon swim race, and like all the others before, was successful largely because of the brilliant support around me. I had two great paddlers in Terry and JC who were just fantastic and looked after me so well. My wife and mother were the official crew once again on the support boat and at every stop I could hear them yelling and encouraging me. My independent observer Darren was anything but independent! He cheered and yelled as loudly as anyone (perhaps not as loudly as Vickie). Finally my in-laws and father had also come to enjoy the spectacle and it was great to have so much personal support so far from home!

I really enjoyed New York, I met some great local and international swimmers, the local open water swim community, CIBBOWS, were incredibly welcoming and friendly and the race organisers put on a fantastic event. Who knows maybe I have some unfinished business in New York…..

Rottnest 2011 - the race that almost wasn't!

Unbeknownst to me my race almost never happened. At 4.15am my support crew (my wonderful parents) headed off in the pre-dawn dark to meet our boat and boat crew at the launch spot. They arrived to help Don our boat captain launch the 'Wave 'N Looney' into the Swan river, as they all settled aboard Don turned the engine over to a resounding nothingness. Disbelief with Don was met with rising panic from my parents. With no way of communicating with me the first I would know about the boat failure would be when I reached the 1500m check point where swimmers must have met up with their boats or their race is over, it loomed as one of the shortest marathon swims I would do.

Meanwhile for me my day had started much more relaxing than the previous year. Last year I was pretty anxious about how I would find my paddler and then boat in the dawn light and I was still acutely aware of how hard I had struggled in my last big swim; The English Channel just 6 months before. In reality it had all worked out just fine and although any swim of this distance (20km) is tough I enjoyed the warm water and conditions and was happy to contemplate doing it again. So by 4.30am I had met up with Paul my paddler/kayak support on the beach and soon after I was checked in, sunscreened and vaselined up and was ready to hit the water. At 5.45am the siren sounded and we were off, like last year I quickly spotted Paul among the masses of paddlers lined along the swim chute and we headed out to the 1km mark where the boats waited. The previous year Don's boat hadn't loomed into view until nearly the 1.5km cut off mark so I wasn't overly worried when I couldn't immediately see him or even when I noticed Paul repeatedly looking around. In the back of my mind I did know if the boat had a major problem we had no way of being told, it just wouldn't turn up and I would be stopped in another 500m.

Back at the boat ramp Don had gone into Mr Fix It mode and had been running backwards and forwards to his car to retrieve a spare battery, a little juggling and jump-starting later they were in action even if a little later than planned. They took off at a rate of knots to get to Cottesloe arriving not long after I had started but knowing they still had 10 minutes to find me before the cut off. The problem was by then there was such a mass of boats in the way it was hard work just getting up to where the swimmers were and at one point they found themselves hemmed in by boats on one side, paddlers behind and an official support boat in front, a little nudging ensued, a few words were exchanged, the support boat got 'maneuvered' out of the way and finally they were in the clear. They shot threw and finally spotted Paul's kayak and with less time to spare than was comfortable we had successfully met up! I spotted my mum's fluro rain jacket out of the corner of my vision and mentally relaxed knowing that the race was really underway and it was now up to me.

My parents however weren't able to share my relief as Don soon realized he had another problem, the radio wasn’t working! Being the good honest man he is, he signaled a support boat and informed them of his dilemma and to confirm he was still contactable on his phone. The reply from officialdom was 'No radio, no race' and the stress levels started to rise again. Don wasn't to be defeated having got this far and put his mechanics hat back on to have a go with the radio, a few tense minutes later it crackled into life and after confirming it's function with ‘the powers that be’ we were back on track.

The race unfolded steadily with a race leader, the favourite Tim Hewitt, making some early ground and then a cluster of swimmers, myself included just 50-100m back. We had just started to spread a little when a large tanker decided it would head across the shipping channel and I found myself almost head butting a water traffic boat which was stopping all the swimmers. It meant a delay of about 5 or 6 minutes which instantly compressed the field again, any lead built up was gone. We finally received the all clear and set off with Tim once again setting the pace and my training partner and closest competitor Peter Thompson deciding to make a charge.

