A DAD’S EXPERIENCE.
When my son Danny happened to mention that he was thinking of swimming the Channel, unfortunately it was in the presence of my cousin Bernard, and before I could reach out and shove an apple in his mouth he shouts 'count me in, I'm on the boat'. I thought, here we go, another fine mess he has got me into, because there was no way I would let him go without me.
I left home on Sunday night at 8pm, with Martin, Danny's cousin, to collect Bernard from Basingstoke station. He had come from Newquay. We arrived in Folkstone at 1am and were off on the boat at 2.40am. Most people could have been put off by the distance Danny had to swim from the boat to the shore even before he could start.
Once underway, Bernard and I started getting organised on the food. The weather forecast said slight wind, fairly calm seas...It wasn't long before it was like being inside a washing machine and filling a bottle with drinks presented quite a challenge.
About 7.30am I began to fear that the rough seas were taking their toll on Danny and finishing was looking very doubtful. However to my surprise, he just kept going and going, probably due to the secret ingredient I put in his drink!
What a relief when he finally climbed out of the sea in France. Magnificent!! Everybody on the boat was heros that day, but the real hero was Danny for his guts and determination. I am really really proud of him.
I find it very difficult to explain what it takes to swim the channel and to fully appreciate the challenge,you have to be on the boat.
To any prospective employer, if anyone comes for a job and on their CV they say they have swum the Channel, grab them with both hands, because they are truly unique individuals...good under pressure, strong in mind, the only problem you have is they will probably end up with your job!
I have to thank my cousin for opening his big mouth and giving me one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life.
Seamus's experience of the whole event
Danny’s Swim
Donuts, Danny had been advised to eat donuts for his training, this was music to his ears because Danny had always liked donuts, he is a carb junki, in fact a meal without bread was indeed no meal at all. ‘Eat Danny you have to fatten up for the swim, keep’s you warm and improves the buoyancy’. No problem thought Danny, I think that I will be pretty good at that..So the first thing that Danny did was to fatten up!
So having not really seen Danny all summer and for a long period while he lived in France I was not quite up to date with his training and thoughts on the massive undertaking that he was about to embark on. I had indeed read his blog from time to time but the reality was that I had not really appreciated the investment of time that it had required. His darling wife George had to once again role her eyes skyward as she listened to his next hair brained scheme...I think that I am going to swim the channel next year’. ‘Oh really are you sure? ‘George has indeed said this before when on previous occasions she had heard him suggest ,’ Iron man coming up, or tough man soon, marathon next month honey..’it had become a familiar part of their relationship, the silent other partner in the house always tugging on his shirt to keep him active. When he wasn’t working at home 2 days a week( get a proper job) then he was scheming, planning and training for his next absurd challenge.
So Back in 2008 Danny had expressed an interest in swimming the channel and when having just completed a brief swim across lake Geneva with his friend Billy the Fish, Billy complimented him on his endurance.’ I may be quicker than you on the short stuff but I haven’t got the mental strength to do the channel like you have’. Wow thought Danny, swim the channel, now there is an idea. So the wheels were set in motion and Danny got himself organised and enrolled to swim the channel in the summer of 2011.
Training was indeed hard; anyone required to take a cold shower each morning as part of their acclimatisation routine has to be made of sterner stuff. Danny spent days in the pool, doing lap after lap, he swam in his local lake in Passy, France and along the coastline of Dorset. He went up to lake Windermere to test out some colder water and clocked up some impressively long times of between 8 and 9 hours. By the time the glorious English summer was upon us he was in the best of his swimming life.
Seamus make sure that you keep the 19th to the 24th Aug free will you, that’s when I am doing the swim’. ‘ What 5 days’ I replied, sounds like a bloody long swim, are you sure’ I said.’ It’s a window you muppet, gives us a chance to choose the best day’. Right I thought, thank God for that, Danny could probably swim for 5 days if you told him he had to but me on a small boat bobbing around, my endurance was temporarily tested.
So I when i got back from my holidays I travelled down to Bournemouth on the 19th of Aug to spend a few days with Danny and his family in preparation for the big adventure. I was greeted by George and his whirlwind daughter Bertie who definitely is a chip off the old block, 18 months old and fearless to the extreme. We spent the time going over the plan, talking about his training and of course what we would be doing on the day. “Seamus you’re head of communications,” he told me. Now although I am a teacher, and communication is meant to be one of my strong points, I was feeling decidedly nervous. Ummm I said, so what exactly does that require me to do?” you will be in charge of the GPS, the updating of the blog and relaying of messages to me when I am in the water” Suddenly I felt very honoured to be asked to do this, what a privilege to be on the team, I felt like a big responsibility being placed on my shoulders. Hopefully it would all go to plan. So I said quietly to myself, Seamus you are going to be the best god damn channel communicator out there, go FORTH and communicate! So after a brief lesson in the GPS and a run through of blog set up I felt ready.
