What's the furthest you've ever swum?  200 m, 1 km? 3 km?  On 6th September, I will be swimming 10 km, significantly further than I have ever swum before.  That's 400 lengths of your local pool... except I'll be swimming in a river, the River Dart to be precise!

In March 2015, I was fortunate enough to go to Khartoum as the first female trainer for Nile Swimmers, a charity that works with communities along the Nile to stop drowning.  They have been running drowning prevention programmes in Sudan since 2007 but 2015 was the first time that women were able to take part in the programme.  The three weeks I spent in Khartoum were eye-opening.  The months that followed were inspiring.  In three weeks, myself and the other international trainer taught 36 men and women to become Aquatic Survival Instructors.  Since then, those instructors have taught over 3000 people how to be safe around the water and a further 900 people how to perform life-saving CPR.