RachaelSwims: Welcome to the Wetsundays

For my first trip to Queensland, I was looking forward to sunshine, warm weather and luminous blue ocean. Instead I got rain and a 4m swell.

I flew into Hamilton Island on the last aircraft not to be grounded due to poor visibility and high winds, I raced across the tarmac and just caught my connecting ferry to take me to Airlie Beach. The route that this ferry was taking was to be approximately the route we would be swimming in two days time.

On the phone with Christie, he told me that the weather was predicted to get worse and we may have to abort or drastically change the swim. I told him the conditions weren't that bad, at the same time I covered myself with hot tea as the boat tried to negotiate the growing swell. Bugger.

In the end we cut the course 10k short of our original target. A big disappointment, but a wise decision. Attempting to negotiate massive swell in a narrow, shallow and rocky channel in the pitch dark with three swimmers in the water was an unacceptable level of risk to ask of our skippers and support crew.

The swim got off to a bit of a hairy start, one of our support crew had to pull out due to a broken down jet ski, and crossing the channel to Dent Island, our first 10k section of the swim, was a bit daunting. I wish I had some photos or video footage of the swell doubling the height of the boat. We also lost our second support boat with all the paddle crew on board for a good 30 minutes crossing the Dent channel.

The first 10k were some of the roughest conditions I have ever swum through, dare I say rougher than Melbourne... "Living the dream" I thought to myself as my paddler and support boat disappeared behind a ginormous wave.
The last 5k took us about 2 hours, it was a gruelling slog against the tide as we crossed Funnel bay and swam into Airlie Beach. Once there we were met by a cheering crowd and reporters from the local paper.

In between the start and finish there were a series of up and downs, swing and roundabouts, ebbs and flows. I may or may not have chucked a Linda Evangelista and said something along the lines of " I don't get out of bed for less than 30km." A notable down was when I all of a sudden got irrationally pissed off. Swimming about 25m to the left of the kayak, I was sick of swimming alone and wanted some company. Unfortunately my rage coincided with a feed stop, and boy did I let my feelings be known- lets just say Rob (paddler) didn't leave my side after that.

Highlights

Finding a rhythm and body roll like a boss. Travelling fast near to the shore and just feeling awesome. Belting out "I dreamed a dream" by Les Miserables and surfing the face of the giant swell. Yew!

Lowlights

Getting ANGRY!

What did I learn?

I get angry! Much like others have stages of drunk...I have stages of swim, one of them is anger. I look forward to what the Channel is going to cook up. Charm, I apologise in advance for any abuse I hurl at you, its the swimanger talking.

I also learnt that I
close my eyes whilst swimming quite a lot. You know when you're driving and you arriving somewhere but you cant quite recall how you got there? Thats happens to me when I swim, am I having micro-sleeps in these times? Im not sure, but I do catch myself having been swimming blind for ~20 strokes.

I hold my breath; again no idea why but I was breathing every 9-10 strokes.

Anyway it's done, and time to think about my next big training swim...maybe palm beach (wharf side) to Manly wharf?

Finally, I would like to thank my two shoulders (brought to you by Matt McCutcheon from Sports Lab), who despite some pain at the beginning carried me all the way through my longest swim yet. I would also like to thank Fantine from Les Miserables who got me though some tough patches and kept me bubbling away.