Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page. 

Following on from my successful Windermere swim on the 7th August, I have been able to secure a pilot boat to attempt to swim the Channel from Dover to France hopefully on 24th of September weather permitting approximatley 30 miles wearing only speedo's and goggles. I have a support boat for food & water and to show me the way. I hoping it will take no more than 14 hours but could be as long as 18.

Full time training started in December and so far I have swum over 900 kilometeres  training in sea, pools and lakes sometimes in water as cold as 9 degrees.

I have chosen to suppport Sussex Air Ambulance as they are totally dependent on charity donations and do a fantastic job.

My support crew have written a log of the event as follows

PAUL MAGGS' 2 WAY WINDERMERE SWIM

7TH AUGUST 2013

written by Sarah Cotton

All the preparations were done. All the training had been logged ; the hours and hours slogging up

and down Guildford Lido, the early morning 4kms with 'Finchey' in the pool, and the endless hours

in the sea at Shoreham with Lawrence and I, all this hard work would now hopefully pay off.

Last minute checks; gloopy rice pudding? check. carrot and potato soup? check. j-cloths? ( don't

ask! ) check. shot blocks? hydro tablets? vaseline? marigolds? glow-sticks? spare goggles? check,

check, check...

It is 05.30 on Wednesday 7th August 2013 on the edge of Lake Windermere. There is barely a sole

about, the lake is as flat as a mill pond and there's a mist rising from it - very atmospheric, and

Paul is standing in his trunks, smeared in zinc and castor oil cream and with his goggles on...

Lawrence and I are Paul's support crew and we climb aboard the small support boat to join Colin

Hill of ' Chill Swim uk ', who is the boat pilot and official observer. Colin blows his whistle and Paul

enters the water, when he reaches the boat jetty the stop watch starts, and we're off.

Lawrence is in charge of feeds which will be every half hour, and I'm in charge of taking notes on

stroke count, mileage, water temp. and anything else I can think of.

The start of the swim could not have been better, and Paul makes good progress, immediately

getting into his stroke pattern of breathing bilaterally and swimming 62 strokes per minute. The

lake is 19 degrees.

At about 07.30 the sun makes an appearance and rises above the peaks surrounding Windermere,

Paul smiles and shouts ' sun!' between strokes.

At 08.00 we are joined by a very friendly swan who we call 'Steve' who swims alongside the boat

for about 10 minutes, obviously waiting for some rice pudding or other tasty morsel to be thrown

from the boat, but we're advised by Colin not to feed it as it may attack Paul when he's feeding.

Every half hour we stop the boat and Paul treads water and downs his food, taking only a few

seconds before continuing, hour after hour, mile after mile.

At 10.32 after only 4.57hrs of swimming we have reached the far end of the lake, 10.5 miles from

where we started. Paul touches the white marker buoy, has a quick feed of soup, and then it's back

for the second length!

At midday the sun comes out and we the support crew start stripping off layers of clothing, the lake

is still flat as a pancake and Paul isn't showing any signs of slowing down. By 2pm we start seeing

other boats on the lake and as we pass a passenger ferry, people wave and clap and Paul just

keeps on swimming...

After 9hours of swimming, and 17.5miles in, even Colin Hill is impressed and exclaims that he's a

'swimming machine!' - at this point Paul is on track to beat Colin's' time of 10.30hours. But he now

looks to be flagging a little, so I do a stroke count - 58 strokes per minute, he's obviously feeling

tired and you can't really blame him! But within a mile, he's back up to 62 spm and is looking

strong again.

As we come around the last bend in the lake we can see Waterhead and the finish in the distance.

Should we tell Paul that he only has 3.5 miles to go? Still with over an hours swimming still to do

we decide to tell him at his next feed that there is less than 3 miles to go, this at least is a figure

that he can comprehend at this point.

Paul chooses not to eat at his next feed but just to have some honey and not to feed again but just

to swim for home. We can see the finish now, but frustratingly, it never seems to get any nearer,

until with about 500m to go we can see people on the beach. Colin blows his whistle as Paul

passes the small jetty -

and that's it. Paul has just swum 2 lengths of Lake Windermere, 21.5 miles in an astonishing

10.38hrs!!