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Due to my general levels of growing despondency, I had neglected to document the next stage in the journey after it was complete as I felt no one was interested. Certainly the analytics for this blog suggest no interest. But with the next stage after, I felt it definitely needed to be noted, if only for my own memories. So I come to now where I will chronicle both stages which bring myself and Niall from the telegraph pole on a South Howth jut all the way around the Irish sea side of the peninsula to Balscadden Beach which is just at the beginning of Howth Harbour.

To the uninformed among you, the coastline between theses two points is cliff and rock. The route takes you across a certain ‘Doldrum Bay’, around the magnificent Baily Lighthouse to really the only possibly break in the 8 kilometres of this coastline that can be exited. This point is called Tiny Hidden Beach, and after that its Balscadden. That all sounds routine and perfunctory, however I will now go into the detail.

The Telegraph Pole to Tiny Hidden Beach

The thing to bear in mind with these stages which was always on my mind, is that if anything went wrong, it would go wrong badly, potentially catastrophic. We had toyed with the idea of kayak support and canoes, but the lack of anyone we could call on as well as the unfeasibility of carrying a canoe up and down cliffs and cliff paths meant that we just had to consign ourselves with getting on with it. On this stage the car logistics were simple. We just had to drive to the road entrance to the Baily Lighthouse where our sea entrance was a kilometer and a half to the west along the cliff walk and our sea exit was almost a kilometer east from the car along the same cliff path.

Low tide was expected at around the 9 am mark so we had arranged that Niall would collect me coming from the south side of the city at 7:15 having us there for 8 ish. This was going to be a short enough stage and the weather charts had given us a forecast of bright and calm. I had consulted my brother-in-law Eamon who sailed these waters for a lifetime about the potential currents in the area and I suppose he wasn’t going to put himself in a position of making recommendations, so his words were of caution and going at low tide, which was our intent.

Arriving in the car at the gates to the road down to the Baily, I don’t remember much of the detail. We chatted and got ready. There was no one else about. By the time we were walking the cliff path at 8:30 is there were a few people out in the morning. If they were people from the surrounding houses, then they would have been terribly rich but we didn’t see much gold on their persons. None in fact.

We were so un acquainted with the area that we walked past the point of descent to the previous day’s exit and had to double back. It was scary going down the cliff, even though this was one of the lower height descents on the coastline. We remembered that there was a particular perilous piece of rock climbing involved in the last day but because the tide was fully out and it was a spring tide at that, we could descend a different face on the same rocks. The descent was painstakingly slow and every step was taken with a sense of impending doom that one might slip on the wet mossy rocks. The water awaited as the sun rose above the lighthouse across the bay from us.

Niall suggested I get in first and he take photographs with his phone. I agreed to it with the understanding that I would be hanging around in the cold water while he followed me in after packing his tow float. The photos turned out great, so I am thankful. I watched Niall crawl over the rocky waterline on all fours realising I must have looked a sight. More beached whale than elite commando. When he was in the water beside me, he pointed out that a seal was watching us from about 20 metres away. I thought this was cool in a Jacques Cousteau sort of a way and hoped that he might playfully accompany us on our journey.

We got going and the water was like a glass lake and within 25 minutes we had crossed Doldrum Bay (ergo) and were at the foot of the Baily looking up. The seal had long since left us to our own devices and the sea was beginning to get choppy. Niall was eager to breaststroke this bit and take in the beauty of the scenic lighthouse from beneath, and without making any effort, the sea seemed to be carrying us in the direction we wanted to go.

Then the chop turned into a two meter swell and I was unsure what or why this was. We didn’t see this earlier when we were walking the cliff path and we had no contingency. Dublin Bay was draining and this was the valve. My brother in law had mentioned eddie’s but not their directions or impacts. I didn’t feel safe, but panicking was not an option either. We were getting thrown around big time and Niall was laughing. It was like the wave machine in the National Aquatic Center only twice the height. We started freestyling north. After about five or ten minutes the swell died down back into a chop. What had happened really is that we were carried through it by the current and it was now behind us.

Our exit point of Tiny Hidden Beach was ahead but completely secluded, and having never been here before from this angle, we had to trust my instincts. All this geography was completely unknown to Niall and he had put all his trust in me. At this point I was just glad to be out of a phenomenal swell. From Google maps, I anticipated another 600 metres of swimming which would be ten minutes if our planning of the tides was correct. But it wasn’t and we seemed to be swimming for ages and every time I looked up the Baily didn’t seem to be regressing into the distance. Again a moment for trepidation as we were very exposed. Niall wasn’t convinced and felt we were making ground, so I went with that. I had forgotten how unfit I was on account of doing little or no training all year and the tiredness levels were rising despite the fact that I was getting ahead of Niall with every burst of swimming.

Then after what seemed like an eternity trying to get to a cove I couldn’t see, I suddenly spied the steps up the cliff face that I was familiar with. The relief was immense given the tricks my mind was playing on me and we plodded home the final 100 metres to land in the form of a rusty coloured pebble beach. This was true open water swimming in every sense of the concept.

Tiny Hidden Beach to Balscadden

So to sum up this swim, I will repeat what I have said a good few times about it since. This is possibly one of the most stupid things I have done in a long time. Though that may be a dramatisation considering the previous stage was quite stupid and that this stage was framed in some especially stunning scenery.

It was a two car stage and we had talked about it on and off for a week and that it might probably be the last jaunt of the season. After the last day, I had some serious reservations about this stage and if it wasn’t for Niall’s gung-ho attitude to it, I probably wouldn’t have attempted it. Further conversations with my brother in law laid out the fact that your pretty much damned if you do and damned if you don’t with that stretch of coastline. On a falling tide, the flow is north to south, on a rising tide a confluence will flow north to south. This, however, is hindsight conjecture and in the planning we surmised we needed to catch the rising tide at the halfway point, which we did.

We met at 8 am in Howth village. The weather was beautiful and while the was a bit of a chill in the air at that time, it didn’t bite. Parking was free, what more could you ask for? As we were getting ready into our suits, a car drove past with what seemed to be Vincent Brown driving. Maybe he was doing some investigative journalism on sea swimmers, lacking in grey matter. We had chosen the two car approach, as the road between the start and the finish warranted a very steep climb, which all Dublin’s aspiring professional cyclists use for training their mountain stages. This would have stopped us dead in our tracks had we attempted it on bike.

At this time, Niall’s enthusiasm had me in a default position of thinking that this stage will pass of easily, and the cliff walk and descent to Tiny Hidden Beach, passed of with no scandal. On the beach we made or final preparations and we entered the water at 9 on the dot, which was exactly what we planned. I was wearing my waterproof watch so had a clear picture of how we were going to navigate the east face of Howth in 45 minutes, before a sharp left would take us into Balscadden in another 25 minutes. Roughly, a little over an hour. We seemed to be moving at a strong pace and the starting point moved away behind us.

We must have been about 50 metres out, and there was a defined headland of rocks ahead of us in an indeterminate distance, behind which all was hidden. After twenty minutes, we both stopped to get our bearings, and all seemed ok. After a minute, we got going again. Ten minutes later, we stopped for another minute and then proceed. I noted that the Baily lighthouse behind us seemed to be just as formidable as it was previously, suggesting we weren’t making much ground. We stopped again and Niall said, I don’t think we are moving. I agreed, It doesn’t look like it. He came up with an idea.

