Getting my name forever embossed on the plaque below at Queens Royal Park in Niagara-on-the-lake, Ontario was my main inspiration for taking on this totally epic swim. The beach in front of the bench in the middle of the pic below is conveniently the start line!…..observe you cannot make out the finish which is Toronto in the distance ca. 50km away! Unsurprising perhaps given this is undertaking is 3x Windermere or 1.5x the English Channel…...When you stand right by it you can’t believe it isn’t the sea and have to double take when in the water as it is fresh not salty.
My crew - I gave this specially hand-picked rabble a rather affectionate label ‘rent-a-mob’ but probably the most professional crew anyone can be lucky enough to assemble for a swim of this nature! (From left to right: Dan Simonelli (from San Diego), Amanda Bell (from Stockton, UK), Me, Sam Jones (from Plymouth, UK)) with local Christine Arsenault (pilot and LO soloist herself). Not in picture Christine’s husband Rick (top geezer) plus we were ably overseen by 2 highly skilled observers/swim masters Loren King and Katharine Borczak from the Solo Swims of Ontario governing body/safety organisation.
The start - weather not great hence no spectators save for 2 in the gazebo built for a 1989 John Travolta film The Experts which never got taken down (and the film was a flop btw!)
Departure ca. 11am on the 2nd August…tough 20 meters of submerged rocks to navigate before one could even think about taking a stroke…..my advice if doing again would be to wear crocs and throw to crew once thru this bit…..Sporting my British & Irish Lions Budgy Smugglers for first Brit…..
My mate the lucky duck helping me cope with tough conditions for the first 20%…decided to take it easy instead of fighting it! Watching the waves crash over his head as we navigated the sandbar at the mouth of the Niagara River was highly amusing. Crew on the zodiac got totally soaked!
And then the whole world became a feast of blues (under and above the water) for the afternoon…hourly feeds with 12 Oatmeal Crème Pies consumed during the undertaking….First 5 feeds maxim then next five flat coke then back on maxim for remainder…….this place is simply vast - Lake Ontario is 193 miles long by 53 miles wide (at its largest dimensions)! Probs not ideal undertaking if you struggle with agoraphobia?
Then the crew observed the sunset over Toronto with the sun bouncing off the CN Tower making it look like a rocket! (I tried not to look up as thought that would be the slippery road to hell but obviously very hard mentally to realise you were making progress as couldn’t see land much from start to finish!)
Light turned into darkness with the flick of a switch around 9pm….with a spectacular city within reach (kind of)….I spent most of the swim in my head thinking I was swimming Lake Memphremagog (Vermont to Quebec 2019 swim with separate blog) so that was my way of coping with this! (Easy to see main support boat R&R piloted by Christine and Rick ahead).
Wasn’t 100% certain beforehand whether I would have to swim thru the entire night for this swim but we were treated to one of the most incredible sunrises ever! More blues tinged with oranges….with lights of boat bottom left. I noticed that the air temp was pretty fresh now as members of the crew were wearing jackets plus hats, drinking warm drinks and rubbing hands….
Eventually, after 41km, I made the executive decision to land the swim at the Leslie Street Spit (rather than Marilyn Bell Park) so we had ‘only’ 5km (compared with 8km to MBP) to go which I remembered was 50x100m or 1/2 a Steve Wand (a charity swim I run each winter)….10 laps of the lake but obviously no gimmie!
Massive relief and joy to land the swim in a time of 18:59:52 sneaking in 8 seconds under 19 hours. Didn’t even require exiting the water just touching a dry rock! And in the parlance of Dan Simonelli I became ‘The First Brit Man’ to do this….couldn’t have summed it up better Lieutenant Dan!
The route from the start at Niagara-on-the-Lake to Toronto. Thanks for coming. Ca.50% longer than the English Channel but also fresh water affording way less buoyancy.
Got dressed and hadn’t experienced shaking like that since completing Loch Lomond in 2012 (probs a combo of water temp, exertion and time in the water)….Would sum my personal challenge of Lake Ontario like swimming 3x Lake Windermere’s back-to-back with the first one around 20c, then the next at 17c with the last one at 15c (progressively colder which is mentally very tough indeed)….Shoulders felt totally fine afterwards (went for a bob/heads-up breatstroke swim later on the same day!)…only thing that bothered me was a blood-shot right eye given goggle irritation - nothing that anti-biotic eye ointment that I brought with me didn’t rectify in 3 days. I don’t recall complaining about much and didn’t really gripe about the cold although was cognisant that there were cold patches but the 35km weekend I did in Loch Tay with Adrian Rotchell (training for Loch Ness himself) stood me (and him) in great stead (thanks to Colleen Blair)!
Luckily the actual temps on the day were slightly higher than predicted but have never swum through so many different temperatures in the same body of water ever (probs what makes this the challenge that it is). Upwelling central. Oh and the Niagara River was never 8c as suggested below….lol
We ‘aved it - I reckon >50% of this achievement down to rent-a-mob (my executive support crew).
And we never got bored of the sunsets which were a 5 min walk from our Airbnb at Ryerson park…
Where we struggled to find a space to put our towels down during the day….
We also took the opportunity to pay our respects to the grave of Matthew Webb (1st person to swim the English Channel but lost his life when attempting to swim the whirlpool on the Niagara river). He is buried at Oakwood cemetery just across the border on the US side. (https://oakwoodniagara.org/capt-matthew-webb)
The whirlpool where our Matthew came out 2nd best. Grade 6 rapids are led into a cul-de-sac and therefore have to push anti clockwise before exiting on the right (eventually into Lake Ontario further on). It is believed from the guides that whole tree trunks are whirling around over 100 feet down never to re-emerge. 1st pic from US side and 2nd below from Canadian side.
If, like me, you failed Geography at school you might find this illustration helpful - observe ALL the other lakes flow into Lake Ontario eventually (via the Niagara Falls!) before heading out of the Gulf of St Lawrence. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes)
Proof of completion of the swim here: https://www.soloswims.com/aspirant.htm
I will join this exclusive list of Lake Ontario swimmers: https://longswims.com/events/lake-ontario/
Can’t face another one of these for a while having worked my way thru an entire box but this is the feed of champions! lol…need to get back on the new/mashed potatoes!
