Pilot Boat

Reality is definitely setting in these days as registration forms, memberships and medicals are in order before the end of the month!! Filling these out is confirming there's no turning back so better do it soon in case one of the duo gets cold feet (pardon the pun)!! Speaking of cold feet we are still grounded and the more we get impatient to get out in the sea the colder it seems to be getting!! Fingers crossed we'll be out in month or we'll have pool fever ( equivalent of cabin fever to swimmers)! The most important part of organising the swim is to book our pilot boat which we did last May. It's not possible to get across the channel without these registered boats. The channel swimming association gives us the list and we organise the day rest. We choose our boat for the name "Connemara" and our skipper is a very nice  gentleman by the name of Kevin Sherman who will get us safely across the channel to our destination Calais. These pilot boat skippers know the channel better than anyone on the planet and know the tides and how to get us across safely. The attempts to swim the channel are done during neap tides of which there are approximately 10 during the season. The skipper knows the tides and currents and will guide us through them hopefully with ease as the best we can keep with them the better our chance of success. The Dover strait is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world and some of these ships are 350 meters in length and 300,000 tonnes in weight and believe it or not but they have right of way!!!! Hopefully we won't meet too many of them on the 3rd of July!!
Thanks for all the good wishes and support, greatly appreciated