I was in 3^rd place by half way and although I had hoped for a podium finish hanging onto 3^rdwas by no means guaranteed and secretly I had hoped for better. I knew I would have a dark moment at some point – all endurance events have some hard stretches. When you are swimming in the wide open seas you have a long time in your own head and it can be very hard not to start thinking some negative thoughts. About 2 to 3 hours in I was feeling tired and with a long way still to go the support boat looked very appealing, if someone would have offered to stop the race then and accept my 3^rd place I would have jumped at it. But slowly as the kms ticked by I was closing in on Peter, having courageously blasted himself to have a crack at the win he was starting to suffer and when I finally got my 2^nd wind at the 3 and a half hour mark I had passed him. I kicked harder and increased my effort, I knew if I could keep up my pace I would be hard to catch, I just had to be able to maintain it.

At about the 4hour mark I had an ‘interesting’ experience, I was passing over a deep part of the channel, the visibility was so clear that you can see the bottom most of the way but at that moment it was just deep blue nothingness and there way below me at the limit of my vision was a shape heading in the opposite direction. I might have just assumed it was a large fish had it not been for a very distinct hammer-shaped head! Before I could even get a better look it was gone, the only consolation being it was clearly heading in a different direction to me! I wondered if I had really seen a shark and I might have been happy to believe I was mistaken if it wasn’t for the announcement of a shark sighting at the finish and then in the paper the next day a sighting of a school of 120 hammerhead and whale sharks of the coast. I’m not sure if it actually made me swim faster but it took my mind off the nausea and muscle fatigue I had been worrying about!

Why is it that no matter how fit you are the end of the race is always so hard? The last 2kms seemed to go on forever. I have enough experience now to know looking up to see if the land is getting closer is a mistake so I just kept looking across at Paul in his kayak and trying to egg myself on. Finally we started passing boats moored off shore and when Don disappeared I knew the end was less than a kilometer away. ‘Only 20 laps of the pool’ I told myself, ‘Finish strong, you don’t want to get beaten in the last 500m!’ I didn’t exactly power home but I finished well and when the sand finally loomed close, I stood up, running/staggering across the line in 4hrs and 56minutes. I turned around at the finish and was surprised to see a competitor only metres behind me. Louise Stevenson who had nearly ‘chicked’ me last year had gone even closer this time and as I congratulated her I was very relieved to unknowingly have held her off again.

Every marathon swim is a different experience. I was very glad to have been unaware of the various boat issues, my parents would have liked to have been just as ignorant! Racing 20km this year was very different and much harder than just completing it last year and to have broken 5 hours and finished 2^ndoverall was fantastic. I read in the paper the next day that Tim Hewitt was planning on skipping the race next year, I am supposed to be back living in the UK, but who knows, maybe I should have an Australian holiday come late February?

Bloody Big Swim - Bloody Big Effort

Last year I swam this 11.2km event without a wetsuit and came 3rd overall only 6 minutes back from 1st place. This year I was hoping to go a little better and was prepared to sacrifice the moral high ground and don the wetsuit.

Training had been going well since an enforced 2 week break (while recovering from the flu) at new year. Some good sessions in the last two weeks making me think I was getting back to the form I had before xmas. My big rivals would be my training partner Peter Thompson and last years' winner, marathon swimmer John Van Wisse. I had a surprising boost to my title hopes with the news that John was swimming in a relay team this year and Peter had decided to only swim in his open water swimsuit and not the full wet suit (focusing on the Rottnest Channel swim next month). Quietly confident I hoped this might be my year!

I had great support from Rob Davis my paddler who had escorted me last year and knew me and the course well and I even had a boat crew lined up courtesy of the Frankston Yacht club - so all the boxes were ticked this year!

We lined up at Frankston beach for the start at 9am on Saturday the 29th Jan, and although I didn't recognise any other serious competitors there is always that nagging doubt some young gun would pop up from nowhere and nail it.

My strategy was fairly simple - to go out at a good steady pace, not to get too swept up with any excitement in the first km and hopefully build up a reasonable lead in the 2nd half of the swim, coast in for the win in about 2 and a quarter hours! As with many plans this went out of the window fairly early.

When the starting siren sounded one swimmer shot off like he was being fired out of a cannon! He sprinted into the water and by the first turning buoy was already opening up a reasonable lead. I was in second place but could see Peter was just behind me. My title ambitions seemed to be dwindling into the distance fairly early on and I knew that the pace the lead swimmer had set off at was too fast for me. If he could maintain that he would win comfortably, I hoped he might fade at the end but by then he would probably be too far away to catch.

Peter was soon tapping my feet and within a kilometre we were side by side swimming stroke for stroke. We have trained like this in the lakes, Peter breathes to his right and me to my left so we line up next to each other and push each other along in training. I was a little put off by the thought that I really should have been quicker than him given I had the more buoyant wetsuit but we were pushing each other along at a good pace and we settled in to this arrangement feeding at the same time and encouraging each other to keep the tempo up.

