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@kl
OK, for those of you who want to swim the Channel, I'm sat in Dover now waiting for the weather to change. 3 of my mates are waiting to go on this tide, 2 of whom are doing Arch to Arc, 1 of whom I am crewing for (so haven't slept for 40 hrs, pardon me if I'm not sounding positive).
I've trained with all 3 of these guys for the last few years as they've built up for this - the 4 degree swims in the January storms, the 12 hr swims in the spring, the mind-expanding trips to really bad nightclubs in Folkestone. They've all laid out at least £2500-3000 for the pilot alone (one of them bought a caravan down here as a training base). They all could make is across easily with decent weather.
Anyhow, this is a dogshit week weatherwise. We've just heard that the window we thought was open tomorrow is closing swiftly, and all 3 of the guys may miss their slot without swimming a stroke as the weather is shite for the rest of the week. And this is the guys who know their stuff, and can't be stuffed by the handful of unethical pilots (there are 12 pilots, some are fantastic, a few are despicable).
On the flipside, me and my mate (both godawful swimmers) made it across last year after getting pretty lucky with weather and tides. It was awesome. Basically, I'm too sleep-deprived to make much sense right now, but know a fair deal about Channel swimming, so feel free to PM me if you're thinking about it.