August the 24th is the day in 1875 that Captain Matthew Webb successfully swam the English Channel, landing at Calais on his second attempt in under 22 hours. It’s the date that the sport of Channel and Marathon Swimming unofficially claims as its birth day, (disregarding previous unsuccessful attempts by Webb and others). So following a suggestion by…
For some time now, the Marathon Swimmers Federation (by which I mean in this specific case, Evan Morrison, who does the work) has been putting out a regular email newsletter. The contents are concise and the frequency is low enough not to be intrusive. It goes out every two weeks during off-season and weekly during northern hemisphere…
A couple of years later, I am still a little surprised that LoneSwimmer.com won the inaugural 2012 Irish Blog Awards for Best Sport and Recreation award (when the site was also a finalist in a second category). Ireland is a sport-obsessed country, even more than many others. Football (soccer), football (rugby), football (Gaelic), football (compromise rules) and even…
Due to the goggle change the stop at Gararrus took about two minutes before I set off, the Doglet once again having a barking fit as I left (his normal reaction to me swimming). It was low tide by now so all the reefs off Gararrus were exposed and I had to swim out the…
“I’m with you in fearing that something terrible is going to happen, and it’s going to happen soon”. This is a direct quote from a well-known and respected Ice Mile and Channel swimmer in response to my own similar assertion in my introductory email. I’m putting it up front so you understand exactly the concerns…
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