Peace Dreamer Relay Across the English Channel

100 years ago, on August 6, 1926, barriers were broken in open water marathon swimming, when 19-year-old Gertrude Ederle from New York, an Olympic gold medallist of German descent, became the first woman to swim solo across the frigid English Channel. To honour this Centenary, three accomplished women ultra-athletes of our Sri Chinmoy Marathon team felt inspired to swim as a relay across the English Channel. A swim slot was booked last minute for mid-June, when the water is usually still quite cold, but doable for a relay. All later slots were already booked out.

When Abhejali Bernardova (2x English Channel solo plus Oceans 7 finisher, CZ), Jayasalini Olga Abramovskikh (3100 mile runner, Lake Zurich finisher, RU) and Vasanti Niemz (69, 2x EC solo, several ultra-triathlons, DE) arrived in Dover, the water was still 13-14°C. Cold acclimatisation was needed even for a relay, where you rotate in hourly shifts, always in the same order. With a 3 person-relay the challenge is to have to get changed and then back into the cold water after very little time to warm up and rest in between, and with a risk to get seasick on board - which happened to Abhejali and helper Edwige for a few hours, in spite of seasickness patches and pills.

Watching the weather forecast is, apart from training, eating and resting (and meditating), one of the major activities before a swim, be it relay or solo. As usual, the forecast kept shifting - first we were supposed to start in the evening and swim through the night, but luckily the weather changed again and we were told to meet in the marina in the morning of Sunday, June 14th around 8 a.m., for the swim to start around 9. It is so much easier to get "into the groove" with the sun out. Edwige from France was our enthusiastic and happy last minute helper. Our boat with the uplifting name of High Hopes, was expertly piloted by Simon Ellis and Marilyn Critchlow. The water had warmed up slightly to 15°C.

For more positive vibes we had decided to dedicate our relay to peace and gave it the name of "Sri Chinmoy Peace Dreamers". After all, teamwork makes the dream work - and with all the war memorials and remains along the British and French coast it felt so appropriate to visualise a peaceful world of friendship, cooperation and mutual support during our swim  - actually this is the way English Channel relays work! We brought a Torch of our Sri Chinmoy Oneness-Home Peace Run with us on board, shared it with the crew and meditated briefly on it before every new rotation. 

Since our tide was a spring tide with stronger currents, and two of us were slower swimmers, we had brought enough food and drinks for at least 18 hours - you never know what the Channel will throw at you! "Prepare for the worst and hope for the best", is one of the famous Channel swimming mottos. But we were lucky and blessed: the wind was pushing us from the north, the currents were behaving, and with no time lost for feeding breaks in the water, as opposed to solo swims, we were cruising along much faster than expected. The wind started to settle down, and after 6,5 hours we were already in the middle of the separation zone. Half way geographically normally does not mean halfway timewise.

But with the wind pushing us, and Abhejali, our swimmer no 1 in the rotation, powering through the tidal change around 12 hours into the swim, just off Cap Griz Nez, while the sun was setting, she made it across the currents into the calmer bay during her 5th hour. Next was my turn again, my 5th "dip" - and I could not believe it!  I only had less than one kilometer left to swim - just 18 minutes more in the dark, absolutely calm and peaceful, even with some bioluminescence. The water was warmer on the French side (around 16/17°C). Guided by the light beam from the boat, the rest of the team was allowed to swim in with me to a shallow and sandy French shore, "La Courte Dune", just between Wissant and Cap Griz Nez. They brought the Peace Torch, fuel and a lighter in a dry bag and we lit the torch and held it happily all 3 of us together, cheering, grateful and with a peace prayer in our hearts. The camera only recorded our cheers and a tiny flicker of the flame in the dark. With happy hearts, almost exhilarated, we made our way back to the boat.  and we even had some bioluminescence in the dark!

Two days later, after some rest, we made our way to Kingsdown, east of Dover, to visit the Gertrude Ederle memorial at the place where Gertrude had come ashore in 1926 (she had obviously started in France, which is not allowed any more) at the end of her record-breaking 14 hour 31 minute crossing. A 20 minute dip in the sea in front of the memorial, stroking against the current almost in place, showed us the full strength of the spring tide, which we blessingfully did not have to experience during our relay!

For all three of us, the relay also was a kind of "training swim". Abhejali went on to attempt another English Channel solo, breaststroke (!) - which will be a different post, hopefully. I finished my 11th Lake Zurich marathon swim 4 weeks later (26 km in 12 hours 08) - and more may be to come for all of us.

For our Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team it was the 5th successful English Channel relay and the 4th all women relay: 6 p-relay back in 1989, 4-p-relay in 2009, 5-p-relay in 2014 and 3-p-relay now in 2006. Men's 6 p-relay in 2010.
Details and list of all team swims: https://channel.srichinmoyraces.org/members#node-4320

Our relay motto and theme song, which served as a beautiful mantra also during the swimming, was: "Only the Peace-Dreamers, Peace-Lovers and Peace-Servers can transform the world." - Sri Chinmoy