By an hour and a quarter (just over half way) our paddlers informed us we were about 100m behind the lead swimmer which wasn't a lot, probably just over a minute but still quite a margin to catch up at that pace. We set off again, each time one of us slowed a little the other one got slightly in front and forced the other to pick up the tempo so we kept up a really consistent speed, I felt I was going as fast as I could maintain over the distance. We had a last stop at 1hr 45min and were told we were only 60m behind now but struggling to get closer, Rob encouraged us to push if we wanted to catch the front runner. With a last word of encouragement to Pete we pushed on knowing we were probably only 2km to the finish. I could see the lead swimmers' paddler and boat and it looked like we were getting steadily closer, with 20minutes to go I started to believe we might just catch him and I tried to step up the pace. Having swum side by side with Pete for nearly 2 hours I could see I was just starting to edge ahead and although I felt a little guilty leaving my training partner and friend I was desperate to have a crack at the win. With about 500m to go I had drawn level with the lead swimmer who having been told he was being caught had tacked across to our line and tried to jump on my feet. He hung on for about a hundred metres but slowly I started pulling away from him. By now I was getting seriously fatigued and I thought I might have timed my run too early. I could just see Pete making a move behind me but he was still 15 metres off my feet. The last thing I wanted was a sprint up the beach, getting passed in the last 50m was a dire thought. So as I rounded the last buoy and turned towards the finishing line, about 100m away, I kicked with all I had and as soon as the sand was within reach I was duck-diving and then sprinting through the shallows. I crossed the line about 13 seconds ahead of Peter and just under a minute ahead of 3rd place. As it turned out he was a young gun who had beaten me in several shorter ocean swims earlier in the season. He was a very fast swimmer over the 1 and 2km distances but on the day the longer distance was a just too far for him and after 7km he had started to tire.

(3 swimmers sprint finishing!)

So a very pleasing win in 2hrs and 9minutes, Peter swam really well and would no doubt have won had he worn a proper wetsuit. I was very happy to have had such a hard fought win, and to catch the lead swimmer in such an exciting manner right at the end.

Many thanks to Rob my paddler, Matt the boat captain and my support crew; my wife Vickie and my parents who came down and found it much more exciting than many of my long swims!

(final sprint up the beach)

and so it begins again..........

One last big one, is what I have told myself. In the last 2 years I've swum 5 'big' swims. A double Windermere and the English Channel in 2009. The Bloody Big Swim, Rottnest Channel and the Maui Channel this year. The main differences between the last 3 and the first 2 being relatively warm Australian/Hawaiian waters and much more sensible distances - 11km, 20km and 16km respectively. Windermere and the EC were not a lot of fun and I swore I would never do another swim like the English Channel, it was an 11hr struggle, and I spent 10 and 1/2hrs wanting to get out! The thing is though, time softens the unpleasant memories. The swimmers I have met along the way inspire me to consider other swims, the quest to tackle another monster swim starts to sound more appealing and then before you know it, it's 4am on the 1st of November and I am hunched over the computer firing off an entry into a 28mile marathon swim that some say is harder to get into than it is to finish. I thought I was prepared for the involved entry process. I believed I met all the criteria to get selected but over the next few days I keep rechecking the start list to see other swimmers names accepted but not mine. Initial frustration for not get the nod straight away starts to give way to a nagging feeling that maybe it's for the best not getting in, after all do I really want to do this? Then the email and the green tick appear - I'm in, I'm on the very select start list for the 2011 Manhatten Island Marathon Swim. 45km of cold, tidal, fairly unpleasant water! One last big one. This is it, no more after this........Mind you I've just heard my mate Howard is having a crack at the North Channel (what a swim that is) and then if I do Catalina I'd have the triple crown..............

Maui (Auau) Channel 4/10/2010

I’m not normally a superstitious person, I don’t hold much weight on black cats crossing your path or walking under ladders but this last week I was starting to see things and portents of doom where I really shouldn’t have. It started with the trigger fish – (humuhumunukunukuapua’a – to give it its’ Hawaiian name). There I was doing a bit of relaxing snorkeling when I felt a little pinch on my toe, I turned around to see a brightly coloured little chap with a fetching arrow like stripe on his side watching me closely, I swam towards him thinking ‘hey little fellow, did you just bump into my foot’ and he promptly darted up to me and bit me on the finger. Now it was hardly a mortal wound, but it bled nicely for a few minutes after I had got out of the water and that night as I surfed wikipaedia I learnt I have been ‘got’ by the state fish of Hawaii. Still, I said to myself, just because a little reef fish fancied my finger doesn’t mean the larger sharper toothed varieties will find me tasty, does it?

