Strait of Gibraltar (Europe to Africa)
A swim that wasn’t on my radar at all for 2023, but fell into my lap when my coach was lucky enough to grab some slots for April. Given how hard it is to be offered a slot for this swim, I grabbed it with both hands.
I took the opportunity to do a solo of the South32 Rottnest Swim as a prepping swim for the year ahead. This swim wasn’t new to me at all; I had been part of several relay teams in my ‘hey day’ with my waterpolo girlfriends, however I had never swum this as a solo. I hadn’t been back from Perth for long when this opportunity came up and originally the plan was to swim Rotto and take some time out of the pool to regroup, rest and recover before heading to Croatia in May for our training camp, but that wasn’t to be the case and in some ways it played into my hand as I had done a lot of the prep for Rotto so there wasn’t a lot of work to be done.
The Strait of Gibraltar crossing is not only the shortest of the crossings but is generally done in a team of 4. Tim put together two RedTop teams – our tidal window being 15 April – 23 April with the second RedTop teams window coming in after ours. The window’s for this swim overlap and now having swum it I understand why. The swim is tricky for a number of factors – wind direction and strength, tide and timings all need to align. The association endeavours to give swimmers as much opportunity as possible to get across hence the longer window as swim days during the window are limited . The team and I became official WindGuru masters while waiting for our swim, however you can never predict how the conditions are going to play out as they are constantly changing so there really is no point in getting yourself all worked up when ultimately it is the pilot who makes the call as to whether swim day is a go or not. We didn’t do so well with that piece of advice early on but by the end of the week we had made our peace with it.
Naively the plan for this swim had always been, fly into Gibraltar, get the swim done and then join my husband and kids (well 3 of 4) in Wales as the swim coincided with an EID break. Well that didn’t work out as planned! Harriet and I flew into Heathrow and transferred to Gatwick where we were meeting Coach Matt, Milo and Zeina (two of my team mates). Rob was flying in from elsewhere and we met him once we landed in Gibraltar. On arrival in Gibraltar we then had a 2 hr car journey down to Tarifa Spain (the southern most point of Spain and the swim location). Very quaint town but oh my god so windy – reminded me of my home town where you can guarantee that every day is a windy day – the good old Freo Doctor!
Saturday 15th our window opened. We had a familiarsation swim on Friday and with conditions looking great for the next day we had a skip in our step as we headed to meet the organisers later Friday afternoon. The first thing that the organizer said when we sat down – so you WONT be swimming tomorrow – wait what? The wind in our sails quickly deflated and the atmosphere in the room was incredibly somber. We were so hyped up to swim on Saturday and then the rug was pulled out from under us. To be fair it was the 4 of us swimmers who were hyped, Matt our coach was very non committal (having been a veteran of these swims before) and so he knew not to expect anything until we are told it is a go. We didn’t realise that the 2nd team from the window prior to us had not swum and so they were going on Saturday. Talk about miserable…4 swimmers politely went off to the pub to drown our sorrows after the briefing.
Not swimming Saturday caused all of us to revise plans – a reminder that when you plan these swim make sure you are prepared to stay for the duration of your window (something I had let slip in planning this swim). Smartly we had all only booked one way flights into Gibraltar given we were sure (that should have been a dead give away there) when we would swim so I didn’t’ have to reschedule any internal flights but I have to say getting out of Spain/Gibraltar at short notice is an expensive exercise (I was flying back to London to then fly to AD…silly holiday plans!). Lucky I spent the week working, training and resting.
The following days the wind was howling so no open water (well one but it wasn’t much fun). We found an indoor 25m pool not far from our pension and used that as our training base. We ate, laughed and spent time bonding which, if I am honest, made our crossing much more fun coupled with a healthy dose of achievement.
So what are the conditions that you need for a successful crossing?
Firstly the wind needs to be in a westerly direction and under 10km hour. If the wind is likely to change before you get halfway across the Strait, you won’t go or you may be pulled out if you have started the swim. The high tide needs to be at a time when the wind is in the right direction and speed. Water temp in April was 16c, which for all of us with the exception of Miles, was a bit of a culture shock as none of us had been doing any cold water training.
Swim day finally came around and I can tell you we were absolutely more than ready to get on with it. Between us in the group there had been frustrations at waiting, something that none of us were used to and I have to say Matt was an absolute master at putting up with at various stages during the week of whining about waiting. We had to been driving him batty. The skilled tactician that he is, he always responded we have to wait to see what the pilot says and conditions could change in the morning so lets just wait and see, nothing is certain. Very diplomatic but enough to appease us bad tempered grumpy swimmers.
