By Colin Wang
The Australian swimmer Chloe McCardel is now the second-highest capped swimmer in the English Channel after finishing her 35th crossing early this Sunday. McCardel had earlier worried about changing rules delivered by the UK and France even before her swim that was to be installed on a Sunday morning but then changed to Saturday evening. Three-fourths of the way through the swim in absolute darkness the mist hit. If it were half an hour earlier the swim would have been canceled. McCardel landed on French territory just as dawn broke and for the feat to be accepted she had to be on dry land. Throughout the crossing, she had to swim in darkness but the boat accompanying her shone a light in the water. She went through the second shipping lane along the French coast when the mist set in otherwise she would have had to cancel the crossing because they wouldn’t be able to see cargo ships. She was exhausted after having done 4 swims in 16 days trying to beat the men's world record of 34 by the English Kevin Murphy. Now with 35 swims, she is currently in second behind another one of the UK's swimmers Alison Streeter who had 43 crossings. She escaped having to quarantine because of a prearrangement by the Channel Swimming Association and the coastguards of both Great Britain and France even though the UK requires all travelers from France to quarantine for 2 weeks. Current swims might be impacted because the UK requires some countries to quarantine but they exempt channel swimmers.
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