I am not alone

I find it very difficult sometimes to tell people what I do for a living, as if in some way my profession defines who I am as a person. If for example I was at a party and a stranger asked me what I did for a job and I replied a Doctor, then he would probably think I was responsible, intelligent, and maybe respectable and vice versa if I had answered a solicitor or accountant! When you tell people you are trying to pull together an expedition to swim across the Atlantic, they instantly think you are a dreamer/madman/bulls****r and wonder where my nurse is to take me back to the 'home'.

So you can imagine my relief when this weekend I found myself surrounded by people who are doing things that make my expedition/challenge seem positively normal, in some cases mundane. I was at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) annual Explore conference in London, with hundreds of dreaming explorers and adventurers who are absolutely filled to the brink with a can do attitude, I don't think there is anywhere else on earth where you can fill a room with 250 people who will always find a way, will never take no for answers, who's glass is always half full, and every mountain is just something to go over on their way to their goal.

I was very glad to meet Alastair Humphreys (he spent 4 years cycling around the world on a bare bones budget) and Paul Rose (the guy who is presenting the BBC Oceans programme) he gave me a great tip on shark avoidance whilst swimming and Jo Royle (one of the few yachties to ever circumnavigate the Southern Ocean).

I left having made great contacts, felt that I wasn't alone in the world and invigorated to continue my search for a sponsor and to keep swimming, even with a broken foot!