Leander, Lord Byron and Me

Leander, Lord Byron and Me. 

On Wednesday the 28th of August we travelled to Canakkale, Asia. After landing in Istanbul and then getting a 7 hour bus ride to the ferry crossing we were all pretty exhausted. We had to attend a welcome drinks at the Telephone bar, here we received our swimming packs and information about Thursdays acclimatization swim. 

Thursday was jam packed with various events, first we all went down to a local beach and swam a few kilometers and practiced in our race goggles etc. The water was clear and we had perfect conditions for swimming. 

That night we had a briefing and the words from the guide put more fear in me than I’d like to admit; it all sounded a lot harder than I’d thought and after various maps and landmarks my brain was struggling to remember it all, I resolved to follow everyone else and hope for the best. 

The fact that I was about to swim across the worlds busiest shipping lane didn’t hit me till the morning of my swim; I’d been pretty relaxed about it up until this point, and now I was seriously regretting the lack of training I’d done. (The only open water swimming I’d done was a few trips to Southampton’s Solent and I’d swam in a lake once or twice.)

We arrived early in the morning, all 570 of us crowded the finish line and waited for the bus to take us to the ferry. A rather odd sight it would have been had you not know the swim was taking place. All of us in swimming costumes, swim hats, goggles and complimentary hotel slippers packed into buses and standing at the ferry port. 

We arrived at Eceabat, the Europe side of Turkey and all gathered nervously on the small beach. 

Weather conditions were the worst that had been experienced in the last 10 years and the small turkish fishing boats that were to form the rescue boats were out in force - 70 spread out in all directions. High north easterly winds, fearsome currents, big choppy waves, jelly fish and the words of the final briefing the night before from the organisers must have been lurking in the back of everyones minds - "if you haven't swum in these conditions before this may not be the race for you".

When the klaxon sounded chaos ensued, the Turks were fiercely competitive and swam over anyone in their way, after a few blows to the head I decided there was no point playing nice. The current was pushing everyone back onto the beach and the buoys that had been placed at 250m, 500m and 750m away from the shore were almost impossible to reach. I struck out hard at the beginning and managed to inch my way past the first 2 buoys, my aunt after 40 minutes was pulled from the water beside the 2nd buoy along with many others as the organizers knew that they wouldn't make it in the time allowed. This is one of the worlds busiest shipping lanes and is only closed for 1h 30mins.

Finding myself alone battling with sea sickness from the choppy water I somehow managed to swim far enough across the Dardanelles to see that the finish was looming, only to be swept past it. I was now surrounded by Turkish men and they didn’t understand a single word of english. I decided to leave them and swim back again, after 20 minutes of flat out swimming against the current I finally turned into the finish. 

The feeling I got when I saw the sea floor come into view was one I cannot describe, a mixture of relief and happiness filled me. 

The race was won by 2 Turks who were neck and neck to the finish in an incredible 52 minutes. It was some time after this before the first international competitors started to make the finish.

I had made it to Asia in 1hr and 42 minutes.  

xxx