Over to our left close to the rocks, there was a small yellow and a small orange buoy for lobster pots. Niall suggested we take 50 strokes and see what change the buoys made location wise. At this stage we stroked quite powerfully with the preconception that we were up against it. I had lost count but I took Niall’s lead and when he stopped, I stopped. We hadn’t moved an inch. Shit!! Niall said, ‘Here will we go back’. In an instant, I weighed up the situation. We were against the flow, a significant flow. We had no idea of exactly how much ground we actually had covered. If we turn back, we may get swept out to the middle of Dublin Bay. If we failed now, we may never get beyond this point. It was all going quickly through my head.

“Right! Into the rocks and see what’s what”. Thankfully Niall didn’t argue and it took a full five minutes of intense swimming to get less than 100 metres in. Clearly this was a sinister eddie. When I got close enough, I could see there was a rock that we could latch onto as if it was specially placed there by spirits of the past, in an entire vista with nowhere else to perch. Niall was lagging behind because he was wearing neoprene boots but he could see I ‘landed’ and so had something to aim for. We had been swimming hard for 50 minutes at this stage and the rest was a saviour.

Niall reiterated at that point, should we go back, but as the water rose and fell, It became evident that against the rocks, the north south flow was not as inhibitive and I said we should keep going. I can’t remember now if I gave a reasoning but as we breaststroked off the rock, It was apparent that we could still cover ground if we stayed beside the rocks. Thus began our water based trek through the boulder islands at the foot of the cliffs. There were only two places we could exit the water as far as I was aware., the start and the finish. And at this point we were truly pioneering adventurers. Edmund Hillary didn’t have a plan ‘B’.

We started to see some very beautiful cave mouths and as we navigated between each channel between land and rocks, we met with another small bay with it’s own microsystem of currents. Each of these channels took a lot of effort to swim through as water funnelled through them southward. And then as we entered yet another semi-inlet, Lambay came into view in the glorious sunshine. This was a welcome reprieve as it suggested we may have at least reached a halfway point. A lobster fisherman came by, dropping his cages into the sea. I don’t know what he though of us in this wilderness?

We stopped and breastroked regularly but we didn’t talk much. Anything yet may still happen and we didn’t know how far from home we were. The next to come into view was Ireland’s eye. Surely we must be approaching the nose of Howth. As we proceeded, front crawl where we felt the flow wasn’t against us and breaststroke when we felt we needed to edge our way along beside the rocks, the east pier of Howth Harbour came into view. The elusive turning point of the Nose of Howth. Hurrah! Then confronted with a massive flow pushing us back. Immediate end of celebrations! We grabbed onto the rocks beneath a crevice. All the waterline was covered in small dead barnacles which lacerated our hands and feet. Niall got stung on the hand by a lions mane. Howth is famous for them.

We struggled through the next channel and then Balscadden came into view. It was still off in the distance but I now felt vindicated in making the executive decision not to turn back earlier on. Now we could see houses above us on the cliffs and Howth basking in the sunshine. The rocks in the water were now only a metre or so above the water level, where as previously they were up to thirty metres high. There were fishermen above on the rocks now. I don’t think they were fishing for mackerel as they weren’t constantly casting and pulling in their lines. Some of them did pull in their lines out of courtesy and others let them sit there as it wasn’t a issue if they remained dormant.

We got closer to the beach, observing a coastline we had seen many times before in the ‘Island race’, but never this close and it now revealed a whole seascape of beauty and intrigue. At this point, I was now enjoying the final 200 metres, seeing beach paddlers getting clearer. The watch stated we had been on the go solidly for 2 hours and I was working on adrenaline still. I could see Niall was exhausted. We landed on the stoney beach, and it hurt my bare souls to stand on it, to walk and so I had to awkwardly reach forward to shake Niall’s hand. Niall said with a huge sense of relief, ‘That was ridiculous’, and he didn’t mean that frivolously.

And so, we come to the start of the journey around Howth. It would be a terrible injustice to veil this stage in Beckett-like prose or a poem, as a full picture is needed.

In my 53 years on the planet, most of which as a Dubliner, I had never before considered the wilds of Howth peninsula, and I shouldn’t wonder than a majority of the other million and a half Dubliners would only have a cursory knowledge of the coastal paths of South Howth. They really are a wonder though, as all will unfold here.

Previously inspecting Google Maps to a point, I had assumed that there was a coastal road heading east to west and without the need to clarify for the planning of the previous stage, I didn’t pursue the geography. Then on the last day out, I learned that the coast road stops a little after the dinghy club at Sutton and the road doesn’t then meet the sea until the town of Howth, around the other side of the headland mass, which is 11 kilometres away.

None of this bears any relevance until we go to consider that we are now about to embark on a series of stages with little or no access to landing, due to cliffs and a general lack of beaches. It must have been our stoic intransigence developed through the five years we have been doing this that lead us to just plough on with our intentions.

By way of insurance, I carried out a reconnaissance mission the previous day with my daughter. With a suitable amount of google mapping, I knew a basic vantage point with which to park the car and follow the coastal paths to assess what’s what. Looking ahead we first made our way to a part of the cliffs that overlooked a beach called ‘A Tiny Hidden Beach’. We looked down a 100 metre drop and the fearful old pensioner in me was saying to myself, ‘may we should just leave it’. By way of hoping to find a way out, I asked my daughter will we climb the (steep) path down to the beach? I got a non-committal ‘I don’t mind’, which wasn’t the answer I was hoping for.

And so, we find ourselves descending the most precarious and winding steps. Some stone, some brick, some muck. I kept thinking that being macho isn’t a very intellectual disposition, but the sense of relief and achievement when we landed on the beach. There were many other people there, predominately tourists, who had made the descent to this stoney cove, including a golden retriever. We took some photos and a video to show off when we got home.

My concern really for this recon was to establish an exit point for the immediate swim, so we got going again. The return ascent didn’t seem as daunting, probably because we weren’t looking down, but our hearts were racing, and our legs were jelly when we got back to the top of the cliff. We had to sit down. Even after five minutes when we decided to get going, our legs felt very weak. I kept asking my daughter and she kept confirming this. I knew I was asking just to let her know that I acknowledged her fatigue, even though we kept walking.

We now followed the coastal path from the lighthouse, west. It was like walking through a trail in deepest darkest Brazil, that was interspersed with the back gates of possibly the most expensive housing in Dublin. People passed us occasionally, but it was mostly young men possibly in the narcotic business, or certainly the recreational aspect of it. We came across some signage warning of wild goats. I had to take a photo due to the absurdity of wild goats being in suburban Dublin.

When we eventually came upon a path down to another beach that would be a little over than three kilometres from the start point back in Sutton, we tested the descent to get an understanding of what’s involved, even though I could see that the waters were littered with a dangerous archipelago of rockery. Our legs and feet were so tired that we really need to get the 2 kilometres back to the car and sit down so I made the decision that we had at least this beach that we could exit by, if not, one that Google maps reported about 500 metres further west. About 200 metres back I noticed a turn which would bring us to a suitable parking space.

We went home.

