Swimming the Channel

Course Description

Join us for an evening that is all about the English Channel! Facts, anecdotes and all those little things beyond our control! We have invited Sara the first woman from Ecuador who did a solo swim! She will meet two Wardie Bay (Edinburgh) legends: Alistair Cottle, who has swum and trained at Wardie Bay long before most people knew this little beach existed. He overcame his initial fear of the open water and went on to do some big swims, one of those the solo crossing of the Channel. And last but not least we will be joined by a member of the Wardie Bay Suntan Society who not only did the relay last year, but will be back for more this year: a double-crossing of the English Channel. Each of them could fill an evening on their own with their story, we (Sarah and Tine, two Channel-wannabes) decided to put them all together to train for the overwhelming experience we will face when we swim the Channel at the June this year. Join us in this little bit of (hopefully) organised chaos! A bit more info: The Wardie Bay Suntan Society: Over a period of a few months in 2020, the group that became known as the Wardie Bay Suntan Society took their regular Wardie Bay swims a step further and decided to swim the Channel in 2021. Inspired by one of the team who completed a solo crossing in 2020, this is their story of a 32 hour round trip drive / swim from Edinburgh to Dover to France and back. Sara Palacios: Sara Palacios (36 years) is an Ecuadorian Open Water Marathon Swimmer. In 2018, she became the first Ecuadorian woman to swim across the English Channel, 42 km, as part of the OCEAN 7 project, which consists of the 7 most challenging swim marathons around the world. In 2019, she completed 33 km across the Catalina Channel in the United States and the New York marathon, a 48-km circumambulation around the island of Manhattan. Being the first Ecuadorian to do it and at the same time obtaining the triple crown of open water, recognition obtained for the first time for an Ecuadorian. She is also the Race director of the largest international open water race in the world, Oceanman in Ecuador. Currently, she continues to prepare for the OCEAN 7 project, which had to be postponed due to the pandemic.