One day wonders

‘’It’s great when a well thought out plan succeeds and wow really chuffed that we crossed the Dál Riata Channel with a perfect combination of teams Infinity Channel Crossing and One Day Wonders relay swimmers Bernie Stone, Danny Hanlon, James Brent and Will Collings-Wells + of course good weather from mother nature.

At the planning stage we explained to Padraig that although we were experienced marathon swimmers (English Channel, Gibraltar Strait, Cook Strait) and fast swimmers 4kmph+, we were not used to the cold waters of the North Channel and unfortunately not able to spend the time to acclimatise whilst have utmost respect for all swimmers who have set foot in this channel before us.

So Padraig set us a years training plan to attempt the Dál Riata Channel crossing which we all worked hard on and we decided to swim in wetsuits to help negate the cold. Padraig met us at our man cave at Ballycastle a couple of days before the swim and explained who the crew would be, the boat to be used and the possible conditions.

On the day we met at Ballycastle harbour the dream Infinity team, pilot (Charles Stewart), task master (Jack Boyle) and swim technician (Afreen Ahmed) and off we sped to Mull of Kintyre. When the tide was ready we set off and cant praise enough the Infinity team for helping us cross those complex tidal currents pushing and guiding us all the way with encouragement (‘’happy hour ends in 30 mins’’, ‘’swim faster and you could be back in time for Love Island’’) and unbelievably arriving at Cushendun where Charles Stewart guided us to swim up the slipway straight into the pub for pints of Guinness.

Thank you Infinity for a lifetime memorable experience, we felt 100% safe in your hands and had a lot of laughter and fun along the way.

Bernie, Danny, Will and Jim’’.

Left to right Jack Boyle (from Infinity who could not resist but join us on the final swim to the pub), Bernie, Danny, Jim and Will.