The next morning, Niall and I met at the layby at the waterfront in Sutton, we both had cars on account of the fact, that I reckoned we were not fit to attempt the hills of Howth on bicycles and still swim 3 km. We got into our suits and drove both cars to the residential cul-de-sac I discovered through the previous day’s scouting, leaving my car there and driving back to the layby in Niall’s car. As Niall and I both own the same type of car, it was like ‘Night of the Priuses (in the morning)’ in the back roads of Howth. We had prepared well as high tide was 11:15 and we wanted to be swimming for the hour and a half preceding that. We were entering the water at somewhere around 10.

We both noted the windiness which again we overlooked with the previously mentioned stoicism. After a few strokes in the water, I was confronted with a successive series of mouthfuls of seawater due to the choppiness. I said to Niall, ‘This was looking like it was going to be a long day’. Thankfully he didn’t engage. We plodded on and Niall was quickly leaving me behind. His fitness levels have been far superior to mine in recent years, especially this year.

I kept getting gagging mouthfuls of sea due to the turbulence, and I knew that I had made my bed in terms of embarking on this swim. When we got the first 400 metres to the dinghy club, Niall stopped ahead of me just long enough for me to catch up and tell me that ‘we are now going past the point of no return’. I knew this already, but I didn’t want to hear it. No mind. He was gone on ahead again. We could see a Martello Tower up ahead at a headland, and from memory this was the 1 kilometre mark. It took an age to get there, and this was probably due to the parallax that it was further away than appeared. As an exercise after I got home, I re-checked it’s distance and it was closer to the halfway distance of 1.5 kilometres that the third-way point of 1 kilometre.

Niall eventually stopped and allowed me to catch up with him at the tower. I had come up with a theory that the northerly flow of the rising tide divided at this point and that the push against us would transform into a propulsion in favour of our course. Certainly, the coastal rocks seemed to start moving past us at a more reassuring rate. I surmised that the first of our possible exit points might be around the other side of the next headland. The sun was shining. The gobfuls of brine hadn’t defeated me and I got by with the reassurance that at least I was halfway. Niall was beginning to slow up to my paltry pace. I was a bit wary of potential currents off headlands, so I told him, ‘If you see the light house around the next headland, take a sharp left into the shore’. The lack of having ever navigated these waters filled us with trepidation. I had completely forgotten the previous years where all sorts of uncharted waters and beaches were negotiated.

We seemed to be moving fast now although I was stopping and treading water every few minutes. We came around a headland and a beach presented itself. We debated whether this was the beach we thought we could decamp to easiest. We decide to get out and rest and assess. It was a rocky beach, which is always going to be sore on my already sore feet. The back of the beach had fencing which was quite weather beaten and I didn’t recollect this vista from Google maps so after ten minutes rest and drinking bottled fresh water, we decided it wasn’t our beach. We prepped up and got back in the water, unsure what was left of our journey. The choppy water was now quite calm. The next headland was about two hundred metres away, and hopefully when we got to it, we could establish our bearings. We were tired by this stage but not demoralised, though I can’t speak for what was going through Niall’s head. He had put all his faith in my orienteering skills.

And then we got to the next headland and lo and behold, the lighthouse was across the bay. Alleluia. It didn’t seem familiar to the previous day’s vista, because it was from a completely different angle, so we were now into fight or flight mode. We paddled inwards but couldn’t see the landing beach. I looked up, and I could see that there was a trodden path up a smaller cliff. Maybe here. We paddled a bit more, a lethargy of breaststroke. A very small cove at the bottom of the trodden path. I needed to put an end to this fatigue so I said to Niall, ‘This will probably work’ or words to that effect.

We beached, though the cove was a deposit of large copper-coloured stones which looked Mediterranean in the sunshine. Niall held his hand out for the customary shaking of hands, but it took me a minute or two to get the three metres over the wet stones to get to him. This wasn’t a planned exit and the path down the cliff face stopped at a rock roughly three metres above the level of the shore. There was a large boulder that had ingresses in it in such a way as to suggest that this was the traditional route out of here. I had noticed that there was a cliff walker showing interest or concern in us as we paddled ashore. And possibly, rightly so as these weren’t swimming waters. When I scaled up to the bottom of the path down the face, I could see him again, he gave me the thumbs up question, which I acknowledged with a thumbs up. All was well.

At the top of the cliff, it still wasn’t evident where it was that I had planned to exit the previous day. We walked the coastal path in an eastern direction, there was no visibility of the coast below due to the abundance of blackberry bushes lining the path. Niall being a connoisseur of blackberries, had to stop. His expertise suggested another week or two before they ripen. After another 100 metres we came across the path I discovered the previous day. At a little over ten metres beyond that we had an elevated vantage point where we could now see the intended destination and that it was literally 20 metres beyond where we ended up exiting.

All is well that ends well, and I now am quite familiar with the south side of the Howth peninsula.

And so it was 

as it was planned

We made our way

To Dolymount Strand

Niall by Dart

Myself by car

The Shore road in Howth

Where we set the bar

A text on the way

Saying ‘weather a bit crap’