The day before the swim I went for a last little loosener, just 2km around the ironman swim course. Half way round a felt a searing pain shoot across the back of my right hand, right across my face and down my chest and left arm, it felt like I had just been flailed. This was not the first occasion I had been hit by a bluebottle/portugese man-of-war so I knew what it was but the knowledge doesn’t really ease the discomfort, I made for home with my eyes watering and my skin burning with thoughts of how these little buggers often like to float in great numbers in the ocean, fortunately no more stings on the way back in but I wondered how many might be lined up the next day in the Maui channel. When I got back to the condo I received lots of sympathy from Vickie and an offer of a golden shower (which I declined). That night I spoke to my brother Matt about the swim and he regaled me with the story of an open water swimmer getting killed by a shark in the shallow waters off a Perth beach. Despite my protests that attacks on open water swimmers are extremely rare he did his best to convince me otherwise. It’s not wise to dwell on these things, the mind has a very active way of conceiving the worst case scenarios………..and then embellishing them.

The following morning we got up at 4am for out flight to Maui. We were treated to a 45min inter-island flight on a tiny 9-seater Cessna airplane. I had deliberately not told Vickie about the size of the craft as she has quite strong views about the safety of small airplanes (see previous paragraph about the mind and conceiving worst case scenarios). Still apart from a nagging feeling that a strong wind would tear both the wings off, it was a very scenic little flight and we picked up our hire car and headed around to Lahaina for the start of the swim. We met Jim Dickson our pilot and Mickey his crewman for the day and within about 10minutes of arriving I was in the water and swimming. Part of the haste was the concern about conditions blowing up as the morning progressed, it was already windy when we arrived and the strong currents and winds can make this crossing a notoriously choppy one. The Maui channel race the previous month had been one of the roughest on record with many teams not finishing or stopped because they were outside the 8hr cut off time. As I started I was treated to crystal clear waters, beautiful reefs and a turtle gliding about 5m beneath me. The waves initially were fairly gentle rollers coming from my right side and a little behind me so that every now and again I would get a nice push along although I was doing quite a bit of course correction to stop getting pushed off line. The first hour was easy and pleasant, the water got gradually deeper until I could no longer see the bottom but as is usually the way I don’t find myself dwelling on the deep blue beneath me on these swims, my head is happily too focused on the swim itself. I was in a nice rhythm and my main concern was not to start too enthusiastically, it was after all, going to be a good 4hrs of swimming. It’s usually about the 1.5-2hr mark that some of the negative thoughts start to creep in, not quite half way and the muscles are starting feel like they have already had a good work out. The conditions started to get quite choppy and it was getting harder to maintain the efficient relaxed stroke that is needed for a long swim. At the 2hr feed I was just over half way and I knew it was going to be a 4hr plus swim, not the 3.5hr in optimal conditions version I had secretly hoped for. I always try to break up these swims into little sections, trying not to think about how much further is left as it can weigh on the mind. ‘Swim to the next feed’ got me across the English Channel and it’s a good way to approach even more modest swims. At about the 3hr mark I remember thinking, how on earth did I keep going for 11hrs in the cold English Channel, I was feeling quite tired and the boat was looking like an attractive rest stop. Vickie however wasn’t looking like she was enjoying the boat ride. She had started off looking quite animated and moving around the boat, had progressed to sitting as still as possible to lying flat on her back and I was pretty certain the anti-nausea pill had not achieved the desired outcome. Fortunately I couldn’t hear Mickey yelling ‘follow the trail’ at one point but I had already correctly assumed she was feeding the fish.

