I was flying back from a long weekend in Spain a couple of weeks ago and as we started our descent into Gatwick airport I looked out the window and to my surprise I saw the Isle of Wight. I was able to grab my phone and take a quick picture. It's not brilliant as the window was quite dirty, there is a reflection of me and I took it on my phone, but it allows me to show you where I did my Isle of Wight swim in 2013 for Aspire.
I actually swam that, from right to left, and it looks like a bloomin' long way. On the day I swam it was about 3.8km as the tide was out a bit, but even so I hope most people will agree with me on this; it is a long way to swim especially while avoiding bird attacks and the Isle of Wight ferry. The channel swim is approximately 35.4km, that's over 9 times further than what you can see in the photo.
To give you a better idea of scale, this photo is from halfway across my Isle of Wight swim. My safety escort took the photo as I was a bit too busy swimming at the time, as you can see it is rather hard to spot land. When you are a swimmer it is even harder due to the fact that you are lower in the water.
To give you a better idea of scale, this photo is from halfway across my Isle of Wight swim. My safety escort took the photo as I was a bit too busy swimming at the time, as you can see it is rather hard to spot land. When you are a swimmer it is even harder due to the fact that you are lower in the water.
If you are interested in swimming to the Isle of Wight I can highly recommend doing it with Aspire. Check out their website using the link at the top of the page. Please don't try and swim this on your own without support and the required permission as it is a busy stretch of water and is dangerous.