Ah sure what odds

It’s in the Gods’ lap

Into our suits

We got dressed up

Looking across to the island

Scheduling the tide’s cusp

Lock the car

On our bikes

Bank holiday Sunday

Is getting the likes

My bike is a ratchet

An iron grating heap

No effort for Niall though

On the road to the beach

We get to the island

Lock up at a post

Banter the lifeguard

He knows the waters the most

The final prep

Goggles, hats, tow floats

Wade into water

It’s warm, but doesn’t roast

A minute or two

To acclimatise 

Then off we paddle

With Howth in our eyes

I expected Niall

To leave me behind

But he raced yesterday

So the pace was kind

We swam for fifteen

We covered ground

The warm up was gentle

Nature abound

The bull beach is shallow

As we were out past the wash

The biker lifeguard

Kindly kept a watch

I never lost breath

Though took a mouthful or two

Sea swimming is an art

If you know what to do

We stopped every five

It wasn’t a race

That kept me happy

And a smile on my face

Niall felt the strain

Of the previous day’s effort

But stoic as ever

Kept on in sea desert

We had got to a point

Where the headland was there

Over a distance

With it’s grassy hair

We decamped to the beach

Rations of chocolate

Without any sun

You could feel desolate

When Niall was warmed up

We prepped up again

A kilometre across the bay

And we will find our Zen

I was feeling lively

Put power in my stroke

Not sure about the currents

Or if we’ll be broke

Then I turned to see

Niall standing up

A Dublin Bay sandbank

Had found us by luck

Then less than ten

It was back to the shore

The Sun even glimpsed

Through a cloudy sky door

Coming onshore

Then taxi to land

We stood on the rocks

I shook Niall’s hand

The timing was good in the end, but it wasn’t the time that was predicted. We were at the mercy of the schedule but the schedule was really at the mercy of time. If we got it wrong, there would have been a lot of trouble. Front page news. Maybe even the obituary column too. Foreboding was my word for the day. I used it a lot, at the end when the foreboding was no longer boding. There were so many things that boded. The temperature. The ships. The current. The rocks. Fear itself. Coming down from town, the mouth of the port seemed close and simple. On the prom beside it, it seemed further, and that word again. A roro was going. Ambling past our path. It was a mount of Olympus to our mere chariots of tow floats ond goggles. Zeus at the helm, chaining us to the rocks if we dare smite his heavenly power. Mount Stena. The schedule was vague in my head but then it was vague in the heads of the harbour masters too. Were we to go? Were we to potentially have to turn back before we got to the mouth. It isn’t a big mouth but it eats big. And un-eats. We didn’t want to be eaten, nor vomited. We meet. Upbeat. We change and then walk to the end of the wall, under the virgin. It says the bishop opened her or blessed her or something while she stood on stilts looking at the chimneys across the way. We still aren’t sure about the boats as the schedule said 2 hours, yet we still haven’t seen the Carlow. Look, I said, we could be waiting here all day for the right time and it could pass before we stopped waiting. So at half three we walked down the last steps of the wall, suited up, like pensioners getting in baths. I expected sand but it was sludge at my feet and a sudden rock. Don’t take hold of that thought, I thought. Gently walking more, hands up to our chests like kangaroos. I’m now reminded of a video of boxing kangaroos. This confirms that violence predates, Cain and Abel. Apropos of nothing. On 3. 3 – 2 – 1. Snamh. The first look in the muddy waters. The feeling of life on my face. The knowing that you make decisions and the decisions stand by you. There’s no going back now. Only going out and around and up. When your eyes are at sea level, the mouth seems a mile away, even though it’s a kilometre. We stop after a minute, hum, haw then go. A few minutes later, the Carlow is steam packing out. Ok, now the schedule is just a charade. We don’t know what we can believe as the internet is nothing but fake news. We saw a lifeboat cruise out before we got in and now I’m worried that they’ll cruise back in and stop all this nonsense. Just keep swimming. The flurry of cormorants don’t seem to mind. The waves are kicking up in our faces. I’m not quite sure whether the current is for or against us, but instead of realising that if you can’t tell then there is nothing, the pervading fear of the unknown lingers. I keep looking up at the green lighthouse beacon, the turning point. It still seems to never come near. Maybe it’s my eyes or maybe my lens. We keep stopping now and then only to be reminded that it takes time to cover that kind of distance. I had forgotten that, when the beacon was waving in my face from a distance. The rocky weir is a city landmark, well it should be, though the tourist bus will have a hard time parking up alongside. I look back and the virgin has her back to us. She is clearly upset in that pose, bowing from on high. I don’t recall ever seeing a biblical painting where people are having the craic. Tá brón oraibh. The last rocks above water reach us, but the fear has me suggesting we have come far enough to the mouth. I think it is within the spirit of the rules. Himself agrees, probably thinking the same about traffic. The beacon is maybe 25 metres away but to all purposes an intents, it is just a stroke too far. We ease over the submerged weir and I remember that time in Wexford when we were rushed through a field of sea stones. Or that time in Dalkey when the rock was below us in our faces. Gently, we pass over and then launch into a canter. We must have swam for five minutes before looking up but it seemed we had barely moved. OK, now more worry. We are a kilometre out to sea, so now is not the time to get caught out. Head down, keep swimming. Now the voices start. Why are we not making headway? We had time this for a good push from here up the beach. The schedule again. It’s still shit. Did I get the currents wrong? Are we going to get caught by the next 400-thousand-tonner from Cherbourg? I’m tired because I’m not fit, not because we have been moving for nearly a half an hour. Land is the horizon and its grey. We plough on, ploughing and plodding. I can’t fathom why I think we are getting pushed out in a rip current when there is no rip. This sea swimming is a religion because it certainly isn’t a science. I’m getting nervous that we are swimming to stand still and that’s not a nice feeling. It was all unfounded as we later deduced. In religion, dark clouds are bad. In science they are glum. I believe in the water. I am putting all my faith in it. Water is life. I’m looking forward to the finish and I want to get there as quickly as I can now, but himself is ever keen to go further. I know if it was sunny or if I was fit, it would be different but I was beginning to appreciate that we went a long way today. We pick those trees and swam for ten minutes. Then we picked these trees because those trees were not in my heart. I apologise now for not reaching those trees. What I will say is that the next time, the trees will pass easier. The beach is shallow and way out we are up to our waists. As we come on land I think we both came to the understanding that we had conquered and vanquished one of our most complex days. We walk now. It’s October but it’s not cold, and we chat nonchalantly as we pass all the Sunday strollers. Another ferry was coming in now. We had come at the right time.

On we go. They are his words not mine. My words are more doom. He used the right words though, just like he made the right call. Sunday. 10. It occurred to me to do it but I didn’t want to ask. Refusals often offend. There’s too much offence at times. Not with us. With them. The first few strokes were head on top. Just like polo players, but we are not polo players. We are not moon men either. But this is where the moon men go. We both have an urge. The urge wasn’t planned but the water would fix that. The weather wasn’t planned but the sea would fix that. Glass. Smooth. Cloudy. Quiet. He had to be back and I had to be back somewhere else. It was planned. A few small schooners were floating about. The big one had gone in. He wouldn’t be back for a while. He’d crush you. And he wouldn’t see you. We daren’t warn the harbourmaster. He’d kill the dream. The bureaucrat’s whim. No endeavour on his laptop. You couldn’t reason. You’d be holding up a city. The city was holding us up. We’re gliding. A light trek. The perspective is different when you can’t see. The red house is just a bit over here. You expect it to come. There’s no panic. There isn’t even a ripple. The metronome of adventure. You’re wondering what’s around the corner. You don’t see the bend. The red house is still in the same place. A thousand meters. As the cormorant flies. No sun. No gloom. He is still beside me. I am still beside him. We are still alive. We are still on this journey. There is no need to rest. There is no need to race. The season gave me everything I wanted. I couldn’t say I needed it but I think I did. We stop to calculate the men with hooks. Lined along the promenade. Catching nothing. It’s cultural. It’s sea air. Maybe that’s a drug. Don’t tell the special branch. It will give them an excuse to stay away from the backwaters. It’s flowing against us. That’s usually the way. On which day was it that God made it easy? We give the mackerel men a wide berth. They aren’t moon men either. The red house. I don’t want to stare at it. It has memories. We have to watch now. The green pillar is next. After that it’s back. The pillar looks close. It looks safe. Maybe it’s too close and the twenty thousand tonne schooners go on the other side. We have to get beyond the other side before we go back, otherwise it wouldn’t make sense. Did any of this ever make sense? The flow is to the side now. I can’t say it’s darker. It’s ominous. Go there and you will know. Nobody goes there, except on schooners. Maybe a canoe. The harbourmaster would shit himself if he saw you now. It’s lucky the sewage factory is nearby. We are dandering. I could tell trepidation from his talk. My gammy eyes said there was a schooner setting out. The green pillar said touch me then go back. I said to him, touch the pillar and we will head back away from this trepidation. We touched the pillar. Are we now moon men? Or do you need to pay subs? We turn. Steady as she flows. Clearly enough room for the twenty thousand tonnes pointing at us. I could point my eighty five kilograms at it, but that would be a bit bureaucratic and it wouldn’t see the perspective. We are back at the red house quicker than we left. We both have to be back. We taxi to the rocks. The mackerel men start asking, did we see any fish. No answer would have made a difference. We didn’t. We can see the rain. It hadn’t arrived. We walk back. We go on.

