Connecticut native Marcy MacDonald becomes the first person to swim from England to Belgium
Marcy MacDonald had already been swimming for 26 hours across the English Channel where the Strait of Dover converges with the North Sea.
She was on her way from England to Belgium when she got stuck in a tide that tried to push her backwards, along the coast of France near Dunkirk.
MacDonald, who has swum the English Channel 17 times, the most of any American, swam in place for five hours.
“If you were looking at the [swim] tracker, people were like, ‘There’s something wrong with the tracker,’' she said Friday from England. “But it was, ‘No, I can’t go anywhere.’
“It was a test of patience, truly.”
And after that, she had six more hours of swimming to finish.
MacDonald, a podiatrist from Andover, swam for 39 hours, covering 54 miles from Ramsgate to a beach in De Panne to become the first person to swim from England to Belgium. She started at 11 p.m. local time on Wednesday night with her friend and pilot for many of her swims, Mike Oram, guiding her with his boat, the Gallivant.
He had brought a relay team of swimmers to Belgium recently, so he was familiar with the tides and how they shift. The route was east of the usual English Channel swim route.
MacDonald had to swim in place twice – once for three hours earlier in the swim and then the long slog along the Dunkirk coastline.
“It’s a very different type of swim,” she said. “You just have to have patience. It’s definitely not for everyone. It’s not a speed thing.
“I told myself, ‘I’m not pushing this at all.’ I knew it was going to be a long swim. I knew I would be out there for 30 hours.”
The water was warm – 70 degrees – but the weather was not perfect.
“I swear, Poseidon and I do not get along,” she said, laughing. “He knows I’m in the Channel and he makes it a challenging swim. It was not a sea of glass.”
The idea to swim to Belgium came to her when she visited the country after one of her Channel swims in 2000.
MacDonald first swam the Channel in 1994 then went back in subsequent years to complete more swims, including three double crossings. She was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2019 and has a pool named after her in Manchester, Conn., where she grew up.
She struggled to train for this particular swim because, she said, she was having a hard time finding hope in the world earlier this year, between the war in Ukraine and the elementary school shooting in Uvalde and everything else going on.
“I have two hopes,” she wrote in an email to supporters before the swim. “I hope to make this crossing. But if I don’t, I will know I gave my all to the effort. I hope, we, the community of the world, can be kinder and humane to each other. I know I’m hoping for a Pollyanna world but wouldn’t that be wonderful. Let’s be kinder to the elderly and those with special needs, someday, we, younger people, hope to make it to our 80-90s and I hope we will be cared for with kindness.
“What are your hopes? Start locally in your community of the world, volunteer or donate to a local charity.”
Lori Riley can be reached at lriley@courant.com.