Start time again was very civilized – roughly 11-11.30am we were to be in the water. Loading at the dock, we headed out on the pilot boat followed by Matt on the rubber ducky. We headed out of the port and literally jumped in around the corner in front of the lighthouse. Given the swell we didn’t have to touch the rocks at the bottom of the cliff to start the swim. The start hooter started and we were off.
Swim conditions were choppy for the duration of the swim. Nothing flat out there at all. In saying that we had the current behind us and with the westerly wind coming in, we were set up for a fast swim. A rolling swell was coming in from the right. You needed to change up your stroke to take advantage of the crest of the swell and take advantage of the push you would get from it. If your timing was off you then hit the flat spot at the end of the roll and you were left swimming with the air! I certainly got a few mouthfuls of ocean water when I wasn’t thinking about things enough and took a breath when I shouldn’t have. No seasickness though which is always a good thing. The majority of the swim was overcast with a few bursts of sunshine. With the water temp at 16c I was worried with the overcast conditions that we would be feeling the cold but we had the week to acclimatize and that seemed to pay off. When the sun was out, it was magnificent.
The team was made up of 4 swimmers from RedTop Swim. I was definitely daunted by the team I was swimming with – Rob an Australian Olympic bronze medalist (IM LA 1984 – I watched him win his medal when I was 14yrs old), Miles a seasoned OWS swimmer and Zeina who swam the EC the year prior and is about 25 years younger than the 3 of us. The guys swim a faster pace than me and I was worried that I was going to be holding them back. Having had the week together it was easy to talk to them about how I was feeling, particularly with Rob who is still superfast in the water. Unfortunately for him (and Miles to an extent), the crossing presented more challenges than the rest of us as he needed to come up with some strategies to not get too cold during the swim or what to do if he got too cold as he had to swim at our pace and not his. In the end my worries (and Robs) proved to be unfounded with the swim going really smoothly. This is what makes this crossing different to the others – each has their own unique challenges and with this crossing it is more about team work and how you go from solo swimming to working in a team. In our team Rob was definitely the guy who pepped us, during the week and during our feeds – sometimes words of wisdom, but more often than not outright humour.
I didn’t really have any concerns about marine life during this swim. Tim’s view and also the view of the organisers is that they are well fed and it isn’t a problem. Zeina swam with shark shields on her wrist and ankle, but Miles, Rob and I chose not too. Swimming with others also helped keep my mind calm and I have to say sharks didn’t even cross my mind during the swim at all. I also swam with my eyes open (when my face was in the water) for the first time ever and it was absolutely breathtakingly clear. I’m glad I did!
Our swim formation was like a diamond with Miles setting the pace Zeina in behind and Rob and I on either side. We didn’t set out to swim like this, we just fell into this formation naturally and it worked for us on the day. With Matt the only support person in the boat, two feed stations were set up – one at the front and one at the back of the rubber ducky – tall persons at the front, short persons at the back. Zeina and I would then head off with Miles and Rob then bringing up the rear and back into formation again. Feeds were 30 mins (although you don’t feed for the first hour) and I followed my normal nutrition plan – don’t break what isn’t broken.
With the current behind us, our swim was pretty fast. 3hrs 18 mins we touched the rocks in Morocco. This swim leaves a warm feeling in my heart – having spent a week with the team and Matt our finish felt so much more than just a personal solo. Together we made sure that we had a great crossing, everyone was happy, some jokes went down range during the feeds and we were all ok. So much love for my team mates – absolute champions.
From a personal perspective, I absolutely loved being in the water with other swimmers. A refreshing change from solo swimming. I didn’t think about myself at all. I looked at Miles’ feet all day, checked on Rob to my right and had Zeina behind me. Being surrounded by other swims left no time to think about anything other than my team mates. No dark places and no jumpscares! We did have a pod of pilot whales go between our pilot boat and us but I didn’t see them (only know that is the case as we have video of them).
Arriving back in Tarifa, we were met at the port by Tim and Jamie and Paul (Coach and 2 swimmers for the next window) – a lot of laughs with them and a debrief for them of our swim.
Strait of Gibraltar is channel crossing number 2. The chess pieces are lining up nicely with Catalina to come in Oct. Next is my annual trip to Croatia for our training camp (cold water), then family holiday in Greece, then final prep for Catalina.
