Swimtrekking in Gozo

After just 10 days in England I was off again, this time to Gozo with Swimtrek holidays, basically a 5 day long beast in the sea. This, ideally, would result in my qualifying for the Channel swim by completing a 6 hour swim in sub 16c water. I had completed my first week following Vlads swim sessions in England and was feeling pretty good on the flight to Malta, before the transfer to Gozo. After meeting a few fellow swimmers on the way to the hotel we decided to go for a quick dip in the sea straight away, they decided at least, I just followed. The sea looked beautiful, very clear and clean. After stepping in though I was a bit shocked by the temperature, it was 14c, which isn’t particularly cold but it felt it after the swims in Australia where it was about 24c.

Warming up after the first 2 hour swim

After the swim I got showered, met my roommate Simon, and got ready for the meet and greet dinner where we would meet the other guests and the instructors for the week. The first was Nick Adams, a man who had completed 6 channel swims including a 2 way crossing at 19 years old, alongside holding the world records for both Jersey to France and around Jersey swims, pretty incredible. The second was Freda Streeter, the mother of Allison Streeter ‘The Queen of the Channel’ who has successfully completed 43 channel swims, including a 3 way crossing, the only female to have done so at the time of writing. The third was Mia Russell, a South African former national swimmer, who would have competed at breast stroke in the Olympics if not for the politics surrounding South Africa at the time. Finally the fourth was Karen Throsby, a new instructor who had completed a Channel Swim last year, was now training for a swim across the Catalina Channel and completing a study on Channel swimmers and what makes them tick. So all in all a pretty impressive group.

2 hours?!? The start of my mistrust

The 2 fish-men, Tom and Lorcan

The next morning we were back in the water to determine what groups we were to swim in. This involved swimming 2 widths of the bay, not very far at all but far enough to work out peoples speed. As usual there were a couple of fish-men that just flew along effortlessly, but this time I was finishing pretty much with the majority so was happy. Already the water didn’t feel as cold as the day before, although my shivering afterwards would beg to differ. After sorting out our groups we had lunch and were told to meet again at the bay afterwards for our first proper swim. We were briefed about the course we would be swimming around and then told we would be swimming for 3 hours, straight in at the deep end, however we were pulled out after 2 hours to keep the body guessing. It worked, from that point on I didn’t trust anything we were told regarding swim times.

End of the 2 hour swim, horrible

Delicious Maxim

Day 3 began with a drive to a different bay, another beautiful little place with a slightly bigger circuit then our previous swim. We were told we would be swimming for 3 ½ hours, I of course didn’t believe them and convinced myself we would be doing a maximum of 3. We swam for 3 ½ hours. It was freezing. After getting out and eating some pasta we were told we had 30 minutes then we were back in for another 2 hours, again I didn’t believe, again they were telling the truth. This was without doubt my worst swim of the holiday, I was shaking and shivering from about 20 minutes in and didn’t stop for the whole time. It was horrible, I was trying to show as much signs of hyperthermia as I could but all to no avail, I had to complete the swim! After these swims we headed back to the hotel for a lecture on feeding and were told our timings for the next days 6 hour qualification swim. 11 ½ hours swimming in 2 days seemed unbelievable not too long ago, but now it felt very doable...