Thames Marvels

The Marvels together again at Ullswater . All completed the gruelling 7.5 mile end-to-end swim!! Fabulous sunshine ☀️ but incredibly tough going in the water - and this all a week after our Channel attempt! Well done team - awesome stuff!!!

Despite incredible efforts from all of the team yesterday we sadly had to succumb to the weather conditions! After over 9 hours of battling 20mile an hour winds and each of us being tossed around like a ‘sock in a washing’ our Pilot Eddie Spelling had to make the tough call to end our journey. We are so hugely grateful to our supporters, with your help we have managed to raise over £12k for the Charlie Waller Trust, which is an amazing feat in itself - THANK YOU!! And your support yesterday was immense!! Our heartfelt thanks to each and everyone of you! It has been an incredible journey for all 6 of us, we have forged wonderful friendships and each come out so much stronger for this experience, so whilst we didn't get our French pebble, we came out with so much more! And as the sun came out we got back to Dover - the team still managed a smile 😊 .

The Marvels at this years Classic Event - great article in the Henley Standard for a superb event! Good read while we await our Channel Relay Swim Spot! Latest update is we will be going Friday/Sat weather permitting🤞

Marvel-lous morning dip MORE than 600 people took part in the 16th annual Selkie Henley Classic swim on Sunday. It was the 16th year of the event, which takes place from dawn and participants swim 2.1km upstream from Temple Island Meadows. Participants arrived in...

Loving our new Marvels Kit - all ready for our epic Channel Swim adventure! Thanks to our sponsor for our fabulous jackets and to the guys at Cressex Embroidery for sourcing all our kit, printing the T-Shirts and embroidering our logo onto badges and our jackets. We absolutely love it 😍😍

There are moments when you just can't find the words! We are truly humbled and overwhelmed by the support we have had from all of our lovely family, friends and fans. Our Just Giving page just went over £10,000!!!!!! We are so incredibly grateful - THANK YOU!! Now all we need to do is to get the job done. We have been informed that our swim slot will likely be sometime mid week this week. So we are now in the hands of the weather gods. 🌦🌬
All proceeds going to the Charlie Waller Trust 🙏

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/thamesmarvels

What a great day out for the Marvels at this years Henley !! After a frightfully early 3am start the girls got to swim the 2.1km of the Regatta Course upstream against a strong flow! All did really great times and 3 of the team walked away with medals. Superb final effort as we now taper towards our Channel Swim which will hopefully be some time this week, weather permitting. Thanks to all the guys at The Henley Swim for another great event and to all the volunteers for their hard work today.

The full Thames Marvels team managed to get together this Saturday for one final swim before their BIG Channel Swim. Great to enjoy a fab morning at Medders with the Henley Mermaids, The Henley River Rats and the Henley Open Water Swimming Club (HOWSC) Crew. Thanks to Rod Laird for organising the gathering! Appreciate all the support!

Great feature article in the Henley Standard this week about our Channel swim. Seeing this all in print makes it seem so very real. With less than two weeks to go to our Channel attempt, the Marvels are in the final planning stages, getting our kit sorted and preparing ourselves mentally. We are also recognising just how the mental challenge almost outweighs the physical challenge. We are proud to be supporting the Charlie Waller Trust and the work they do to help young people with mental challenges. To donate go to: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/thamesmarvels

2 Marvels went to Dover for the last time before the real thing last weekend. Boat practice completed in challenging conditions on Friday on the High Hopes boat, alongside several swimmers hoping to do relays for the Aspire charity. Then 2 hours swimming around the harbour Saturday, managing to miss the visiting seal. Now it is just rivers, lakes and pools until the real thing (gulp).

Another fabulous day of much needed sea training for some of the the Thames Marvels team around the Needles, one of our favourite training spots! Special thanks to Angus and Annabel from Iconic Swims for your help, support and guidance with our swim training!! With just 3 weeks to go till the big day the team are doing well and looking forward with much excitement. Thanks to all who have donated, our total raised is now almost at £5k - can you help us over the £5k target? Please support us by donating https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/thamesmarvels all proceeds going to Charlie Waller Trust

Having done several miles of training in the seas around the UK, the Thames Marvels are hugely passionate about protecting our oceans, and its inhabitants. On World Ocean Day we would ask that you spare a moment to sign this petition and help protect our oceans. Thank you!

Can you spare a minute to help Lee Saudan? We made Seaspiracy. Help us protect 30% of our oceans by 2030 from industrial fishing.

