From WILL: 12 hours 'til swim time

My team is confirmed for a 3:30am (10:30EST) start time tomorrow morning. The AIS tracker may not show up on the website until 12:30 EST or a bit later so don't be alarmed if you don't see the boat on screen. This has been a long time in the works and I'm very glad to have my shot coming now.

Adam & Jeff's Pilot's don't confirm swim times until 7:15 the night before so we don't have any updates on them right now.

We are also pulling for Jordan who will be swimming with Pace Arrow tomorrow morning. Jordan is here from Canada and we met him at the beach on Tuesday.

Thank you for all of your support and pray for good weather.

-Will

From Will: Its getting closer

Ali (my pilot) has set a date for Thursday AM as the best chance for my swim. All of the swims got cancelled for early this morning due to unexpected weather so anything is possible. I'll know better tomorrow evening. Adam is still going day to day, calling each night to determine if he'll swim the next morning. Thursday is the official start of the tide and we are afraid that is when the reservation priority order will start.

Adam, Todd, and Zach and I had a great swim this morning in the harbor. It's about 65deg so that is good news for all. We met swimmers from Canada, Rockford, IL, Australia, and India at the beach. It's been cool to meet people from all over the world who come for this swim.

Jeff just arrived after being stuck on a plane with a flight attendant buzzer that was stuck on for the entire trip from O'hare. After Jeff went swimming we met the coach of a 15-year old Indian swimmer who, with a successful channes swim, will be the first person to swim all 9 seas.

Well Cathy, Randy, & Allison will make it in tomorrow so I'll have a complete crew. It'll be a rush from Heathrow to the boat.

FROM WILL: 1 down, 3 to go...

Stuart Nightenhalser finished yesterday with an unofficial time of 13:48. He was incredibly focused and very consistent in speed and stroke all the way across. The conditions were everything from Morse-like to 3-4 waves with white horses. Excellent work Stuart!

As soon as he touched France the weather went to hell. The boat was never stable from that point on with waves that crashed in the bow and put spray all the way to the 54' long stern. Superman Stuart had no problem sitting below deck noozing and I was above and below trying to figure out the best way to keep my lunch down.

That weather change was a bit of a surprise and most (if not all) swims that were scheduled to leave this morning were cancelled (as todd and adam mentioned). It looks like a Wednesday or Thursday swim for me and Adam is going day to day and will know tonight if he's swimming tomorrow at 1am.

The text update plan didn't work (obviously) because Virgin Mobile sucks. I'm going to shop for other carriers today.

From Todd and Adam: swim attempt cancelled for tonight

Hello all:

Adam just got off the phone with news that the weather was too
unpredictable for an attempt to be made tonight - high winds and
gusts. We were packed and ready to go, but that will have to wait for
our next opportunity, which may come as early as Wednesday around 1-2
am.

We will keep you posted with the latest news as it happens. By the
way, great swimming ISF at nationals! We have been keeping close tabs
on all of your fast swimming, especially you Clarke - "Let's get it on!"

Cheers!
Todd and Adam

From Todd and Adam: Getting a Good Night Sleep

Hello All:

We would like to officially announce that we had our first round of
fish and chips this afternoon. (We are also happy to announce it
wasn't the first round of ales.) More importantly, we had a great swim
in the harbor with Will and Zach this morning. We couldn't get enough,
however Zach got out after 20 minutes ... breaststroker!

It appears that Adam will be getting the call to go for it Tuesday
morning at 1:30 am ... as Will said, "game on!" We look forward to
posting our progress as we stroke, kick, feed, puke, and shiver our
way across those North Atlantic waters of the English Channel.

Cheers!

Todd and Adam

FROM WILL: Game On!

Adam and I just got our first swim in this morning in the harbour. It was fantastic and the scenery with the Dover Castle in the background was breathtaking. The water was suprisingly warm, measuring 65 close to the shore and there are rumors of 68 degree water closer to France. We got to meet Freda Streeter, "The channel general", who over sees channel swimming training in the harbor and has done so every weekend of the season for decades and she showed us the ropes.

Also, I've added Stuart Nightenhalser, another Indy swimmer, to the blog. He is over here for a swim on the same tide we are. Stuart is swimming tonight at around 1am local time (8PM EST) and I'm going to be crewing for him. I'm also going to try out txt updates to see if that system will work.

The weather in the channel has been quite good lately and there are rumors of bad weather coming in Friday of this week. The official start of our tide is Thursday the 13th and the best spot between us is 3rd so the pilots have requested that we try to go early. Keep watching the blog for dates but it looks like Adam may go early in the week and I may go Wednesday and most of the swims lately have been leaving in the middle of the night.

-Will

FROM WILL: Just arrived in Dover....

Adam and I just arrived in Dover after getting simultaneously screwed on arrival times, custome, rental cars, and phones. Its all good now and we'll be swimmin' in the morning. Life is Good!