Open water swimmer ready for the challenge
Open water swimmer Carole Laporte pictured prior to her round Arran swim which she completed after 13 consecutive days of swimming, covering 89.94km in 27 hours, 8 minutes and one second. Carole is based on the Isle of Man and praised Arran’s clean beaches and the lack of floating marine litter.
An open water swimmer has completed a swim round Arran in just 13 days for no other reason than to finish the epic challenge.
And Isle of Man-based Carole Laporte praised the quality of waters around the island during her swim.
She told the Banner: ‘You should all be very proud of your extremely clean beaches and lack of floating litter which plagues the Irish Sea at the moment.’
She was supported by Steve Watt and his wife Julie.
Steve was providing support from his kayak and was also impressed by the lack of litter. ‘We love the wildlife on Arran, including long swims with seals and swans. Steve saw some otters and perhaps a porpoise,’ she added.
Carole continued: ‘I have always been keen on open water swimming and started competing when I moved from Brittany to Dublin in 2000. The craic after swims in Ireland was always great and it was something I wanted to keep going when I moved to teach in the Isle of Man in 2004. There are now hundreds of regular dippers and swimmers over there.
‘The tides around the Isle of Man can be vicious, so we needed kayaks to support us and that is how I met Steve Watt and his wife Julie, through Manx Paddlesports Canoe Club.
‘Last year, during the first lockdown, I couldn’t visit my relatives in France and came up with the idea of swimming around my new island home. I completed it with 19 swims spread throughout August.
‘Wow, did we have rough seas and Steve insisted on timings that used the fastest tidal flows to help me beat the existing record set by Anna-Carin Nordin the previous year. ‘Another year and another lockdown and I headed to Arran, inspired by
Georgina McLean’s map on the Arran Open Water Swimmers Facebook group. We kept it very quiet at first because we weren’t sure if we’d make much progress without the help of fast tidal flows. We did great though and the weather was fantastic. Good progress was made up the east coast before we moved up to the Lochranza campsite for a few swims around the north of the island and down the west coast.’
Carole completed her island circumnavigation on Monday after 13 consecutive days of swimming, covering 89.94km in 27 hours, 8 minutes and one second.