I'm a crap swimmer and I'm doing a 1km charity ocean swim to raise money for cancer research.  Want to know why? Read on (or just donate cash :)

My love affair with swimming ended aged 7.  His name was Sergeant Major Git and he was overall inspirational leader of the Aborfield Army Camp Swimming Classes.  While my pyjama-clad school mates were launching themselves like lemmings off of diving boards and retrieving plastic bricks, I was inflatably enhanced and gurgling about at the dunce’s end of the pool.

“Line up and put your faces in the water” he boomed at us late bloomers.  One by one, like a chorus line, each duckling spluttered and spat into the water.  As the sequence rolled on in my direction, I could feel my genetic aversion to underwater activities kicking in.  “NEXT” he boomed.  I took a deep breath, a huge lung-bursting breath… and then turned my head and plopped my ear into the water.

A whistle blew.  “STOOOOOOOOOOOP!!!!! EVERYONE STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!!!!!” he yelled.  All splish-splashes ground to a halt as everyone stood soppingly to attention.  “THIS GIRL IS TOO SCARED TO WASH HER FACE” he boomed.  The overwhelming urge to drown myself there and then nearly overcame my intense fear of putting my face in the water, but not quite.

There must’ve been a good episode of Monkey Magic and The Muppets on that weekend because I don’t remember any subsequent teasing, but nonetheless departed class upon collection of a very hard-earned 10 metre badge.

Fast forward 27 years and this time I’m with a Squadron Leader, face screwed up in the water and practising breathing out through my nose and remembering to emerge from the water before breathing in.  It takes a while.  But thanks to a more “smiley” approach to teaching, 3 weeks later I’m doing my own kind of controlled drowning up and down the pool and feel I’ve made sufficient progress to sign up for a triathlon with a 750m swim leg.

3 months later, during which time I’ve mainly been focused on retaining my title as “slowest swimmer in the pool” and with one 1km swim under my belt, I’m standing on a beach in Barcelona in a wetsuit, wearing my group’s pink cap and race number thinking “just how different can sea swimming really be?”  3 seconds later I’ve found out.  Holy crap!!!  With freestyle completely ruled out due to not being able to see a black line on the bottom of the Mediterranean, and breast stroke out due to extreme buoyancy issues which won’t permit my legs to remain underwater unless they’re kicking, I choose to bob around the course.  Initial panic under control, I do a combination of styles never seen at the Olympics, that earns me the “third from last” position, which I courageously defend for the remainder of the triathlon.

One year later, I’m living in Sydney, Australia – a city whose world famous beaches offer landing strips to the majestic waves of the Pacific Ocean and playgrounds to some of the world’s most dentally well-equipped fish of the ocean.   Rips, tides, Portuguese man-o-war.

With such prolific swimming experience accumulated from literally minutes of ocean-swimming, it occurs to me that there could be no better idea than to enter a 1km ocean swimming race.

Why the hell not, eh?

The truth is, I actually cannot think of a single reason why I should not and cannot finish this race.

It’s going to be a bloody big challenge but I have the privilege of being able to achieve this thanks to an amazing organisation called Can Too, who are giving me access to incredible people who help me overcome my fear of putting myself in a body of water filled with God-knows-what when for years I wouldn’t put my face in a pool. 

More importantly Can Too is an organisation dedicated to helping other people overcome much greater and realistic fears – it is an organisation that has raised over AU$7 million to help finding a cure for cancer.  Cancer is a disease that has or will undoubtedly touch us all in one way or another during our lifetime.  And we have no idea whom it will target, how or when.

In Australia, skin cancer is unbelievably common.  A shocking statistic I heard after coming here was that 50% of Australians will get some form of cancer in their lifetime.  Holy crap!!!!

I hope you will support me in helping this fantastic cause.

Can Too did say that they will supply free shark repellent.  I haven’t seen any yet – unless they mean slower and smaller racing companions (joke).  Probably makes more sense be spending money though on cancer research as, as horrible as it is, cancer is a much more of a realistic threat.

Thanks for your support!! :)