Jule's Catalina Adventure! Completed in just over 10 hours!

A massive congratulations to Julie Isbill who on Tuesday evening completed the Catalina Channel Swim in California - a spooky yet amazing sounding adventure! Well done Jules.

Here's a little run down of the adventure...

Catalina Channel ✅
It was exquisite out there, apart from a gigantic - what I think was a whale that scared the living bedoobies out of me about 90mins in when it was jet black (as it was for hours) apart from the most vibrant and playful biophosphorescence ❤️ and the GNARLY finish.

They said i might get a couple of scratches on the boulders with the surges at the end, and we would call that cute.

OMG we have totally redefined 'cute' and 'an exhilarating' finish. It was Huntington Beach style surf on mobile boulders and as for scratches, yes about 2 dozen, not to mention smashed up, swollen knuckles and toes. Jax swam in with me (as did the other swimmer who swam the channel the same night - how cool we timed it together) and Jax said she was born above that 'beach' and has been paddling this swim for 4 years (& swam it herself last year) and she didn't even know it could get that bad. I guess that's the balance for a velvet, marine filled, moon light sky, picture perfect crossing 🙃🐬🐳🐬

I am a little tired, battered and bruised but SOOOOO chuffed to have completed and experienced Catalina's beautiful channel ❤️

Did I mention... I swam through a feeding frenzy about 0.5nautical miles from the finish. It was AMAZING !!!!! Bait fish, dolphins galour, spinning, jumping, darting and a sea lion. I swam right through the middle of it all. Dolphins whizzing past, spinning under me and jumping out along side and the cutest (proper cute this time) sea lion came back for seconds as he swam right under me, stopped, rolled over, looked me in the eye and then leaped out of the water - twice 😍

Just magic and more perfect than I could have asked for in my wildest dreams 💕

Topped of with a fabulous crew. Michael who as he did last year, didn't miss a beat or sleep a wink, and was right there for the whole crossing preparing my feeds and keeping watch. Amanda who paddled all but 3 hours in the middle when Jax jumped in and everyone else who rotated through. All were positive, warm and friendly. Thank you !!!

How many people does it take to get a girl across Catalina Channel - it appears 11 😜 official observers, skippers, deck hands, chef (to make the team breakfast, ensuring there is enough left overs for the swimmer and paddler at the end 👌
not to mention all the training support up to this moment, and all the online support throughout the crossing. Thank you, thank you, thank you, ALL 😘

Hope all is well for you too. Onto a little recovery time now for us, before 🤞🤞🤞 Manhattan in 12 days time xx 🐳🐬🐳🐬🐳🐳