A Swim Across the Narrows: Nevis to St Kitts... And Back

I talked my way into this almost by mistake. I mentioned to my editor that plenty of people do the four kilometre swim from Nevis to St Kitts (one of the most beautiful stretches of water in the Caribbean, by the way), so it might make an interesting article. The response was that if lots of people swam it then it wasn't nearly tough enough for the young and energetic readers of her column. Without thinking I found myself saying: 'Well, OK, I'll swim back again then.' Deal', came the reply. 'Disaster', said Winston Crooke, who organises the Nevis to St Kitts Cross Channel Swim each year between the islands.

Turned out to be incredibly hard work - largely on the way back as Winston Crooke had predicted - and by the time I was half way across I also ended up 'about half way' to Antigua (not quite, but there was a current running). So I was 'repositioned' further up-current. And yet still it was incredibly hard work, see the image below. To read the article that was published in the Financial Times, see Swimming the Caribbean Narrows.