It has been a long time coming, but as of June 29 Rossland’s Aerin Bowers has officially completed her swim across the English Channel.
Bowers made the decision five years ago to take her open water swimming to the next level, and last month she can officially say she’s done it.
“It was 16 hours and 33 minutes of running the gamut of excitement and some pain and some suffering and some joy. It was really good, actually. I’m really pleased with how it went.” said Bowers.
“It was actually a really nice day and we had good weather and everything kind of went according to plan except that I swam on a much larger tide than I had expected, so, it took me a few more hours than I was, I kind of thought it might, but still made it in the end.”
Bowers was meant to complete the swim last September, however, weather hindered the journey, but she was lucky to get another call up this summer.
“After that long, you still have to stand up and walk onto the beach to actually complete the swim. So, I had worried about that a bit, but I was able to do it and was just really happy and proud and obviously relieved it was over.”
Even after a long swim like this Bowers won’t be out of the water long, as she makes her way back to B.C.
“There are a few BC lakes that haven’t been officially swum yet so I’m looking into some of those and then I’ll be participating in all of the across the lake swims in the Okanagan this summer as well,”
And while the swim holds a huge personal achievement, Bowers also took to the water for in honor of her late father, Kelly Bowers, and as a fundraiser for the Canadian Tire Jumpstart charities, which she proud to reach her goal.
“I was just really grateful that that people were so generous and donated to my charity.”
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