Danny on the other hand was constantly checking the weather, phoning people last minute, eating donuts and more donuts while George was understandably nervous and trying not to think too much about it so she devoted all her attention to Bertie. We spent those few days trying to relax, he did a few small swims off Bournemouth beach, we ate, we went to Bournemouth air show, to his mum and dad’s and we prepared ourselves to head off down to Folkestone on the Sunday 21st Aug. The weather report said that Monday would be the best day and that the rest of the week looked dodgy, we thought drive down there, speak to the pilot and then take it from there.
Atfer we arrived and unpacked we tootled off to Samphire Hoe which is a small beach/ promenade between Dover and Folkestone. It was to be the place at which Danny would embark on his journey. That evening we were still very unsure about which weather reports to believe as they all gave varying information so we decided to wait for Pete the Pilot to return from the swim he was doing that day and ask him.
At about 8pm that night whilst looking out of the hotel window we saw the small fishing vessel pull into Folkestone harbour. It was Pete and his crew which included a South African swimmer attempting the channel swim that day. The news was that he had made it in 14hrs or so but he looked exhausted, better than his crew though who said that the ride back was pure hell and they were puking out the side or the boat. Pleasantries were exchanged and then we got down to the nitty gritty. ‘Pretty rough out there Danny son, not sure the morrow would be good for ya’, may have to wait til the Friday or even next month’. I could see Danny concerned at the thought of waiting out for good weather and next month, my God that would mean more training and faffing about. Knowing how impatient Danny is at the best of times I knew this would concern him. It was Sunday night, waiting til Friday would kill him let alone next month!. Pete said he would return home, look at his charts and then call Danny at 9 to confirm.
We waited back at the hotel for the call, Danny seemed calm, what would be the outcome of the conversation. Would he be able to go or not? I listened in....Danny repeated ‘force 5 tomorrow but getting worse during the week......what about Friday?.....No tomorrow it is, let’s do it tomorrow. And just like that Danny has made a decision, a positive move, he was going to boss this thing not the other way round. I was impressed, Bloody minded Danny was going to go head first into a force 5 and take it on. Suddenly I felt tense, up to this point, if I am being honest I thought that we would postpone til some better weather and it would not be happening, Danny changed all that.
Ok Seamus set the alarm for 12.40am, let’s get a few hours sleep and then head to the harbour for a 1.30am meet’. ‘Set alarm for 12.40am’, I don’t do that on a normal day let alone try to swim 22 miles of freezing cold, jelly infested waters, in the dark with no breaks. So that night we packed the kit, checked and then double checked again, and then tried to relax and sleep. Danny seemed a little apprehensive and was definitely thinking that this is the biggest test of his life, he did not sleep much that night I can tell you.
I woke up with a start..it was 12.30am...I could hear music outside, surely not, was it my alarm, no it was the town drunks finishing off a good night. I have never heard Wonderwall murdered in such a drunken fashion before. They were indeed a blessing though as I had set the alarm for 12.40pm so it failed to go off, not a good start for the team. We got ready, ate some breakie and then met Pete the Pilot at the boat who was also with his other crew member and son, Pete the Pilot junior. The rest off our crew soon arrived, Danny’s dad, Colin and his cousin Bernard along with Danny’s cousin Martin who was going to be doing some swimming alongside Danny.
So with Danny greased up with copious amounts of goose fat and channel grease we headed out in the boat to Samphire Hoe where Danny, dressed in goggles and glow sticks, entered the pitch black sea to swim to the shore. When he was on dry land the observer, Steve, blew his whistle and the swim was officially started. All we could see was 3 green glow sticks in the pitch black slowly swimming towards the boat. This was it, it was happening, the swim was on.
Now at this point it is fair to say that after a 20 minute boat ride I was feeling decidedly rough, the boat was bobbing up and down like you wouldn’t believe and I was close to puking. Not a good start as I had read somewhere that it is very off putting for the swimmer to see his crew throwing up when he himself is going through agony. Crickey I thought, 15 hours of this could be murder. So quickly I found every seasickness aid on the boat and either swallowed them or put the bands on my wrist, it was a close call but thankfully the swaying eased and I even began to enjoy the rocking.
So with Danny in the water we had to make sure that we did everything possible to make his life as easy as we could. Dad and Bernard were mixing up the food, Martin was getting ready to swim and I was relaying early morning messages from friends and family. Danny’s swim started at 2.40am and by 3 am we already had his sister and mother, both unable to sleep due to nerves sending their best wishes.