Lanai, like all the other Hawaiian Islands is an old volcanic protrusion out of the ocean so it has a pretty high mountainous look about it This means you can see it easily a long way off (from the start) and it doesn’t appear to be getting closer until you are pretty much almost there. The last hour I manage to pick up the pace a little, I figured about 4km to go, only 80 laps of a 50m pool or one slightly long circuit of the ironman course. My shoulders were fatiguing and my neck was aching from sighting forwards so much. I could see something white on the shoreline that was getting slowly closer, I thought it was part of the beach initially but it turned out to be a boat moored just off shore (ironically it was a chartered boat that had been requested to take the occupants to a beach that was utterly deserted; where they would have no chance of bumping into other people – I mean what were the chances of someone swimming 16km just to land on their isolated beach?). The bottom suddenly came into view and like at the start beautiful coral and fish became visible. The water became shallower and Mickey informed me the boat was as close to shore as they could come (about 300m), I swam in grateful that the end was now imminent and hauled myself up onto the ‘near’ deserted beach. Maui Channel, done. I swam backstroke back to the boat and bumped into Vickie who had jumped in to meet me, she looked much happier in the water, she only vomited once on the bumpy trip back to Maui.

So another stretch of water crossed, no sharks, bluebottles or trigger fish seen. A nice, warm, tropical day out. Nearly 16km covered on the GPS in 4hours and 9min. I guess no swim of that distance is going to be easy, the heat and warmth which I had been looking forward to meant I was actually quite dehydrated by the end. Physically quite a challenge but apart from wondering how I had managed to complete more than twice the distance in the English channel I was also plotting how to improve the endurance for the next swim.
Many thanks to my pilot Jim Dickson and Mickey. Thanks to the Kona masters who let me swim with them for the weeks leading up to the swim, especially coach Steve Borowski and of course thanks to the ever present and inspiring Vickie, who gave up her day less than a week before her ironman and suffered more than I did in the name of open water swimming.

(pilot Jim, me and Mickey)

