London calling ... me

The Optimist - Or "Storming" France on Bastille-Day

I brooded over it a pretty long while, whether I should blog about this to me very special event, or not.

My internal wish and strong belief in the benefit of "sharing" unique situations

are opposed to my doubts

whether this is actually "shareable" or conveyable to people not having been along during the day.

But, in the end, optimism won, and I will tell you why ...

(found on the door of the bunk on "The Optimist", July 14th)

So here is my humble attempt to share our optimistic "storming" of France:

As some of you knew, the idea of "coming back" to the mainland, swimming, was in my head since I moved to London last fall. But to be honest, to cross the English Channel was rather a funny dream than a real project.
Since yesterday, it is no longer. And I owe this to three very special persons who gave me the opportunity to join their long-ahead planned relay in the very last minute, even though I had come on boat with the idea of supporting them solely logistically and morally in their crossing.
And still, the whole day continues to feel like a dream to me, retrospectively.

Starting off with an unexpected traffic jam
and a thereby one-hour-delayed start from dark Dover Harbour ...

... at around 2 am in the night,
everyone was very nervous and the experience began rather grim and very unreal ...
I enjoyed it though as there was this special feeling of uncertainty and adventure inside me
...
To be honest: I enjoyed it a lot!
(but don´t tell anyone)

Also seeing the name of our boat raised some special prefigurement of something that will not be easy, but possible:

After 2 hours and 30 minutes in the swim - just last minute along the regulations of the CS & PF - the three official relayists asked me to enter their swim in order to become the fourth authorised member of the team.
My answer was non-hesitant and totally clear as something I had silently hoped for (and maybe it had escaped from my eyes occasionally, in situations where I was not strong enough to keep my absolute wish to swim the English Channel to France inside of me) became real ...

And as if I was not yet lucky enough, entering the water as fourth gave me this beautiful natural setting to swim and dive into:

When coming out of the water after my first swim, totally exhausted
(each swim was in our case just one hour with a 3 hours break - so there is no huge point in saving a lot of energy during each actual swim!) and freezing cold, the crew-members told me that they had actually spotted some porpoises not too far away while I was swimming.
I still do not know whether it was good or bad that I did not see them myself during my swim: Maybe my startle reaction would have gotten me out of my calm and determined mind-set, but porpoises definitively are the nicer chaps one can meet out there in the Channel (Dani had some very unpleasant encounters with jellyfish- and seaweed-clusters for which I still do not envy him).

With some more hours in the swim,
the Optimist
(in all of us)
- though still during the rather grey morning here -
became more and more enlightened and strong:

We can actually do it!

Big tankers were curved around very slowly, but elegantly (of course)
...

... and the white cliffs of Dover finally got out of sighting distance ...

Talking,
exchanging doting smiles (adrenaline? crazyness? total fatigue?),
eating,
resting and
finally getting warm again

became existential while one of us four was always pulling us imperturbably further direction France.

Eventually also the sun decided to help our fight against the cold water temperatures. Its importance for me really became the key discovery today: I would have never been able to swim the whole distance in such cold water on a day like today with these rather low water temperatures on my own. And I really hope for all soloists of this year´s channel crossing that the water temperature quickly raises.
Whether this was one of the causes of the shocking death of a young British solo-swimmer just one mile away from the coast after having been for so long in this water today remains speculation, but this is definitively not to be taken lightly.

Finally storming France in this triumphant mood was a wonderful feeling as we got all of our crew-members (apart from the pilot himself and the observers of the CS & PF of course) into the water as well and they got finally rewarded by sharing this special moment with us ...

... of touching land and embracing France (and each other).
As it is so evident, but can never be said often enough that without them we would never have made it ...

I loved the crazy, powerful and relentless mixture of emotions with predominantly
thankfulness,
total relief and
exhaustion,
embedded by the feeling of never being alone and having reinforced a special connection
to very special people today.