12 weeks to go - qualifying swim still outstanding

It was off, on and then off again. The trip to Gozo never happened. Unfortunately, by the time flights were going again it was too late for my planned trip with Swimtrek and so my 6 hour qualifying swim is still outstanding. I managed a 3 hour swim in the pool this week covering 10k which was my longest pool swim to date, but it still is a long way from the 6 hour I was supposed to do. Never mind, Dover training starts next weekend and I am sure that I will be soon doing many 6 hour swims there.

And, one footnote. They say that you only know how good insurance is when it comes time to use it. Well, at the moment the travel insurance I took out isn't worth the paper it is written on - as the company don't want to pay out for the money I have lost through the cancelled flights. I am going to submit a written claim to give them a final chance to do the right thing. If I have no success with that I will happily reveal their names here so no one else has to make a similar poor choice in insurance provider. Well it's now the 2nd May and I've had no success with the insurance company and I can happily NEVER recommend ENDSLEIGH travel insurance to anyone.

Swimming in Gozo - 13 weeks to go

Swimming has been going well and this week I have been really looking forward to a trip to Gozo (an island next to Malta) where me and my mate Don were booked on a holiday with a company called Swimtrek, who specialise in swimming holidays. The plan was that we would do our 6 hour qualifying swim this week (Before you are allowed to swim the Channel you have to have done a minimum 6 hour swim in water below 16 degrees C). Unless you have been living under a rock, you will know that due to a volcanic eruption in Iceland that all flights to and from the UK and most of Europe have been grounded.

We were due to fly out to Malta in the morning of Sat 18 Apr 2010 but our flight was cancelled. We then rebooked on a flight leaving Saurday evening, which was cancelled and we are now booked on a flight leaving 21.00 on Mon 20 Apr. If this flight goes ahead we will arrive at our hotel in Gozo around 4am Tue morning, get a couple of hours sleep and then attempt our 6 hour swim the same day. Looking at the situation at the moment I very much doubt that any flights will be leaving for most of this week - and if our next flight is cancelled there will be no point going on the trip as we will only get 1.5 days in Gozo and will not be able to attempt the qualifying swim.