Manhattan Island Marathon Swim

New York continued ...

The weather turns nasty on Friday - it rains like it will never stop! Trevor and Kerry attend a briefing for the Manhattan Island Marathon swim, in Greenwich Village. Jo and I go shopping in Soho!! Jo is on a mission for shoes; several pairs look promising if we can only find our way back here.

The umbrella did come in handy!!

Again we make our way around New York by subway - the tricky bit is working out which entrance to take so that we are on the right side of the tracks to go where we want to AND to come up for air on the right street. But we have a secret weapon - Kerry! He has a great sense of where we are most of the time!

We end up getting a bit wet but nobody cares. We are worried though about what the weather holds for the swimmers tomorrow.



After the briefing we shelter from the rain - in a pub!






The day of the swim is fine! What a relief. Trevor and Kerry head out in the dark of early morning; they have to be at Pier 25 by 5am. Jo and I follow a bit later. We catch a cab to Pier 1A where the swimmers will begin their marathon swim.


























We watch the start.  It is all so disorganised; the worst fears of both Trevor and Kerry after attending the briefing yesterday. The start is late by about 40 minutes which has terrible consequences. Many of the swimmers are caught by the outgoing tidal flow in the East River.

Some of the swimmers are taken out of the water as the tide is carrying them backwards. They are then moved to a different place on the course and returned to the water to go on and finish the swim.
What a disappointment for so many but with such gutsy efforts they must all be extremely proud, as we are of them all.

(A boat assisted swim is where a swimmer is allowed or required to board an escort boat and move to a different point along the course for various reasons including sharks, oncoming tidal flow, adverse currents or other dangerous situations.)

The results speak for themselves - 6 of the 11 placed swimmers are Aussies. Paul Newsome and Ceinwen Roberts both from Perth are first male and female. Paul's time for the 28.5 mile swim is 7 hours, 14 minutes and 53 seconds. Ceinwen is 4th overall. What a gal!!

It was a long day!! Trevor was full of praise and admiration for 'his' swimmer Andrew. He also said it was a great way to see Manhattan!

We finish up the day at our headquarters - The Crooked Knife bar and restaurant - we stay on for dinner. Who needs to explore any further tonight?