We take on swim-challenges to raise funds for Gillian's Saltire Appeal. This makes a real and personal difference to the lives of cancer sufferers and those around them. Funds provide and maintain respite accommodation for cancer sufferers, their families and carers in Ayrshire and other parts of Scotland. So please help this amazing cause and give generously: whether or not the weather wins on the day.
After tough cold & wet challenges in 2016 &17 we've selected some big swims for 2018. We raise money by swimming with like-minded characters across odd places - from rivers and canals, to docklands, to the Scottish sea and lochs. We call ourselves "The Ayrshire Crocs" after the famous and original Crocodile Rock sitting in the bay at Millport on the Isle of Cumbrae.
First in 2018 is the Red Bull Neptune Steps in the cold cold Glasgow canal water at Maryhill. This is like no other swim event you can think of. An endurance event as an obstacle swim-course through close-to-zero cold water, climbing over eight canal lock gates and pushing participants to the limit of speed, strength and resolve. Why? Not to win, perhaps, but really just to survive and to take part.
In summer 2017 we'd planned Caste2Castle: either swimming Culzean to Dunure or Dunure to Greenan. However 2017 summer conditions were simply not good enough to do this safely and this is once again intended for 2018.
The Scottish Nationals championships at Loch Venachar were challenge enough, with rough and cold conditions in late 2017 and in addition swimming under the Red Arrows in September was a highlight: but that's another story. In November, a work-trip to Finland included a snow-filled swim at 0.9 C as a challenge set by the locals.
So, swimming "openwater" is pretty serious: we're not just paddling at the shoreline, in a lake or a pool but this is man-against-nature, wrestling weather, sometimes large waves and sometimes larger jellyfish. Mostly, the challenge is simple : "cold cold cold......... and cold".
At the end of each year I prepare a calendar including the best photographs of our exploits. These are available free to those that donate generously but first you have to provide an address to which I can post it. If that's of interest, you can message me privately via my Facebook page :
https://www.facebook.com/ayrshire.masterswim
NEVER put your own details on a public page.
Please give what you can, not for our effort, which only highlights the need, but for Gillian's Saltire Appeal. Thank you!
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