Thanks for taking the time to visit our JustGiving page. 

CCAT (Croydon Community Against Trafficking) has been working for over 15 years against human trafficking in its various forms; many victims of human trafficking will have crossed the English Channel on their way to the UK. CCAT's experience has helped other similar organisations in their work in their localities, too.

The six open-water swimmers, each of whom swim right throughout the year, needed to swim an hour each in rotation from England across The Channel to France,  a direct distance of over 20 miles.

Only one of the swimmers on this team had done a Channel Relay before, but all of us knew what we were taking on. Inevitably, big chunks of it - both the beginning and end - were during night-time, when Andrew Ingamells set off from Abbot's Cliff beach, Samphire Hoe (between Dover and Folkestone) into the dark waters of the Channel.

We couldn't know the precise start date or time much in advance as very variable factors including weather and tide always mean the actual date can be quite different, perhaps by days or weeks or more. It was nominally during the week 16th-22nd September 2018, but the weather set us back so we started at 5.54am on Friday 5th October. 

The team comprised Andrew Ingamells, Meike Weiser, Deborah Wright, George Campbell, Gayle Gander and Richard Chatterjee. We all live in Croydon and four of us are members of South London Swimming Club, which swims throughout the year at Tooting Bec Lido and many other places (eg rivers, lakes, and seas) both in the UK and elsewhere. Once the swim started, each swimmer had to complete the allotted swims; further changes aren't allowed under Channel swimming rules.

The boat the team swam with was Gallivant, run by the renowned Mike Oram, who is part of the Channel Swimming and Piloting Federation (CSPF). The famed Lance Oram helped set us off. We were skippered by the very experienced Tanya Harding, crewed by Mike Ball and Paul, and an official observer (Gabby Milligan) was on board, to make sure everything was as it should be, and certified the swim. 

The waves and swell were quite challenging for the first half but then settled down and we were glad to finally make it when Gayle Gander touched down in France at 10.41 pm, ie 16 hrs 47 mins after we set off. As the last swim was in the pitch black, a safety swimmer (one of the crew, Mike, who is an accomplished international swimmer in his own right) set off into the water to ensure Gayle got to stand at the foot of the cliff and back to the boat, all smiles. 

There was a previous cross-Channel relay swim for CCAT (crossing successfully on 16th August 2015), which is why this is CCAT2. The Team's full name is  CCAT2/WYCE Madina Scouts, as it is also raising money for excellent charitable work that lots of Croydon Scouts are doing in The Gambia under the 

Wonder Years Centre of Excellence at Wonderful.org | Wonderful


https://wonderful.org/fundraiser/crystalpalacescoutsexplorersmadina2019-0e42ccb0

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.