Swimming Between Continents
Today is the day that I swim between two continents. I’m ridiculously excited. A feeling that is mixed with nerves of anticipation and worry. Nothing new there then. The continents are actually only two kilometres apart but with the currents and the course I’ll have to pick, it will probably be more like five or six. Something that might have daunted me once upon a time.
The meeting place, and finishing point, is in the courtyard of the town’s waterside fortress. A large stone castle with enormous buttressed walls surrounding perfectly manicured, jewel-green lawns edged with white gravel paths and old black canons. Yesterday it was a sleepy destination where locals met under the shade of the trees and the odd tourist braved the intense summer heat to explore the ancient castle walls. Today, by contrast, the place is heaving.
Full of excitement and chatter, people are sprawled everywhere. Pulling off their clothes and putting on swimsuits. Standing around having last-minute snacks and gulps of water. Others staring pensively at the starting point – a sprawling village with a backdrop of green hills that you can just about make out through the rapidly rising morning mist over the stretch of calm, cerulean blue sea.
Raif and I do our usual warmups – arm swings, hip openers,
