Our First Dover Swim

OMG, What a fantastic 24 hours, a 4 hour drive to Dover last night, and eventually dinner with Niki and Sarah and 2 bottles of wine to celebrate our first sea swim in preparation for the channel next year.

Freda was waiting for us on the beach (well, she is there every day from May 1 to Sept 30th), there were some raised eyebrows at our wetsuits (wimpsuits, in her words...), and then we stuck it out for one hour 10 mins. I confess we didn't swim the whole time, chatting about the weather, chatting with the yellow hats who've 'done it many times', and getting into the flow of it. Fortunately for me my team mates kept an eye on my progress, and once my brain had slowed down, we swam together, a real team!

45 minutes in, in a moment of madness we decided to 'go native', and dropped the wetsuits, 16 degrees is NOT warm :), but the last 25 minutes was swimming free in a way you can't explain.
What a privilege to swim with Niki and Sarah, and thankfully the universe conspired to create an extraordinary sunny day to aide our first team sea swim, and how, whatever the weather in a years time, we need to create the sunshine for ourselves...