Super Sarah NC 2 way
My journey to the North Channel goes all the way back to 2011, when my good friend Craig Lenning became the first American to complete this swim. He was the 12th person to make it across the North Channel (his was the 16th swim, since legends Kevin Murphy and Alison Streeter had already racked up a few swims each by the time Craig arrived).
Back in the day, we didn’t have fancy GPS trackers to watch our friends travel across oceans, so we relied on spotty Facebook updates from Craig’s captain.
I cried when the video of his finish was posted: A flashing light in the middle of the night on a cliff wall in Scotland, then the bullhorn signaling Craig’s arrival. Truly an historic swim.
But when Craig came home, the stories he told were horrifying. Freezing cold water. Tricky currents that made him swim in place for hours. Thousands of giant lion’s mane jellyfish, some the size of cars, that thrashed his arms and legs. He remembers the buzzing pain of his skin for days afterward, as he sweated out their toxins. To this day, he shudders when he talks about his experience.
Craig is not one for exaggeration, so his stories were enough to swear me off the North Channel, indefinitely.
Over the years, however, I’ve followed more and more swimmers in their journeys across the North Irish Sea.
Since Craig’s swim, Caroline Block has become the Queen of the North Channel, amassing more crossings and hours in the North Channel than anyone else. She loves the beauty of the water there and keeps going back, year after year. I’ve talked to her about her experiences and she always says she finds the cold and the jellyfish manageable.
Another friend, Darren Miller, swam the Channel in 2013. His experience was similar to Caroline’s- barely any stings and he speaks of the water as almost mystical.
But, still, I’ve heard the horror stories of swimmers becoming delusional as they approach the finish, many hospitalized and permanently injured from the jellyfish toxins. Swimmers have been hypothermic, pulled from the water mid-swim. Stung in intimate places. And though I’ve never asked, I’m certain the failure rate across the North Channel far exceeds the success rate.
Needless to say, this is a potentially dangerous swim. And for years and years, I’ve wanted no part of it.
However, as I’ve been slowly (and un-purposefully) knocking off the Ocean’s Seven swims, I began to realize that at some point, I was going to have to tackle the North Channel. (I have completed Catalina, Molokai, the Cook Strait, and the English Channel, with a genuine desire to do Gibraltar and Tsugaru. At the end of the day, I know there’s no way I’d just skip the North Channel.)
Just as I was starting to wrap my mind around this inevitability, Jacqueline with Infinity Channel Swimming reached out. Her timing was pretty incredible- I’m still not sure how she knew I’d been thinking about it. But, in a delightfully manipulative message, she told me it was her dream to have me come to swim the North Channel, and she offered her support should I decide I wanted to attempt it. I initially put her off, but kept coming back to the idea, and her persuasive message.
The North Channel was in my head, Jaqueline and Infinity had an opportunity, and I eventually broke down and said: Yes, I’ll come.
The first available slot was an early season slot, July 3-9, 2022.
“Don’t you have anything later in the summer, like August or September, when it’s warmer?”, I remember asking.
“Definitely not”, was the reply. I guess luck and dream boards would only get me so far.
I chewed on the undesirability of an early July slot for a week or so, before finally committing. Colder water meant fewer jellyfish, right?
And so, the training began in earnest. I swam Monterey Bay last fall as a test swim for both the cold and the jellyfish. I swam the water down at Chatfield until it froze, ending my open water season in December with an ice mile. I went to San Francisco in February, where and Amy and Greg Gubser took me on a six-hour tour of San Francisco Bay in 51-52 (11-12C) degree water. I survived that swim relatively unscathed, which was a huge confidence boost. In March, when the Gravel Pond was still partially covered with ice, I was in for short swims, gradually increasing time in the water as temperatures slowly rose. As summer heated up the Pond, I drove to high altitude every weekend, in search of colder and colder water.
I don’t love the cold water the way some of my peers do. I definitely don’t thrive in it or seek it out or gleefully leap in on cold, blustery days. But, as I trained, I remembered: I CAN do this. I may not love it, but I AM capable.
