Good and Bad News...

This has been a really, really emotional week!

The chaos began on the way back from Porstmouth, when Len received a call from Richie saying that we had encountered a problem and that the French coastguards might block our swim as we were an 'unorthodox crossing' (doing it with the Navy and not with the CSPF or CSA - the two Channel swimming federations. Some of you will know that we've already had a fairly nasty experience with the former of these two which ended in us going back to an early suggestion of crossing with the Navy - the HMS Trumpeter and its Captain, Richie Gray.). However, Richie was on the case and working his socks off to sort it out for us. What followed was the most painful wait of our lives which stretched on for two days, with news trickling in so slowly that we were becoming more and more worried.

Finally, Friday brought a text from Len asking us to assemble at the pool for a chat. None of us were prepared to hear that the HMS Trumpeter could no longer accompany us across the Channel. The government is in the process of passing legislation to block all future Channel crossings as they are 'too dangerous' and the coastguards feel they have lost control of the numbers attempting the crossing, which means that the Navy cannot do any Channel crossings as this would be going against the government's future plans. We are hugely indebted to Richie who worked for 2 days flat to try and turn the tables on this one, but to no avail.

However, WE ARE STILL GOING TO SWIM THE CHANNEL. Len got in touch with a pilot from the CSA who was extremely helpful and said he could take us across (for no small fee) and has given us the window of the 15TH-24TH SEPTEMBER. This is a bit later than our original crossing of 11th-16th September and has caused chaos logistics (and school-)-wise, but we are going ahead with it since we all feel we absolutely cannot go with the alternative options. These were either to swim next year with the CSA, to do a different swimming challenge (Richie would help us with this) or not to swim at all. The first would mean a whole other year of training to get in the way of A-Levels when we have already sacrificed a year so far; the second would just not be same as the Channel; the third would just be ridiculous considering how much we want to do this and how much support, in sponsorship or otherwise, we've already been given. Swimming with the CSA means a lot less of the comfort that the Navy would have provided, including no actual meals during the crossing (only snacks) and the fact that we now have to follow the strict CSA rules including that if one of us gets really tired / feels ill etc we cannot get out and change the swimmer / change the order of swimmers for any reason or our swim will not count as an official crossing.

We are all gutted that we can't be making this crossing with Richie and his crew considering how immensely helpful and lovely they've been and how amazingly hard they've worked to try and make it happen. However, we're still swimming and that's the important thing, even if the cost is hefty and inhibits the total we're raising for charity; we are still already beating our target of £6000, so hopefully with one last push before next Sunday we can undo some of the damage.

This has been a painful learning curve for all involved but we are still swimming and that's the most important thing; we now just need to keep training for another week and do it!

Love
Em on behalf of L.E.N.S. Team xxx