So, yesterday, I completed my tenth Liffey Swim. It is a race run annually through the beating heart of Dublin that is the river Liffey. I came last on account of swimming the 2.1 KM course breaststroke and in doing so, I became the first person to swim the course in all four traditional FINA strokes and I remain the first person to have completed the course in only Butterfly (2019). At the time in 2019, I wrote an essay about the endeavour and I feel it is fitting to share it here now….

Halfway to Mellows

So, its 2019, the year of the hundredth Liffey. The Liffey swim is a swimming race that starts at James’ brewery and passes underneath twelve car, train, luas and pedestrian bridges to bring you to the finish line at the Customs House. The men’s race starts an hour before the ladies and they are handicapped by time which means the faster swimmers give the slower swimmers a designated head start. There is a handicap team made up of a handful of volunteers who thirty times a summer get more abuse than the token honest guy on the late-night radio debate panel. I am one of the handicappers.

I would be lying if I said, I have no interest in winning the Liffey swim. Every open sea swimmer in Dublin dreams of that moment when they raise their clenched fists in jubilation at the national media. On the morning of race day, 500 victory speeches have been drafted mentally. Mothers have been name checked before the eggs have been boiled for breakfast and the fastest togs are sitting on the gym bag like a museum piece. But because I am one of the handicappers, I would go down in history badly were I to win the race.

After last year’s season, I came up with an idea. An idea that might get me into the history books while at the same time not be regarded as insider trading. I was going to do the race butterfly. Just to give a bit of context; I don’t believe this has ever been done before. I know Claire O’Dwyer who is Ireland’s only ever swimming world record holder, did the course with a version of one-armed butterfly due to a shoulder injury, but one and two armed fly are entirely separate animals. To add to the context, one of my peers in Belvedere, Dermot Canavan, likens the latter half of a 100 metres butterfly race to ‘carrying the grand piano up the stairs’. Indeed, my coach, Tony Morris will say that that the 200 metres fly event is a test of intelligence: once you have stood on the blocks, you have failed the test. The Liffey swim is 2100 metres.

The race was scheduled for the bank holiday weekend in August, but the preparation started in January. On a drab Sunday afternoon, my youngest two children and I walked down to the Liffey and followed the course bridge by bridge, measuring the distance to the next with a laser measuring tool. The laser measure was designed to tell you the distance you are standing from a flag on a putting green, so it was able to tell me for example, that the distance between the Mellows and Mathews bridges was 321 metres.

I think I had done a 400 metre fly swim once as a teenager and in the last 30 years, I would have done 200 metres fly once as a bucket list item. I didn’t know how I was going to achieve this so I blotted it out of my head as I measured the rest of the Liffey. My measurements were also cross referenced by my seven and nine year old, who knew of my plan but nonchalantly though, this is what grown ups do. They were happy for the hot chocolate pit stop.

When I got home and digested the analysis, it became a decision to make as to how many breaks to take and when. If I stopped every hundred metres, spectators would witness more treading of water than swimming. If I stopped under every bridge, my rest would be secluded and it would look more glamorous, but I would give the game away under the Millenium and Halpenny bridges. Plus it would mean three bridges with distances of 321m, 239m and 296m in a row. Butterfly was only ever a novelty for me so at the very least, this was going to take a lot of work.

The training began: at first it was 1 km in the pool with every second length fly. This was an immediate grounding in a stroke technique that didn’t cover the ground quickly but was more energy efficient than the racing genre of 50m butterfly. That’s not to say after the session I wasn’t a spent force fit for a ten hour sleep.

Within a few weeks I had ramped up to 1500m fly in the pool in the form of 30 x 50’s with 15 seconds rest after each. As I reflected on the race I thought, even if I did it in 50 metre segments, I would still be the first to do it fly. By April I had managed the distance. I had still done it in 50 metre chunks, but at each rest I treaded water rather than holding on to the wall. This was it, now I knew I could do it. By May I had achieved the distance using a mix of 50’s and 100’s but still didn’t have a plan for the race. I dare not commit to anything as I didn’t want to tempt fate, but I made the jump in confiding in my coach with this ludicrous plan. My logic was that I was making a commitment but one that would not be general knowledge, should it fail before it starts.

Then came the inevitable setback. I badly strained key muscles and tendons in my shoulders while assembling a set of bunk beds. The instructions clearly had a positive tick beside an image of two workmen and a big unhappy ‘X’ beside the image of a sole operative with his spanner. I was the man with that spanner. The damage I did stopped me dead in my tracks. I had a six km race 4 weeks later and I couldn’t do 25 metres in the pool without extreme pain. At this stage I had been dreaming this idea for 6 months and I kept on scheming someway I might achieve it. For two weeks my training was one arm only, the good arm, or long distances of butterfly kick. Then for two weeks, leading up to the six km race, the Warrior of the Sea from Rosses Point to Strandhill, I trained a precarious and painful front crawl. I breathed only to my right as breathing to the left was not sustainable.

I consulted my friend Mick Kelly on the Warrior of the Sea and he said the best chance I had was taking an over the counter pain killer before the race. So I took an ibuprofen before I set out into the open sea in Sligo. The race was 100% caution with a blend of fear of failing with a glimpse of hope. I had told myself I could always pull out of the race at any stage, but while the race was in progress, I didn’t want to entertain this option. In the end I finished the race, mostly breathing to my good side and I was able to start dreaming about the Liffey and butterfly again.

Back in training with 5 weeks to the big day, I had to get back on the horse. I tried a length of the pool doing fly and it became apparent that the muscle damage didn’t affect the fly technique as much as freestyle. I started again with the sets I started with in January. I consigned myself to the fact that whatever was going to happen, it wasn’t going to be hasty. My training colleagues were questioning, why so much butterfly, when ordinarily there would be little or none, and I was so bought into the idea at this stage, that I had confided in a handful of people, that I was going to attempt it. This was more an exercise in upping the ante than anything else. I still hadn’t formed a plan on the rest intervals in the big race.

On Saturday the 3rd of August, I arrived at the start of the race with old friends, Brian and Marcella from Enniskillen. There was scare mongering all week in the press about the quality of the water and true to form, the river was revolting. I kept telling myself and others that the ESB were going to open the dam and flush, and it was a welcome distraction from the master plan. When it came to the master plan, I just thought, “This is going to go horribly wrong”. My handicap was 13 minutes.

Standing on the starting pontoon, there was a big group of us off at the same time. I could hear the starter give us a ten second count down, and then go! My peers were gone on the button. I stood up, took a deep breath and dived in.

I took 3 casual butterfly kicks underwater realising that the first stroke I took would be the declaration. If it were freestyle, no one would notice which one of the 370 odd swimmers I was.

I lunged forward with two arms reaching over the water at the same time, then a patient double legged kick and then arms reaching over again. Strenuous exertion was not the name of the game at this point. I still was cognisant of the fact I hadn’t formulated a rest plan, but I was cognisant too from my electronic survey of the river that the first 90 metres would bring me to under the Joyce bridge. The perfect warm up.

I got to the Joyce bridge and I felt alive. The people behind me had not yet caught me and I had wandered on a swimmer who was loitering under the bridge in darkness, working on his handicap for next year’s race. He asked me, “Are you going to do the whole thing fly?”. I said “Yes”. That was the end of the conversation and he set off again.