Rottnest Channel Swim 20th Feb 2010

I woke on the hour with monotonous regularity the night before Rotto. During one of my fitful sleeps I dreamt I had over slept and awoken past the start time. In my dream I rang one of the paddlers in a panic to be told they had changed their minds and didn't want to accompany me after all. When I did wake I was haunted by memories of the English Channel and how unpleasant I had found it. I was starting to dread the idea of plunging into the Indian Ocean in the early hours of the morning to swim the 20km across to Rottnest Island. It was however the post English Channel restlessness that had motivated me to sign up for Rotto. After the channel whenever I was asked 'what next' I would quip 'something shorter and warmer'. In my head I was thinking 50m in a swimming pool but I had had aspirations of doing Rotto for some time and as it ticked both of those boxes (being 13km shorter and 4-5degrees warmer) I found myself signing up almost on a whim when the entries opened some 2 months after the channel.They say the hardest part of Rotto is getting a support boat and so Ifound out over the next 2 months as my various swimming and Perth contacts all amounted to nothing. I was starting to think that my entry fee was probably lost when a work colleague's, partner's, father (Don Johnson!) came good on the vague offer of a boat. The connection was as tenuous as it sounds but the same colleague also put me in contact with two paddlers (Paul and Richard) and with about 3 weeks to go I finally had a boat, paddlers and no excuse not to do another long open water swim.When my alarm finally ended my restless night at 3am I found myself in an uncomfortable mix of nerves, anxiety and doubt. The fact that I had previously swum further, longer and in much colder water was of little consolation as the combination of pre-race jitters and all the unknowns of such a novel event were weighing heavily on my mind.The Rotto swim is famous as the largest participation long distance swim of its’ kind and with 250 soloists, about 800 teams and something like 1400 boats on the water (never mind all the paddlers/kayakers) it is a massive event. It was the logistics of swimmer, finding paddler, finding boat in the dawning light amongst the mass of water activity that had me most concerned. When I spoke to past competitors my fears were not calmed as one swimmer told me how he had to tread water for 30min one year calling out in desperation for his paddler. The safety rules at Rotto are understandably rigid with swimmers without accompanying boat stopped and disqualified at the 1500m mark.At 5.30am I was giving my paddler, Paul, final instructions and desperately hoping I would be able to find him in the melée at the start. At 5.45am, with the sun threatening to creep above the horizon, the siren sounded and I plunged into the Indian ocean. The start was as frenetic and crowded as a typical ocean race with the first 100 swimmers including the fastest swimmers off en masse. Although I knew I had hours of swimming ahead of me I pushed to the front to hopefully give me a clear line of sight to the paddlers who had to wait several 100metres off shore before they could meet up with their swimmers. As I clung to the left hand side of the swimming channel I could see dozens of paddlers lined up trying to identify their competitor. Some swimmers had coloured their arms with bright zinc paint to make them more recogniseable and many of the paddlers had likewise gone with the colourful tops, hats and even flags to stand out from the crowd, all good ideas that I noted ruefully for next time. My only plan had involved being near the front of the pack and hoping by some miracle that Paul and I would spot each other. As it happened as I swam past the lines of paddlers I suddenly recognized Paul's black and red flotation vest and as I gave him a quick wave of recognition he quickly came along side of me. So that was part one - paddler found, now all we had to do was find the boat before the 1.5km mark. Paul and I were making good progress, there was only a handful of swimmers around us but the boats that were supposed to be staying back until their swimmer's waves started seemed all over the place. I could see Paul looking around and thought he might have waved once but from the water I couldn't make out our boat. Our boat was certainly not unique, a white 6m boat with a blue canopy probably fitted the description of about 800 of the boats on the water that morning, the only defining feature was the name - "Waving Looney" written in big letters on the side! The 1500m point however was obvious for the very large sailing boat anchored at this point and I could see it looming. The prospect of treading water or even a DSQ seemed quite possible, I briefly contemplated whether we could somehow sneak passed the checkpoint but the chance of Don and his boat finding us as we ploughed on out to sea would rapidly recede. But then just as I pulled level with the 1500m point I looked up to see Waving Looney churning up along side us and aboard my cheering support crew. So 20min into the race I had my boat and paddler, the sun had risen above the Perth shoreline and we were heading rapidly out to sea, I actually started to feel quite cheerful. Apart from a couple of very sharp blue bottle stings (I still have welts 48hrs later) it was very pleasant. This was a very different start to the English Channel, the sun was shining, the water was crystal clear and most importantly my teeth weren't chattering. I settled into a steady rhythm and tried not to think too much about how far I had to swim. I hear lots of long distance swimmers describe how they can zone out and slip into some sort of meditative state. I am yet to master this art. As much as I have grown to enjoy long distance swimming my mind invariably starts to contemplate how long I will be swimming for, how my body will start to tire long before I finish and how much more pleasant it would be to simply get out. I overheard one swimmer at the end remarking how he had secretly wished he had seen a shark so he could legitimately get out of the water. Strangely sharks were not something I worried about. Although Australian waters are infamous overseas for sharks and attacks do very occasionally happen, to my knowledge in the history of Rottnest swims it's never been an issue and I suspect (and hope) that the mass of water activity that occurs with Rotto is a good shark deterrent.For the first hour and a half of the swim I was able to enjoy myself, I felt good in the water, we had managed to break away from most of the pack with only a few boats ahead and several more level with us but some distance away. I didn't feel nauseous or cold. Paul and Richard rotated paddling duties. Over the next hour I started to feel a bit of fatigue but still quite strong and just before the 2 and 1/2 hour mark we reached the 10km buoy. Pace wise I was hoping to maintain 4km an hour so it was pleasing to be on track at the half way point. The chop and waves were steadily building as the swim progressed. Every 2km point from then on was marked by a buoy which enabled me to keep an eye of my pace. I could start to feel myself flagging though and the time between buoys was getting steadily longer. I couldn't help but start to imagine how much nicer a ride in the boat would be. I could also start to feel my body getting slightly cooler, I wasn't cold like I had been in English waters but it was no longer entirely pleasant. I had been hanging out for the 16km buoy as I knew this would signal the last hour but as I passed it I could see over my shoulder a couple of boats slowly closing in on me. I had no real idea of what position I was in, I had believed I was capable of a top 10 finish and hoped for a top 5. The thought of being edged out in the closing stages was frustrating but I didn't think I had much ability to speed up at that stage, I was tired and aching. I had a quick drink and Paul informed me that the nearest boat behind was a female swimmer and if I didn't want to get 'chicked' I better pick up the pace! I dug in for a final effort and started to kick harder, my arm strength was coming and going in waves. I passed the 18km mark and knew I had only 30 min left. Another boat was catching me suprisingly quickly and I wondered, correctly if it might be a relay team. As they came alongside I tried to use them to spur me on. There were buoys every 250m then and the Rottnest shore was getting rapidly closer. I felt I had enough to push on and I was determined not to leave myself wondering if I could have gone any quicker at the end ("never save anything for the swim back"). I gave my all in the last 500m and ran across the line in 5 hrs 5 min (1.5min ahead of the first female!). I was 6th overall. I felt I had given it my all and was very pleased with the swim. Above all I really felt that I had mostly enjoyed it! Sure it was long and hard work but it had all worked out at the start, the water was lovely and clear and warm, and unlike the English Channel I am already contemplating doing it again.

Channel Video - bit of fun!