New staff on board

I have recently moved from the South Coast, West Sussex in fact, a typical "Warmington-on-sea" town, where the sun always shines and everybody is smiling because they are retired. No matter how miserable it is across the rest of the country you can be sure that once you enter the Chichester Triangle, a natural rain shadow between Brighton, the Isle of White and the South Downs, the sun will be shining and people say hello to you as you walk the Cavalier.


I am now living in Bristol, which is pretty wet and windy, we tend to get the weather in the morning that the rest of the country gets in the afternoon. It has been many years since I called this part of the world home, but I was brought up here and a quiet green east suburb was home for 25 years. I am now settled in the rather more salubrious postcode of BS8, home to the Georgian ramparts that is Clifton.



What I need now is to settle into a new routine. I have a new swim coach (she will warrant a separate blog at some point) working with me twice a week on technique and swim fitness. I have a new strength & endurance coach, Charlie who is an ex-Royal marine, and I am working part time with a Neuro Scientist who will help me keep my brain active on the long swim to counter the effects of being in a weightless environment for 3 months for 10 hours a day. I have been told that I will suffer depression sickness like astronauts do in space because I will have limited gravity acting on my cortex.....I thought I just had sharks to concern myself with now gravity is against me too.


Today I met up with a potential expedition photographer, I placed an advertisement on the Bristol Gumtree website and within hours had 10 or so offers from budding young keen photographers. I gave only brief particulars about my expedition to see how interested they would be. I wasn't looking for a hardened professional photographer, I am not a hardened professional explorer and so have been looking to create more of a partnership with a photographer. Someone who I can work with to develop the narrative of the expedition on film, it would be great to capture all the highs and lows and emotions of the 2 year journey that I have embarked upon.


Its early days but promising work came from Jamie today. I must say its pretty hard capturing a swimmer on camera, only my head and arms are out of the water and the only real backdrop is....well....water! So we will need to get creative.



Also would blog followers stop sending me links to shark attacks on YouTube, its not very funny, this one was especially scarey today - Killer Whale movie clip



Photos obviously by Jamie Durling.