I decided that there was no pressure in swimming solo so I could afford to tread water until I was ready to go again. I made up my mind I was going to swim the 155 metres non stop to the next bridge but if needs be, I could rest half way. Who cares if someone saw me stopping, they aren’t the ones doing butterfly. With each stroke, my head came out of the water and I could get a clear picture of the Mellows bridge. It didn’t seem to be getting any closer, but I wasn’t thinking of the 2KM plus of the race. I was thinking about getting to the next bridge. At the half way point to this famous Mellows, I questioned, should I stop and rest now? I realised I could make it to Mellows, I might need extra rest, but I’m there.

When I got there, I must have rested a full minute amongst seaweed. I looked back at the Joyce bridge and forward to the Fr Mathew bridge. I knew it was the biggest distance to get through, but I was looking at being the first to butterfly the Liffey, even though to be the first to do so only stopping underneath bridges. At this point, it was a blur. I had settled into a cadence that was natural and just about tolerable. Occasionally I thought, ‘once I get to Capeler, I’m halfway there’, but most of the time I was focusing on just getting to the next bridge.

I made it to the Fr Mathew bridge without halting and when I rested there with my thoughts echoing silently under the stone, I could tell myself, ‘I now can do this, I’m fairly spent but I have enough to get to the end’.

I don’t remember anything about the next bridge, the O’Donovan Rossa, other than I was constantly getting knotted up in seaweed. Under Capeler, I took the time to briefly study its engineering of stone, steel and wood. I could hear people cheering and shouting support, which meant the whole hair brained scheme had been worthwhile. I got to the Millenium bridge. I couldn’t hear any cheering any more but as I caught my breath under yet another bridge, I could hear an exuberant “Hi Daddy!”. I looked around and my wife Jen and the two ordinance surveyors from January were standing at the Liffey wall waving down to me. This was the happiest point of the nine months of this idea.

Next was the Halpenny. With each stroke rising out of the water, I could see a flock of swans 50 metres ahead. I was catching the slowest swimmers in the race, knowing at this point, 300 of the swimmers would be finished and half dressed. I got to O’Connell bridge where I had previously imagined having to negotiate with a rescue kayak to be allowed continue to the end, even though the allowed time limit of one hour would be up. When I stopped halfway underneath the iconic bridge, there was eriee silence. The city was two metres above me but it was a world away. A safety kayak was floating outside the exit to the bridge and she gestured at me a thumbs up to inquire if all was ok? I gave a thumbs up back.

At the earlier stages of my hypothesising, I had entertained the notion of flying non stop from O’Connell bridge to the finish at the Customs House. This was not going to happen now as I clung on to the fact that I could rest under every bridge. I rested under the Rosie Hackett bridge remembering my team mate, Ray Hegarty’s story that he made a point of delaying crossing over the new bridge so he could say he swam under it first.

Then to the penultimate pitstop, the Butt bridge. The swans had crossed the finish line. I had 120 metres left of my journey and there was little left to rest for. There was nothing left in the tank but it didn’t matter as I was running on autopilot. Coming up to the finish line, I said to myself, “I’ve done it now! I can now say I am the first person to have swam the Liffey swim from start to finish butterfly”.

When I crossed the finish line and stopped, my swimming stroke regressed into a novice doggy paddle. I couldn’t even backstroke gently to the exit steps.

I got up on dry land and limped to the fire brigade showers, where I was greeted with the Irish swimming institution that is Tom Healy. He squeezed some disinfectant soap into my hand saying, “This won’t be much use to you, it’s too deep in your pores now”.

So! It’s the middle of September 2022 and I find myself updating the blog to advertise my book on this swimming adventure. In case you hadn’t heard, it’s called “Blackrock to Slade – A Swimmer’s Camino (An Bealach)” and you can read about it on the home page. Anyway it became apparent that there have been no blog posts from this year so far. I already knew that obviously as the blog had slipped my mind due to my wife, Jen’s health, this year. Thankfully Jen is coming out the other side, though as many of you might attest, recovery is not necessarily a walk in the park.

In reflecting on the blog as a means to promote the book and in an effort to keep the dream alive, I came up with an idea. I immediately texted Niall and said “An idea has occurred to me !! Call when free”. Niall rang a few hours later and I unravelled the idea of a prequel. I had previously been unable to secure boat cover to cross the Waterford estuary but I reckoned it might be easier to secure boat cover across Dublin Bay. I was thinking of a jaunt from Half Moon club house on Poolbeg pier (or South Wall), due south to the very point where we originally started at Blackrock. It was a round 4.5 KM!

This was Saturday and we were aiming for a Tuesday or Wednesday swim. Niall had meetings but he would look to see what he could move around and we would settle on a date or time once we knew what kayaking support was available. We had two leads for Kayaks. One was a Leinster Open Sea official, and another, John Murray from our dear Dublin Swimming Club. John was open to the idea but he had work commitments which meant only a six o clock start would be possible. By Tuesday, sunset would be 7:45 and the tide would be halfway out so we opted to keep looking for earlier support.

We still didn’t have anyone by Monday, so clutching at straws I texted some numbers from our Wicklow days. Various responses came back but no one was signing on the dotted line. We went for one last pitch. Niall put up an ask on the Dublin Swimming Club whatsapp. At tennish, Niall texted. John O Mahony from the club was looking good, he just had to confirm times. The dream was alive.

By the next morning, I was in my boss’s office telling him we had confirmation that I would be taking annual leave in the afternoon in order to swim across South Dublin Bay. He wished us well as did all my colleagues as I was skipping out the door with a smile. Driving across town towards Blackrock to park the car at the finish, there was a little apprehension about whether we had the endurance levels to complete the swim. Both Niall and I had done a 6 KM swim in Sligo earlier in the summer, but there is always doubt in uncharted territory. We decamped to the DART carpark in Blackrock, togged out in our wetsuits and paid for three hours parking before we drove to John’s house.

We collected John and his standup paddle board in Niall’s car as the sun was coming out. The sun was an important part of ensuring there was no depression with the swim today. Windguru didn’t disappoint. Descending on the reclaimed peninsula that is the Pigeon house, we came across a community of young and middle aged men who were flying kites from the roadside where they had parked. I think it was a cultural thing, in the same way that Australians sit on beach chairs with tins of beer. It was about 2:30 as we were making final preparations at the start of the pier that reached out into Dublin Bay to a red lighthouse.

The plan was that John would paddle out from the beach and while he was getting ready, Niall and I would walk to the Half Moon clubhouse and time our start to liaise diagonally with John across the water. As we walked out the pier, the W.B. Yeats was coming into port and the Liverpool freight ferry was leaving. The two monstrous ships passed each other just as they passed 50 metres away from us. It was a spring high tide, but the ships were both considerate enough not to create a wake across the pier which they could so easily have done.

At the club house, there were two ladies having their daily dip and they gave us a heads up as to the flow that was there, the same time yesterday. On the face of it, it was going to be advantageous. I could see John taking to the water and he seemed to be veering south rather than towards us, so we got going. stepping into the water, it was a bit brisk so I acclimatised gently. It wasn’t going to be a race today and all the stars were aligned. We swam for a minute, before I started my watch and then we got going. It was a nice comfortable pace as Niall and I swam beside each other. After less than five minutes, John had joined us. We stopped and discussed where we were aiming for. While it was a good way away, we could delineate Blackrock on the horizon by the shape of the Blackrock clinic. We didn’t have to worry about sighting though as John took care of that for us. John took some photographs and then it was back to swimming.

