Islanders Wendy Tréhiou, Graeme Lowe and Sarnian Adrian Sarchet took part in the mile-long swim in the freezing cold waters of Lough Dan in the Wicklow Mountains, near Dublin, on Saturday 3 February.
Sixteen experienced swimmers came to Wicklow from California, Boston, Jersey, Guernsey, Glasgow and all over Ireland to take part in the 6th Eastern Bay Ice Mile.
The group included Channel swimmers, Ironmen and existing international Ice Milers. Swimmers are invited to participate in the event on the basis that, in preparation, they agree to swim at least one mile in open water every week between October and January.
Wendy, who was the first person from Jersey to complete the two-way Channel swim in 2013 – taking 39 hours to swim from Jersey to France and back – described the weather conditions throughout the Ice Swim as ‘horrendous and brutal’ .
‘The temperature was 4 degrees with a wind chill that brought it down to –2 degrees. We were swimming against driving rain at times and up to 17 mph winds.
‘Doing a long-distance swim is very challenging, but in a completely different way. With an Ice Swim, you can’t describe the feeling once you’re in the water. Your body goes into immediate shock. It is brutal.
‘Because of how cold the water is, you miss breaths while you’re swimming and swallow freezing water which you can feel go all the way down to your stomach.’
Wendy, who is a cancer survivor and the Macmillan Jersey Ambassador, was raising money for the charity through her effort.
The swimmers swam in two groups, called ‘waves’, and the course which was split into ‘laps’ with ‘breaking points’ throughout, to give each participant the chance to leave the race if they needed to.
Graeme and Adrian were among the 12 swimmers who completed the race with times of 35 minutes 30 seconds and 36 minutes 10 seconds respectively.
Wendy, having stayed in the water for 38 minutes and 11 seconds, made the decision to get out of the water just 100 metres before the finishing line as she feared the onset of hypothermia. She added that based on the experience she would never take part in the Ice Mile swim again.
A number of the seasoned Ice Swimmers in the group said the weather conditions were much worse than usual.
Wendy said: ‘I feel proud of myself that I made the decision to get out when I did, as I was borderline hypothermic. And I want to say a big thank you to Linda Breen and Adrian’s [Sarchet] wife Andrea for supporting us on the trip. It was a real team effort.’
