DAY THREE: Seven-mile river
swim
On a hot day in August I set
out to swim down a stretch of the Ouse.
We began our journey at the same spot where I slacklined across the
river a couple of days earlier. It
was the hottest day of the year so far with promised highs of 32c so the time
was ripe to carry out this plan.
I have been following the
adventures of David Cornthwaite for some time. I can only dream of the endeavours he’s undertaken, he
always completes a journey of a thousand miles in various forms of self
propelled transportation, but of most interest to me is the thousand mile swim
he began on the 10 August 2012 down the Missouri river. As Britain is only 600 miles in length
I can’t really compete with the amazing adventures he’s had but I had some fun
pretending on a 7 mile swim down the Ouse.
Neither my girlfriend, Alice
or I boast to be strong swimmers – in fact Alice decided to sail the river on a
rubber ring. I had done a couple
of mile long practice swims in the weeks before and had found it pretty tough,
especially as I had pulled the tendons in my hand falling off the slackline a
couple of days before, but I was up for the challenge - safe in the knowledge I
could use Alice as a life raft when necessary.
We slipped ungracefully down
the muddy banks into the water and were greeted by dozens of bright blue
Damselflies flitting about on the surface of the water, in a courtship dance,
which was a nice distraction from the Baltic temperature of the river. It was quite shallow at this
point, so Alice had the advantage, floating off on her rubber ring. I tripped and stumbled in an ungainly
fashion through the knee-deep water, trying to avoid submerged tree trunks.
Eventually, the river
deepened and I got to do some proper swimming. We were treated to the sight of hunting kingfishers and a
swooping buzzard along the way but despite this I couldn’t distract myself from
the fact that I would have been much more comfortable in a wet suit. Several times we hauled ourselves out
onto the bank to warm up in a patch of sunlight, once disturbing a herd of Roe
Deer, before plunging back into the icy depths.
The hardest obstacle to
overcome was a complete blockage of the river from a fallen down tree, this had
amassed a twiggy scum and was impassable.
We were forced to swim back up river and clamber up the bow of a tree
straight into a bramble bush to circumnavigate the blockage.
We completed the swim in six
hours and the last of the 7 miles was spent with me lying across Alice on the
rubber ring for warmth. We were
greeted by our one-man rescue party at the pub, who had a jug of Pimms and
bowl of chips at the ready.
Whilst we enjoyed our swim
and like to think of it as an epic adventure ,we can only dream of completing
the amazing journeys undertaken by David Cornthwaite. David and us started our swims around the same time, but the
difference is that he’s still swimming a month later and is aiming to raise a
million pounds for charity in the process. If you would like to find out more about him and donate to a
worthy cause visit www.davecornthwaite.com.