Our stroke was purposeful and regular and my mind went into autopilot but not in a way as to blot out bad thoughts. We stopped a few times and looked back at Half Moon as it got further and further away. The sun remained and after half an hour or so, I saw my first Dart coming into Blackrock station and with the perspective I was getting, it seemed the train was huge. We still weren’t half way. I noticed John was criss crossing in front of us, and I had assumed he was doing it to fend off boredom, but at one point I stopped for no particular reason and John was shouting at me to mind the lion’s mane jellyfish that was less than a metre in front of me. I ducked my head under water and had a quick look at it. It had one nasty looking tentacle protruding from underneath but it looked to be a spent force though I wasn’t taking any risks.

By the half way point, Niall was beginning to open the throttle. I was slagging him that he was putting in training for the Liffey in two weeks time and he didn’t deny it! Out in the bay, there isn’t anything to gauge progress and I though of a conversation I had with Tony Morris at the weekend about how there used to be a swimming race along this course we were doing and it was without any safety boat cover. This would have been before the days of health and safety and I remember hearing it being billed as a 5K race. I was wondering how much more challenging the swim might be if you were being confronted with the scenario of being 2.5 kilometres from land with only your own resources to get you home, and no comfort blankets.

As we were getting to what John estimated was two thirds of the way across, Niall was beginning to tail off on his training session. I checked my watch and I estimated we had been in the water for 45 minutes. There was a certain amount of fatigue but it wasn’t debilitating and I certainly was in good spirits. At this stage John was wondering about where we were aiming to land, and I explained that we were going to land at the exact point we left Blackrock in 2020 and thus if a national circumnavigation was to happen, it would now culminate at Half Moon clubhouse. This was the prequel, that kept in the spirit of the coastal challenge. And in the vast expanse of Dublin Bay, we were three little Hobbits!

The vista that was Blackrock was getting more defined and we could now see the graffiti of the Blackrock baths and the Darts coming and going every five minutes in both directions. We were now getting slower and tiring which made me think I would have had a real challenge if the 9K of Waterford Estuary had materialised. I stopped at one point to see John turfing around a large clump of reeds with his paddle. He must have been bored. By now I was estimating shore was 400 metres away, declaring this would only be 6 minutes in the pool, but as usual I was sugar coating a kilometre. It was a case of savouring the moment because apart from a few LOS races in the next two weeks, this was the 2022 season drawing to a close.

We came up on the shore and there was a few breakers at the steps. Right at the pedestrian slip where we had started, I turned to shake Niall’s hand and it wasn’t even half four. Another successful day at the office, as we surveyed Poolbeg in the distance with yet another ship behind it.

The three of us decamped to the Prius at the car park in our wetsuits and SUPs. I apologised for the boot full of recycling which I wasn’t aware I had brought until it was too late. It didn’t take away from the journey, especially when we had made it back to the car before the parking ticket had expired. I know, it’s the little things! We drove back to Niall’s car at the pigeon house before we went our separate ways back to our dry land abodes.

You can always rely on Niall to come up with a good suggestion.

I was pottering around the house in a post Christmas flux two days ago and a text comes through saying “Thinking might do sea swim tomorrow if tempted either, water temperature almost 10 and warmish tomorrow also… (in a suit)”

I was sold immediately. I hadn’t thought of going near the sea till May but the fact that it was nearly ten degrees and in a wetsuit made the idea absolutely tempting. There was an exchange of phone calls and the itinerary was set to go to the forty foot for an 11 o’clock dip.

I collected Niall at his house a little after ten and it brought back memories of our summer jaunts. It was sunny and very windy, though Niall was confident the sea wouldn’t be that bad. Arriving at Sandycove, there was the logistics of parking and the sudden call of nature (again just like old times).

When we got to the forty foot there was a fairly blustery westerly wind and Niall looked at me to get my sense of “Go – No Go”? I said “Sure we’ll give it a go”. There were lots of bathers getting in for their five minutes of treading water and we might have seen to be phonies in our neoprene but we were intending to venture out into the unsheltered wash, so we weren’t that light weight.

Suffice to say, in the neoprene there was no pain in descending the steps into the water, but then we weren’t in it for the sufferance. A few strokes in and I put my face in the water and yes, it was sharply cold. We stopped and looked each other to concur the headache that was growing in both out heads. We agreed that it would pass if we swam on.

And it did. We stroked on towards Bullock harbour with the sun high in the blue skies. The whole thing was like a huge reminiscence of some of the bright mornings or Wicklow and Wexford. We turned and made for the buoy north of the Forty Foot. At this point the messy waves were coming head on, but because there was no pressure to achieve anything other than enjoyment, we calmly dug into the waves and plodded through.

When we got to the buoy, Niall was beginning to feel the cold due to not having gloves but I was riding a rush of endorphins. The choppy sea was fun and we were oblivious to the wind. We then made our way back to the steps with one sprint to boot.

And that was it. For the rest of the day I felt the kind of joy I felt when covering a substantial distance of the coastline and more to the point, I have a renewed enthusiasm for the coming summer. The first swim is going to have to be close to ten kilometres as it warrants getting across Waterford estuary so I wont be starting until June, but notwithstanding there will be the spring warm up period at Bull Wall. Also I am hoping our esteemed political administration don’t see fit to close the swimming pools in response to the covid brought about by schools, retail and entertainment in the coming months.

At this point I would like to reiterate my callout for sponsorship so that I can continue this journey to circumnavigate the country by swimming. If you know anyone inclined to get involved, please get them to ping me at email: info[at]ceall.com.

Happy New Year to you and yours for 2022!

Ceall

Anne Marie passed away peacefully yesterday.

Anne Marie was one of my wife’s closest friends and they had been friends since college. I won’t embarrass anyone by saying how much time that is, but it is the end of this part of the journey for Anne Marie.

There were many kind people who stepped forward with the fundraising part of the swim this year and because Anne Marie was such a private person, she was touched by the fact you helped her without looking for any sort of validation as to where the donations were going to.

The donations went to an immunotherapy clinic in Europe which gave Anne Marie a lease of life and she had a reprieve from the cruel cancer that struck her down. People turn to this kind of therapy sometimes when other options have been exhausted, but everybody knows that cancer has no emotions or sentiment. So if you find yourself in the early stages of something that doesn’t feel right, please get it seen to medically.

Anne Marie was a mountain of positive energy. She always had a wide grin on her face and she wouldn’t dwell on the negative or suffer fools. When I crossed the finish line at the Warrior of the Sea race a few years ago, she was standing there and cheering me on. She wasn’t too concerned about the place I had finished in the race (I won), but she was glowing with praise for even doing the swim. And her friend, my wife, is the same.

I hope to resume this swim adventure next year in some form while I still have my health. Maybe it will happen, maybe it won’t, but I know while we only have a finite window of opportunity in this life, that we need to chase our dreams.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect on the journey from Baginbun down the Hook peninsula to Slade. I had heard differing opinions on these waters and resolved that it would really be tempting disaster to try it without some form of cover. I knew from the repeated assessments of Google Earth that there were long stretches of cliff coastline that limited the opportunities to land should anything happen, and I had an instinctive foreboding that things might get tricky close to Slade and the head of Hook.

