Vikki swims the English Channel!
We are delighted to announce that in June 2018, Vikki Wright swum The English Channel to raise funds for our Foundation!
Vikki Wright has told of the "surreal" moment she reached a French beach after succeeding in a bid to swim across the English Channel.
She crossed from England to France as night was starting to fall as she made it ashore to the loud cheers of about 10 French people.
“After 15 hours and 17 minutes, I had made it to France,” she said. “It was surreal and I felt like I was in a dream-like state. Then survival kicks in and all you want to do is get warm and fed.”
She said conditions were good, and she seemed to be progressing well until it appeared the tide would turn earlier than expected and suddenly the tone of her support team changed as they asked her to "dig deep" and sprint to get out of a shipping lane.
“For the first time I started to doubt I would make it to France and the thought of failure was terrifying,” she said.
“If I could not make it to calmer waters by the time the tide turned, I would be swept eastwards. If I ended up near the ferry traffic, by Calais, the Coastguard would abort my swim.”
She said she surprised herself with what she had "left in the tank" as she did exactly as she was told and swam as hard as she could for the next two hours and managed to get to more sheltered water.
But she was tired and although she could see France, it "never seemed to get any closer".
She thanked her support team and everyone who had followed the swim, saying messages relayed to her had inspired her to go on when it was really tough. “Swimming the channel not only felt like a big achievement it also felt like a great privilege.”