Job done ✅ All Marvels are now qualified for the Channel swim. Lee managed to qualify whilst down in Cornwall with the help of the lovely Sharky Sian and some of the super guys from Corwall Owls! So with the team now fully qualified to swim and less than a month to go, the anticipation is building! We are now over £4k on our donations - our heartfelt thanks to all of those that have donated already - we are immensely grateful!! Here is the link for those that still wish to donate - Please support us https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/thamesmarvels

Whoop whoop ...80% to our target ...just reached over £4K and 92 donations so far. If you are the 100th donor I’ll personally post you a special edition THAMES MARVELS swim hat 😁😎🏊‍♀️😜. Come on ...you and your Severn Swim started this craziness for me.....years ago....now I need your support pllllllease 🥰🥰. Marvel E # # #

Its been a busy Bank holiday weekend for the Thames Marvels team! Alaine, Liz and Vicky have been down in Dover doing a night swim and their channel qualifier. And today Marika and Rebecca completed their qualifier in the River Thames (5.4k) followed by the final leg in Caversham Lakes. The qualifier for a team channel swim requires that you swim for 1.5 hours, then take a break of 30mins to 1 hour followed by another 1 hour swim, all of which has to be done in water below 16deg. 🥶🥶 So huge effort by the team, just 1 Marvel to go and we are all done!! With one month to go to our Channel swim we are all starting to feel the nerves and what would really help us is a donation to spur us on 😁 Please support us https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/thamesmarvels Thank you!

Qualifiers done for 5 of the team this weekend. 1.5 hours swimming, 1 hour out, 1 hour back in. 3 took to the sea in Dover (12.5 degrees) and 2 used the Thames and Caversham Lake (14 degrees). All breezed through it thanks to their winter swimming training.

Donations are slowly growing. Thankyou so much to everyone who has donated so far. Your support is keeping us going whilst the weather, water temperatures and covid regs have been against us.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/thamesmarvels?fbclid=IwAR0-xxaK_nIaL6dkv9ODgYcNHMAEvqr3I0U6b4R-NAwfZck8EPgwvkE-BEc

Thames Marvels English Channel Swim 2021 Help Thames Marvels raise money to support The Charlie Waller Memorial Trust

The Thames Marvels travelled down to Dover for a training day today. The sun shone for us and we had a fantastic day out, also celebrating Captain Alaine’s birthday. Water temperature a cool 10.6 degrees! https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/thamesmarvels

Hello Dover and huge thanks to Dover Channel Training for giving 2 Marvels some safe sea swimming time yesterday. It was such a buzz to be at the harbour amongst all the other like minded swmmers. And the sea obliged with good conditions, just a tad on the colder side at 8 to 10 degrees.

All of the Marvels took their training from the river to the sea today! 2 of the Marvels, (Vicky and Alaine) enjoyed the sandy shores of Dover, whilst the other 4 (Liz, Marika, Rebecca and Lee) took to the shores near Milford on Sea. This is the early morning swim which was a hour's chilly swim in 10degrees with some of the local swimmers and our swim guide Angus and Annabel from Iconic Swims. Tomorrow is boat training day!!

Read all about us! Ten weeks to go and counting!!

The amazing Thames Marvels have created a website documenting their cross channel relay swim in support of Charlie Waller. Find out more about the six women behind the challenge and their open water training schedule: https://thamesmarvels.co.uk

Our Marvellous Liz has a sea swim for the first time this year....and the first time EVER at 5 miles off shore! Big thanks to her lovely in-laws, especially Skipper Mark Hayes, for piloting her out to Patches Bouy near Aberystwyth and hubby Fran Hayes for the photos 🥰👍

Our chosen charity posted a link looking for volunteers to help with research.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=5327950620613168&id=817369018338040

Male Su***de Research Online survey BOS

We are hugely excited to announce the launch our very own Thames Marvels website! With less than 3 months till our epic challenge, we are looking forward to sharing our journey with you through our web pages.

https://thamesmarvels.co.uk/

Home | THAMES MARVELS The lure of open water and an exciting challenge for a relevant cause has drawn six brave women together for an English Channel relay swim.

Such an inspiration to all of us open water swimmers - reminding us that age is just a state of mind.

We are truly humbled by Dr Otto Thaning, who at 80, become the oldest person to swim the 7.5km from Robben Island to the South African mainland. 👏👏👏

Surgeon, 80, swims into record books with Robben Island crossing Cape Town heart surgeon Otto Thaning has, at 80, become the oldest person to swim the 7.5km from Robben Island to the mainland.

Ahh...finally...we understand!! 🤣