As soon as I hit the water and begin swimming, I feel much better. Up until now, the day has been full of unfamiliar things; the decision making, the boat, the presence of so many family and friends, the hoopla. But by now, the simple act of turning my arms over endlessly is as familiar to me as it gets; an old, old, friend.
I get level with the boat, and it creeps forward to stay level with me; I'm on my way to France. At first the conditions feel relatively benign, but after about 20 minutes, as we leave the shelter of the harbour walls, it starts to pick up.
Nothing I can do about it, I just focus on trying to stay relaxed in the swell. My friend Katie Frew, an accomplished open-water swimmer, LOVES swimming in the waves and chop, and used to remind me NOT to fight it, but to allow myself to go with it. I try to channel my inner Katie, but it's clear that the conditions are worse than we first thought; at times as I look over to the Gallivant, all I can see (from a superstructure that's probably 5m above the waterline) is the top of the VHF antenna.
It's actually much better for me than for the guys on the boat, who are being thrown around relentlessly. Filming the clip below, standing on the edge of the upper-deck, Ray's KNEES go under water as the boat rolls heavily onto its starboard side.
Before I know it, I see a green '15' card to signal 15 minutes to the first feed, and soon after that, I'm alongside for a quick drink. Mike Ball comes out and tells me "good swimming", that we're making good progress, to keep doing what I'm doing. Mike is an awesome swimmer, and an awesome bloke, so I allow myself to feel rather pleased.
For a couple of hours after that, I feel strong, in control, and that all is well. But then somehow, imperceptibly, a feeling develops that things are going wrong. It's getting dark now, and the crew seem quieter. I take a gel feed, which Mike Oram notices, and (not one to shy away from sharing his opinion) tells me that gels are "a load of rubbish", that I'm not taking enough liquid. I have used gels a lot in triathlon in the past, and also in training for this, and have got on fine with them. "Works for me Mike" I say rather primly, and swim off.
However sure enough, in the next 30 minutes I start feeling nauseous, and definitely DON'T feel like taking another gel. At the next feed I ask for liquid only, and concede to Ray that Mike may be right. "Don't worry", retorts Ray cheerfully, "he knew that already!".
Nonetheless the crew still seem subdued and the feeling persists that things are somehow not going to plan; I start to panic that I've used too much energy too soon, that I'm swimming too slow and that the mood on the boat might just be because they already know I'm not going to make it. At the next feed I say to Ray "pace OK?" and he says "yes". Not satisfied, I say "are you happy?" and again he replies in the affirmative, but for some reason what I'm looking for is the heap of praise I got from Mike Ball at the end of that first hour. "But are you happy with ME?!" I shout, and Ray with the sort of calm only an ex-Royal Marine can muster quietly says "yes mate, you're doing well". I shut up.
Onwards. It's getting toward midnight now, and properly dark, except for the moon, which I see when I occasionally breathe to my right, rising with an almost cartoon-like silvery path on the surface of the sea. Most of the time I'm breathing to my left, where I see the Gallivant, now quite brightly lit up; there's a floodlight intended to keep me in sight at all times, which also dazzles me a little. Despite all the lighting, the dark somehow creates a barrier between me and the crew, a veil that makes it hard to read expressions and feel a part of what's going on.
A late-night feed, with some chat from Mike Oram about a course change
There seems to have been a change of shift on feeding, no sign of Ray or Martin, so for a few feeds now I'm in Poldy's very capable hands. It's actually kind of nice, it feels like we're sitting up late together, like two naughty schoolboys! He's super positive at every feed, and I allow a little cautious optimism to return. I'm dimly aware that I haven't really seen Martin since the first couple of feeds, and wonder if he's OK.
I long for daylight. I know that sunrise will be at around 0450, and reason that I will start to see the very first streaks of dawn not long after 3am. It's getting toward 1am now. 2 more hours, I tell myself. Written in permanent marker on my left hand is a line from the movie I was watching a lifetime ago back at the hotel. "Stick with it", it says.
I was expecting jellyfish in the dark to be much easier to deal with, since I assumed I wouldn't be able see them; getting stung is somehow much less of an event if you don't anticipate it. But the bright moon and the floodlight penetrate the first couple of metres of the sea, so when I arrive at the first of two big swarms, they appear like dark ghosts, floating directly ahead, below and to each side of me. For two or three seconds I stop swimming, and float, face down in the water, contemplating. Far too many to count, they are everywhere, and there's absolutely no point in trying to avoid. I take a deep breath, swim on, and get stung a few times. The difference between the visual anticipation ("Aliens are about to attack me to death") and the physical sensation ("Ouch I just scraped my knee/cut my finger/caught some nettles") is almost funny, and at least it gives me something to talk about at the next feed.
"There are jellies EVERYWHERE" I say, "I feel like Jacques f****** Cousteau out here"; which gets a laugh. Mike Oram wants to know: am I getting stung? "f*** yeah!" I exclaim. Do I want an anti-histamine? "No, I'm fine" I say, "unless I'm starting to look like Herman Munster?". There must be something about British military training that encourages merciless humour to be sought out in almost every circumstance. "No more than usual" Ray shoots back, and I just have the energy to lift one hand out of the water and give him the finger. The entire boat crew bursts out laughing, and for the first time since that first couple of hours, I think maybe we will make it.
A tanker lit up by the moon, with me swimming just off the bows of the boat (pale blob in the water, bottom right of picture)