The Rottnest Disaster

I flew out to Perth, Australia 1 week before the Rottnest Island swim reasonably confident that I would get across the 19.7km stretch of water but accepting that I would probably come in last place. This didn’t bother me at all. I spent the first couple of days just trying to stay awake, jet lag had hit me pretty bad and it took me until my third day in Perth just to get in the sea for a little swim. It was beautiful, almost too warm, perfectly clear and lots of things to look at under the water, I even got to swim with a little stingray for about 10 minutes. On my way back to shore I got stung on the lip (not by the stingray), which was quite unpleasant but nothing I couldn’t handle, it would be quite a different story on the day.

The view of Rottnest Island from Cottesloe beach

A couple of days before the swim Cameron, who was going to be my paddler, flew over to Perth with the rest of his swimming squad and coach. These people are proper swimmers and included Louise Stevenson who would go on to come in first out of the women and third over all. I managed to get some food with them all the night before the swim and once again realised how little I knew and how outrageous the idea of swimming the Channel so soon after learning to swim was. I felt like a little bit of a fraud, which I was to be fair. Still I thought as long as I finish I’ll be happy. I had a chat to Cameron who said he would pretty much sort out my feeding plan, he had no choice really as I had put barely any thought into it, and I was fully confident he knew what he was doing as he had completed the Rottnest swim twice, plus his obvious Channel success.

The day before the swim I had to go to the pre-swim briefing, where we got our information packs and had a safety briefing. This is where I found out there were cut-off times and you had to be at certain points along the course within certain times, or you would be asked to get out of the water. This was unexpected, however they looked very easy to make so I had no worries about it. I then went to the shops to buy myself loads of zinc and stuff for my feeding plan and was pretty much ready to go. We then went to pick up Cameron’s kayak, which was an excellent thing, it looked like it was made of Lego. Cameron is a pretty big chap and I feared for him staying above the water for the whole time I thought it was going to take me to do the swim, he didn’t seem bothered of course. We then drove to meet my pilot, Kevin, to give him all my food and get it put on ice and in the boat. He was another excellent man and everything ran very smoothly. All I needed now was to somehow get a decent nights sleep, something I hadn’t managed up to this point.

Zincing up, with the lego Kayak

0430 on the morning of the swim I was up and covering myself in suncream and zinc having managed to get about 4 hours sleep, which I was pretty pleased with. I got a knock on the door at about 5o’clock from Cameron and it was time to walk to the start line and register for the swim. I was feeling pretty good, and almost looking forward to the day. The atmosphere at the start line was awesome. I would recommend anybody who swims to, at some point, go to Rottnest. It is massive. I was to start in the second wave after the women and elites, a little bit shocked not to be included in the elites, but accepted it. My start time was 0545 so it was now just a case of trying to chill out whilst covered in zinc and strutting around in speedos. It was a happy time, I looked good. Luckily everyone else looked the same.

At the start line, still miffed I wasn't in the elite category

0545 came and we were off! There was so many people at the water at the start it really is good. Cheering crowds, loads of swimmers, photographers and announcers etc. I was loving it. When you start the race you have 1,000 metres to meet your paddler, then you have to meet your boat by 1,500 metres. I had heard nightmare stories of people having to tread water for ages waiting for their boat and crew to find them, I had no such problem and found them straight away (I say I found them, they clearly found me, I didn’t even lift my head up). It was all going so smoothly it was unbelievable, the only thing I did notice is that there were no swimmers with me anymore. This is the moment it became clear that everyone in Australia is half-human half-fish. I have never seen anything like it, they were flying past me at speeds I had never before witnessed in the water. Cameron told me to try and draft behind one of them, this lasted about 2 seconds before whoever I was drafting behind was about a mile in front of me. I decided to forget about everyone else and just get into my rhythm and plod along at my usual pace, except my usual pace now was even slower than I remembered, I felt like I was barely moving. I wasn’t.

Cameron, when there were still other boats around

I had my first feed at 45 minutes, which came around in no time. I downed whatever was in the bottle, and put my head back in the water and carried on plodding. This was when I realised I had been stung about a billion times, every time I put my hand in the water I was getting stung all the way up my arm, then on my face, then the process was repeated on the other side. I was not enjoying the stings, or the fact that the water was 24c and the air temperature was 38c. I had not envisaged being too hot on the swim, but I was definitely feeling it. By my second feed the relay swimmers were coming past me at a rate of knots, they had started 15 minutes after me and were absolutely cruising. Still I persisted with my extreme slow swim thinking all would be fine, despite Cameron giving me signals to speed up, I decided I knew best, which I didn’t

Maintaining my slow pace expertly

At my 6 hour feed I was literally completely on my own, there was not a swimmer in sight. All the relay teams had passed me, the soloists were long gone, I was just grateful that my boat had hung around. As I set off again after my feed I saw another boat approaching ours, I pretty much knew what was happening. I had failed to make the cut-off point.

Cameron was looking gutted to have to tell me that I had to get out, I was also gutted but I had nobody to blame apart from myself. I wasn’t even slightly tired having just swum 6 hours. This is not a good thing though, as it just shows that I wasn’t putting in enough effort on the swim and should have pushed myself much harder. I climbed onto the boat completely dejected thinking if I couldn’t finish a 19.7km swim how the hell was I going to get across the Channel? To put into perspective how slow I was swimming Louise Stevenson had finished over an hour before I got pulled out, and I had only got just over half way. To be fair she is an incredible swimmer.

Random photo, excellent hat

We sailed to Rottnest Island for the post race party. This would have been absolutely brilliant if I had finished the swim, but I hadn’t so it wasn’t. After a couple of hours, and beers, I was starting to feel a bit better. Everyone there was so nice and encouraging, telling me not to worry about it and at least I had a go. It really helped. I also got talking to Camerons coach Vlad, he is an excellent human being. He offered to help me get faster whilst I was in Australia by training with his squad, I accepted the offer immediately but found it hard to believe he would be able to change anything in just 3 weeks. Yet again I was wrong...

On another note I met Bondi Vet! I didn’t know who he was though. I have since watched his programme and decided he is cool enough for a name drop.