Now I don’t know about any other non swimmers reading this but I am very much an uncoordinated swimmer, even in a pool my breathing technique means that I have to regularly stop due to excessive swallowing of water. This was a whole new ball game, not only was he having to deal with very choppy waves and swell but it was salt water too. Not a good combo and I felt for him as he battled with each stroke. Interestingly enough Danny reckoned that he had drunk over a litre of sea water by the time he was back on the boat.
Danny swam for the first 2 hours on his own staying very close to the so that he could follow the course and grab a drink every30 minutes. This usually was a comedy affair of Bernard and Colin, or Laurel and Hardy if you like, trying to balance on the boat while boiling kettles, mixing power and pouring into cups. A tough job but they gracefully danced around the boat with the pitching and the rolling and it was really an impressive display by the aging duo.
Martin entered the water just as the sun began to rise at about 5 o’clock and together the two swimmers churned up the waves and made good headway. All the time the sea remained choppy, the messages kept pouring in and the food and drink keeping Danny going. I had Danny’s phone with me and I was checking it for emails and texts of support as well as updating the GPS. Anyone who was following his blog could see his progress on line. We started to get lots of messages about 5 hours in when people got into to work. I began to relay texts back to George in England and she was able to update the blog and let everyone know how Danny was getting on. The system worked well and more and more people began to send texts saying that they were on line, following the GPS and blog and they were glued to it. I tried to relay these various messages back to Danny in the water but he could not hear me or indeed read the white board that we had so we had to wait til feeding time to let him know.
Throughout the first 10 hours of swimming there were various points that we could remember of interest..Danny began to feel seasick and was confused, am I still anxious, surely not I am actually swimming. No he felt sea sick. Luckily it passed. Next was the shoal of jelly fish that were caught in the current. Danny swimming along quite nicely with Martin by his side suddenly stops in the water and shouts ‘jelly fish, loads of them.’ Not wishing to be in his position for all the rice in China but wanting him to continue we shouted back, yeh the channel variety are non stingers, don’t worry about them.’ All too easy for us to say but in fairness it would be hard to get your head down and concentrate so Danny spent 10 minutes avoiding them in the current. Other things in the water included flotsam and jetsam as well as large collections of sea weed that had to be avoided, not to mention massive tankers in the English and French shipping lanes.
Now it was always known that Danny is not the strongest swimmer, he is not a member of a swimming club or indeed a representative of any kind but he knows his strengths and pigheadedness and endurance can be counted among those. He told Pete the Pilot that he thought that he would be a 15hr swimmer and not go too quick. This proved to be the case and Danny methodically plodded along and started to consume the miles. The pilots, both called Pete, were however starting to get a little concerned at his rate. ‘too long for the feed, he has to hurry up else we are going to miss the tides.’ All well and good but really he seemed to be giving it everything.
Danny was looking really good, his stroke rate was right, feeding well, communicating well and after the 10 hrs France no longer seemed a distant blur but was in fact really quite near. However the hardest part to the swim was yet to come as all the currents off the French coast were the strongest. At one of the feeds little Pete, the son, as he came to be known said. ‘ right Danny, you are 3 miles away from the coast, if you swim at 3 miles an hour for 3 hours then you will make it. Any slower then we will be dragged round the headland and you can add another 2 hours onto your time and your probably won’t make it. Get your head down and swim as fast as you can. Martin will swim with you for this hour and then when you are near the finish to help you along. ‘
And so the hardest part of the swim had begun and they were 11 hours in. Danny had to swim at full speed in order to reach the coast all the while the currently was dragging him further and further towards the headland which if he timed it right he would hit, if he got it wrong and was too slow he would miss.. We were shouting and screaming and encouraging and holding up pictures of George and Bertie and egging him on. We were swimming every stroke and praying that he would keep the pace. Martin was doing an excellent job swimming alongside him and every time Danny would stop for a rest Martin would berate him to keep moving. ‘Cant stop Danny, keep going, don’t stop.’ Then in that hour things started to go wrong........
Danny was drifting further and further away from the boat and not following it and not following its course. It was strange, he seemed to be in a world of his own and unable to be reached.....he was desperately close to missing the headland and getting swept away. The pilots were very concerned that he was severely off course so little Pete got in the rib and tried to head him back to the boat but it was too late, he had missed the headland.
It was a shame, Danny had now swum for 14hrs solidly and he was being asked to swim harder and faster in this final part than he had ever before. He was spent, you could see, he had given it everything trying to reach the headland and now he has missed it he faced the new winds coming from the North. The waves had grown in size and he was now dealing with force 6 where the current was directly opposing the new wind, in short he was in dire trouble...
