If nothing else, long distance swimming teaches you patience.

The ten-day window period on the neap tide, waiting for the weather to settled down so that I could swim, ran out as floods lashed England.

Hugh Tucker sent me a message asking how things were going. My reply: Standby, stand down, stand around.  Hugh says he laughed for hours because he knew the feeling well.  It took Hugh 33 years and 5 attempts before he made his Channel dream come true.  I have a lot to look up to, but I hope not that much to look forward to.  Hugh helped watch and call the weather from SA.  A problem shared, a problem halved, unfortunately, not solved.

Those ten days were stressful for both Anton and I.  I could not imagine coming back home without even giving my swim a go.

I asked my pilot, Eddie what I am to do, as if he could change the weather.  Eddie said that if I was staying on in England then I could swim on the springtide.

The night before the swim I was so scared.  As I lay in my bed, the picture of the white fluffy dog/dragon from the movie "Never Ending Story" came into my head. And so I made friends with my fate. The strong, fast springtide became this fluffy white, woolly dragon, with big gentle brown eyes and soft fluffy ears.  And I rode the tide in my head, between its ears, safe and warm.

My swim was called for 10.30 on the morning of 31 July.

My feeds were set for 30 minute intervals.

At about fours hours I got sick.  I felt terrible. I was cold and shivering.  I could quite gladly have got out of the water. 

Anton changed my feeds to water and swam with me for an hour. "You are looking better than you did just now.  Keep swimming, even if you just swim to get past your 8 hour time mark".

I knew in logic what Anton was trying to tell me - if I don't break the time mark from my last swim, I will always stay at that level.

At about 8pm, Anton put my nightsticks on so that the crew could see me as I was preparing the swim into the night.

I don't know at what point day became night.  It just did. I still marvel at the fact that I could carry on swimming as if nothing had changed.

The deeper I swam into the night, the more I believed I would complete my swim.

It was a beautiful evening.  The moonlight stretched lazily across the water.  The lights of the ships as they passed by looked so dazzling and welcoming, as if the world was having a party.

Time became immaterial, not even a concept.

All I could hear was Anton's whistling floating on the night air and the water rushing past my ears. All I could see in the dark were the red lights on my escort boat.

I would feed, swim, listen to the whistle and try to stay close to the boat.

During the night someone on board shouted “You’re in French Waters!"  Wow, I am half way across!

On my second last feed stop in the dark, the water had become very choppy and knocked me into the bottom of the boat.  I hurt left wrist and my thumb started to ache.

I prayed that the dawn would come faster because of the chop. I wanted to see what was going on.

Then night became day at the flick of a switch.

I could see my crew again and I felt safe and secure.

Robin told me: "You have 4-5 kms to France. We can see buildings and lights. You are so close you can taste it."

Just keep swimming Lydia, I thought, you can swim with the pain for another 2-3 hours. I imagined Eddie beaching his boat on Wissant Beach like the Vikings do and saying "we are here". If only.

The pain in my thumb got worse. I tried to stretch the muscle.

On my next feed, Robin says, there's been a misunderstanding.  "You have 4-5 miles to go" i.e. 10kms - another 6 hours.

I swim on for a little after my feed.  I am battling with my stroke because of my sore thumb. I figure that if my stroke rate drops, I will miss the turning of the tide, which will mean more hours of swimming. My throat is sore; my indigestion is burning with the Neurofen I took.

I realize that I am not going to be able to finish this swim. Tell the crew, that's it.

Once back on deck, Robin says to me “You have no idea what you have just done, do you Mom?" "No" “21 hours, Mom" "What?" The observer shows me his stopwatch 21 hours 2 minutes.