And so I set about ringing around the houses again, and as usual I was getting nowhere. I remembered that a previous rejection from the adventure center in Fethard was based on the fact that they were up to their eyeballs with bookings but it occurred to me that the schools were now back and that demand may have trailed off. I was encouraged when I found on their website that they were now closed on Mondays and Tuesdays in September. This suggested that someone in their crew might be available for safety cover.

I rang the office and for a change I got through first time. The nice lady listened to my now well rehearsed two minute introduction and then said she would put a message out on the company whatsapp group and see if any of the lads were interested on their day off. And so that was the last hope that I would get to do the next stage. By now I had become accustomed to not letting myself get disappointed so I had no choice but to put it to the back of my mind.

Then Thursday morning the call came. Seán rang saying he got my number from the whatsapp group. He didn’t question or have any reservations even though effectively he was talking to a complete stranger. The following Tuesday suited him fine and we would confirm over the weekend when we would have a clearer idea of the weather. So far this month the weather has been changeable but the water temperatures have remained high. Fastidiously watching the seven day forecasts change every few hours, time was marching on. This put me in a great mood and in turn all the other dramas of the day to the back of my mind.

As the day drew nearer, windguru settled down and on Sunday evening we made the commitment for Tuesday. Seán had a van and he was more than obliging by agreeing to drive me from the finish to the start and thus circumventing the cycle. The plan was to meet him in Slade harbour at 9:30 but on the motorway out of Dublin I got stuck behind a crash. The traffic took about fifteen minutes to grind slowly to a halt and when some fire trucks came up the hard shoulder to stop just in front of me, I then knew the blockage wasn’t far ahead. Some quick thinking had me cut across and up a slip road to take the gamble that the return slip road back onto the other side would be freed up. It was, thankfully, but I had now lost half an hour. So at the opportunity of the petrol station at Kilmacanogue, I texted Seán to move our appointment out half an hour. The rest of the journey was like driving through a high summer morning where Autumn was a world away.

Driving through the Hook peninsula, I was taken aback at how tantalisingly close Dunmore east seemed from Slade. It made me wonder what the margin of error was in Google Earth, but at a glance the estuary just looked like a very wide river. Anyway that’s for another day. I pulled into Slade harbour at ten past ten and there was a red van parked at the feet of the castle walls. At the wheel of the van was the coolest customer in all of Wexford. Without any concern for my lateness he greeted me with his Northern Irish brogue. I got suited up and we were back on the road ten minutes later. There was banter about the adventure and what potentially lay ahead today. I could tell some of Seán’s questions were guided to get an idea about my capabilities.

The journey to Baginbun took us through a deserted morning Fethard and the beach itself had a retired couple at one end and a young courting couple at the other end, but to all intents and purposes the Summer was over but not the weather. Seán said he didn’t need help with his kayak and sure enough a few minutes later as I was getting ready on the beach, he was dragging his kayak down the path like a pet on a lead. We didn’t hang around and we had a plan.

I swam out to the north headland of Baginbun in two warm up stages of a few minutes. The expectation was that we might have a flow on the other side once the way south opened up. There was a lot of kelp to navigate at this starting stretch but it cleared up as we turned the corner. I could then see across Carnivan Bay without actually seeing the beach within. A quick assessment of the flow confirmed there wasn’t anything noticeable and the Baginbun Martello tower sat regally on the top of the cliffs.

I knew it was just over a kilometer to the southern tip of Baginbun head and it seemed to come around in a timely fashion without the expense of much energy so I then knew things should be OK today. It did occur to me that my pace was on the slow side so after the pause at the south end of the head, I upped the cadence slightly but comfortably. I took reassurance that it still felt comfortable ten minutes later and the Martello tower was moving further behind. I decided that I wouldn’t take my next pause until I was alongside the cliffs south of Carnivan.

At that next pause, we discussed which point on the horizon represented the five kilometer stop off. Seán wasn’t sure as although he spent the summer supervising Kayakers at Baginbun, he had never ventured this far south. He did have a good idea though and the point he suggested as being the stop off was surprisingly closer than my glass half empty expectations. Maybe it was the blue skies and the levels of comfort that made me feel that way.

Although it didn’t feel insurmountable, it did take what felt like half an hour to swim into the small beach we charted. At this stage I had been swimming for an hour and a half and it was midday. The beach itself was the well known ‘Sand Eel Bay’ and was quite rocky and inviting at the same time. It was the local amenity to the townland of Hookless and it was the subject of discussion the previous week at the swimming club with a Dublin swimmer called Michael Crowe. As I came closer to the shore, I imagined having a phone at my disposal to text Michael and say ‘Guess where I am?’. There are a good few swimmers in the club who have told me they are following the journey with interest and I reckoned Michael would have gotten a laugh out of a text from the spot he was at the previous week.

The sun was glorious on the beach as I ate chocolate and drank fresh water from my flask. All my fears about currents, swells, weather, tiredness and other factors in the ensuing week were now washed away and I found it hard to believe that I was approaching the last of Wexford with ease. I asked Seán if he was OK stopping for ten minutes and he was calm as a cucumber when he said, “I don’t mind at all, this is your time”. He was a true gent. Once I had my faculties together, the two of us went back in the water.

The final leg of the day opened up and I continued with a commanding cadence, though kelp fields started to open up again. It wasn’t long before I was forced into a flip flop pattern between doggy paddle and shallow front crawl, though I could tell by the moving kelp beneath me that I was still brisk. This kind of swimming only leads to one place though and that’s exhaustion. I remembered the five kilometers from Cullenstown to Bannow Bay was this terrain a lot of the way and that was a very difficult day.

Slade harbour was clear and defined ahead of us and Seán guessed it was one and a half to two kilometers away. I hung on to the lower estimate as I plodded on. I was finding myself having to stop every few minutes because of the weeds and my arms were getting very heavy. I could feel a strange pressure in my nose like an extreme saline agitation. It made breathing feel laboured but not in an exertion sense but more a feeling of my senses blocking up. I could see Seán was paddling a lot less which indicated the speed had slowed right down. Now I was getting to the stage where I just wanted it to end and I couldn’t appreciate that the end wasn’t far away.

At the next estimate, I suggested the harbour was four hundred metres away and my chaperone suggested six hundred meters. I could live with six hundred meters, that was ten minutes left. I could see from that distance that the harbour had no water in it. It was low tide and a spring tide at that, so now I know what that means in terms of boating in Slade. By this stage I was running on empty, in fact I wasn’t running, I was crawling, painfully slowly.

At about twenty meters from the harbour mouth, I could stand. The ground beneath me was rocky and weedy and I knew I couldn’t walk it because it was too slippy. I took a step anyway and fell over. There was that moment again where I was too fatigued to just stop and take my time getting out. I doggy paddled forward a few meters and tested the ground again. It was still stoney. A few more doggy paddles and the ground turned sandy. Hurrah! The end!

Seán was walking his kayak out of the harbour behind him as I stepped through the chicane walls. I knew it was only the last stretch that was difficult and I wasn’t going to let that dictate the mood for the rest of the day. And it didn’t. Once back at the car we could see Baginbun eight and a half kilometers away basking in the sunshine. I realised I couldn’t imagine walking that distance, yet the fact was I could swim it. And now I am at a point where I can’t go any further in Wexford.