To make matters worse he had not received a drink or food for some time as he had lost contact with the boat. Also due to the treacherous nature of the rocky coastline we could not get close to the shoreline and had to remain 100metres away from Danny. Pete was on hand in the dingy to nurse him along and try to encourage him to shore but Danny was still fighting a very strong current but he was only 50 metres from the coast.
Now throughout the swim Danny had not once complained that he was tired, cold, and unable to continue so I therefore did not really doubt that he would do it. It had been slow going but steady, he looked good all the way, except for now that is. For the first time I was beginning to
doubt him, I really thought that although he was only 50 metres away he would be too tired, he had given everything and he was just exhausted. George phoned and unfortunately we could not lie, he was in trouble and it was not looking good, he was going nowhere and had been in the same position for 30 mins.
As we were so far away from him it was hard to see the distance to the shore, even the binos weren’t helping. Then all of a sudden in the distance we could see a blur rise out of the water and someone shouted, ‘he’s made it, he’s on the rock. He’s bloody well done it.’ Unbelievable, how had he done it. We had no idea, he is a stubborn bugger at the best of times and failure was not an option. Danny had swum the channel and we were there to share the experience with him, what a privilege that had been, we were all chocked up and whooping with joy on the boat.
Thankfully the observer had seen the landing and blown his whistle, it was all official. A channel swimmer amongst us. When Danny got back to the boat he looked terrible, sunken eyes, wrinkled skin, blue with the cold, he looked like a monster! Well it was great to have him on the boat again, fed and warmed up. He seemed numb from head to toe and understandably could not talk for 10 mins. He downed the sandwiches, drunk copious amounts of tea and sat on the swaying boat. Eventually the saga unrolled and as we headed back to England Danny relayed his thoughts and elation at what had been an epic experience. He was very happy that he had managed to complete the swim but there were times that he thought things may have been a little bit different.
2 and a half hours later and we were back in Folkestone, we unloaded the boat and then said our farewells to the crew. They had been amazing. Dad, Bernard and Martin headed back to Bournemouth and Danny and I stayed in the local hotel. I was done in but Danny wanted to hit the pub and celebrate with a beer and a donut… He went to have a bath and all I could hear from the bathroom was a constant bleeping, his phone was on overdrive and he received over 500 messages of support and congratulations. He was naturally overcome and choking up, he had had amazing support throughout and everyone wanted him to succeed, even friends of friends, people he did not really know. That day we all felt good about ourselves, Danny showed us that nothing is impossible and if you put your mind to something then you really can achieve your goals, an inspiration to us all. Well done Danny and thank you.
THANK YOU DANNY.
DANNY’S CHANNEL SWIM - by Bernard
While visiting Chamonix with my cousin Colin, Danny his son was talking about wanting to swim the Channel. I had probably had too much to drink as I offered my services as part of his boat crew if he was to carry it out.
In August 2011 one Sunday evening a telephone call came saying he was going to have a go at it, but was not sure whether the weather conditions would let him. Although still not confirmed, I made my way to Folkestone meeting Colin and Martin Danny’s cousin at Basingstoke on the way.
We arrived at Folkestone and met Danny and his friend Shamus and proceeded to the fishing boat where we met the two Fishermen. After loading up the necessary food and energy drinks for Danny we started going along the coast to the starting point for the swim. Shamus greased Danny and helped him prepare for the start of the swim. It was now about 3.30am, weather conditions average. In the meantime Colin was dosing himself up with sea sickness tablets and wrist bands from Pound Land.
At 3.45am Danny entered the water to swim to shore to start his marathon swim. We could only see him by three lights, one on his head and two at the waist. After ¾ of an hour we gave him his first drink, which carried on at similar intervals over the next 15½ hours by that time we had the knack of getting it to the right temperature and accurately throwing it to him, although his bananas were rather salty. This was not easy as the boat was tossing around in the rather rough conditions. After two hours Martin (in a wet suit) entered the water to swim with Danny which gave Danny great encouragement. Martin did this on several occasions throughout the swim, although he was only allowed to swim for one hour at a time which was strictly supervised by the judicature.
The last hour of the race, when very close to France was the hardest for Danny and us as the wind against the tide was making headway very difficult. The conditions were very rough and Shamus kept giving him messages for encouragement and held up a large picture of Berti his daughter to help keep his spirits up. Near the end with France almost touching distance away the fisherman’s son launched the dingy and guided Danny to the rocks. As he climbed out and stood on the rocks we all cheered. We were all very proud of him. HE HAD DONE IT!!
What a great achievement.
We all then had to turn around and come back to England on a very rough sea taking about three hours. It was a great experience but one thing I have learned is in the future to keep my big mouth shut,
PS Colin was NOT Sea sick and so proud of DANNY.