And in addition to chasing cold water, I put my head down and trained hard and fast with Fast Mike. Starting in January, I began building yardage in earnest, averaging over 40km/week by March and finishing with six weeks straight at 60km. If I was going to be freezing and lashed by jellyfish, I told myself, at least I’d be strong and fast to get it over with faster. Leading up to this swim, I’ve been swimming faster than I have in years.
If I was going to do this swim, I was going to be as prepared as humanly possible.
And every single time someone asked me if I was considering a double, I laughed. Anyone around me over the last year knows how absolutely terrified I have been of this swim.
Could I manage the cold?
Could I handle the jellyfish?
Amy and Caroline talked me off the ledge more than once.
One time across the North Channel would be absolutely plenty.
My mom, Ryan and I arrived in Belfast about five days before my window opened, hoping to acclimatize and calm my nerves before the actual swim. When we arrived on a Tuesday afternoon, with rain pouring down, I knew I’d done the work. But as any of us who have ever attempted a Channel swim knows, being prepared means nothing if the ocean decides to spit you back out.
We booked a delightful Airbnb in the small town of Donaghadee (which I am happy to report I can now say correctly, after two weeks of trying). Donaghadee is just down the coast from Bangor, where Infinity leaves from, but is the starting site of most North Channel swims. Walking around the little harbor, you can see tributes to the North Channel and Tom Blower, the first person to complete the swim. And every day, a group of skins swimmers, The Chunky Dunkers, meet at high tide to swim. Amy had connected me to their leader, Martin Strain, so on Wednesday, we made our way down to the slip for our first introduction to the group and to the North Channel.
Martin and his Dunkers welcomed me with open arms. As Martin pointed out the 1km swim route around the Harbor- swim out past the buoy, to the harbor wall, then straight across to Pier 36 and Kelly’s steps, then back to the slip- I have to admit I was nervous.
“What’s the temperature?”, I asked. I’d been avoiding that question for weeks, but now that I was finally here, I felt like it was time to know.
“Oh, it’s warm. About 14 today”, Martin informed me cheerfully.
“And what about….out there….”, I asked, gesturing to the Channel beyond the harbor walls.
“Oh, probably a little colder, around 12”, he told me.
“And what about the jellies?”
“We haven’t seen any in the harbor yet this year.”
Ok, good news all around. So, I strapped on my green tow float and walked down the slip, with the last of the Dunkers.
“It’s warm, it’s warm, it’s warm”, I told myself as I neared the water. Then, as my toes hit the water, “it’s not warm. It’s not warm. It’s not warm.”
As I stood there with my toes barely touching the water, Andrew Keay walked up and joined me. Andrew is an Australian swimmer, who was also in Donaghadee to meet the Dunkers and to wait for his turn to swim the Channel.
“It’s not too cold today!”, he informed me cheerfully, as I was dying inside.
Fortunately, Andrew also likes to stand for a while before getting in, so we waded in slowly, discussing our chances in the Channel and learning a little about each other. We bonded instantly.
Eventually, to the leers of the returning Chunky Dunkers, Andrew and I took off for an hour-long swim.
I blasted through the first 1km loop quickly.
“It’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok” I kept telling myself. And it was. After about a loop and a half, over by Kelly’s steps, I pulled up to wait for Andrew to catch up. And then we started chatting and treading water, marinating, if you will. We gently floated back to the slip, laughing and talking for the last 30 minutes of our swim, only putting our faces in to swim back as we realized it was raining and we felt bad for our people, standing on shore waiting for us.
As we walked out of the water, Ryan, my mom and Andrew’s partner Ranu were laughing at us. They’d become friends just as fast as Andrew and I had.
And so we got into a routine for the next few days: Meet the Chunky Dunkers for a swim, explore the town, and then I would work in the afternoon.
Other links
Colorado swimmer Sarah Thomas crosses North Channel twice, achieves world record
US swimmer sets North Channel record with gruelling 22-hour trip
An American swimmer has become the first person to swim the North Channel and back again in one go.
