Adam Huntington Whiteley and Hugo Llewelyn have been life long friends and have shared since childhood many of the same interests in life. Upto January 2008 however this sphere of interests had not included kayaking of any kind, not least trying to cross the world's busiest shipping lane with only 8 months of training and a beginner's grasp of french...
However, owing to personal circumstances, we wanted to do something difficult, dangerous and different to raise as much money and publicity as possible for leukaemia research at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital, which provides the most extraordinary life line to many of Great Britain's young children with this hideous disease. Adam's father died from the disease in late 2005, and Hugo is a trustee of GOSHCC, the charity that supports the hospital, hence the cause we are supporting.
You may well have heard of our charity, but if not, it is a world-class children’s hospital, with the broadest range of paediatric specialists under one roof anywhere in the . They welcome around 150,000 patient visits each year, treating those with the most complex, life-threatening or life-limiting conditions, of which Leukaemia is one. They are also totally committed to finding treatments and cures for some of the rarest and most difficult illnesses, and all the money we raise will be put towards research in the area of leukaemia. See www.gosh.org for more information here.
Consequently, full of severe mis-givings about what we were about to do, on Friday 29th August, after a week of delays caused by bad weather, we set out from Dover at 5 am in the morning to attempt to cross the English Channel in sea-kayaks. The weather was settled, and Dover looked at its best in the dark, and heading towards France.
By mid-day, after 6 hours and 45 minutes of gruelling slog, avoiding the international shipping lanes, overcoming sea sickness, and the notorious currents between England and France, not to mention 3 Great White Shark moments (these turned out to be sea-weed!) we finally set foot on French soil as our picture shows, which was a huge relief for two very exhausted individuals.
Having done a fair number of triathlons, marathons, 1/2 iron men, climbing Kilimanjaro and the like, I can safely say it was the most mentally difficult challenge I have faced, and as physically demanding as any. The relief of making it was enormous.
We are so far up to half way in our target £50,000 and any continuing support would be much appreciated. The other half we hope to secure at our party Just Desserts, in London's Hammersmith town hall on Saturday 27th September - all the details of that are at www.justgiving.com/justdesserts
We are extremely grateful to you for your support in this venture and hope to see you at the party too...Adam and Hugo
