After a thorough and friendly briefing from Nathan and Noel (and a warning to take our shoes off on Donal’s freshly carpeted Le Viv) we set off from Baltimore heading for the Rock at 9am. Weather was foggy but calm, so made for good swimming conditions.
That calmness went well and truly out the window after the Beacon where we hit even more fog and almost 2m swells. The last land sighting we had was Sherkin Lighthouse, that was until we saw the Fastnet.
We had Aisling Barry and Frank Hallissey as crew who went above and beyond during our training and also the swim itself (not to the count the many postmortem discussions), along with Anne Sheehy on call.
Donal was skippering and Nathan Timmins was observing on behalf of FastnetSwim.
I struggle with the cold, and as the temperature at the Rock was averaging 12 degrees, I was glad I chose my wetsuit.
The crew were fantastic at passing on messages, unwrapping mini mars bars and shouting motivational quotes as required.
We swung wide to avoid An Gaiscenáin and didn’t catch a glimpse of the Cape as the fog was so dense. This was both a blessing and a curse as we had no idea of time nor place.
The weather cleared about 8hrs in, and we caught the first glimpse of her. She was spectacular. To this day, she still takes my breath away. She’s both mesmerizing and eerie, dominating the seascape in surrealism.
By now, the aches, pains and chills had well and truly set in, but I was informed-firmly-by Aisling and Frank that I wasn’t getting out until I finished. At this point, keeping feeds down was difficult and I had thrown up almost everything I had consumed over the previous 6 hours. I was severely short of confidence and tired of counting down from 100! I also had the same song going around in my head and vowed never to listen to it again.
The Rock was like something from a horror movie at times, edging closer, then further away, just out of grasp, but always there, waiting.
At hour 9, the tide had turned, and I was swimming against it. I had to pick a line in toward her to avoid the brunt of it, so chose to swim toward the left between the back of the Rock and little Fastnet. Nathan advised me to change my line and head toward the right where it wasn’t as rough, and as he’s the expert, who was I to argue?! I swam with all I had, even breaking into back stroke at one point, and only stopped when I heard the horn from the yacht and whopping and hollering from the crew. I had done it.
Aisling and Nathan helped me back aboard, plied me with warm dry robes, hot sweet tea and more food. Donal even had left the hot water running for me for a shower!
I think I sat at the back of the boat for a long while, staring at her and marveling at what we’d achieved. There was a beautiful sunset, and we’d just completed one of the most famous swims in the World. What a day. None of which could have been done without our wonderful crew, Coach (Eilís Burns) family and friends.
