MONSTER SWIMS · BRISTOL CHANNEL

SUBJECT TO RATIFICATION

Mark Stephens

Glenthorne to Porthcawl

22 August 2026

Swim time

10 Hours 51 minutes 12 seconds

Track length

39.51 km

Start

05:04

Finish

15:55

Swim track

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Swim video

Captains log – The story of the swim by Off the Slip (Toms alter ego!) –

Mark rang me several years ago to talk Bristol Channel. He is a Welsh boy….but living in Australia. We kept in touch for several years, met up in person a few years ago, and then when Epic Swim and then Monster Swims started up, he finally decided it was time!

The way I like to do the swim is to get an early lock out and across the channel in darkness for a crack of dawn swim start at Glenthorne House, Devon. That means you swim into the light and get the sun on your back all day long. Conditions were light easterly wind, due to drop and full sun. Perfect. Mark cleared the water, waved his arm, and it was on.

Having swum with Mark and had a lot of conversations over the years and in the few days prior, I was fairly sure his prep had been spot on, he was rolling into his window in perfect condition; I was secretly a little bit excited to see the results. This one was going to be fun!

Immediately, he started his swim with a fast tempo, making excellent progress. Every feed, Mark was happy smiling, and loving his swim. He told us he was feeling great and on the first turn of the tide, we had made awesome ground. Hour after hour, feed after feed, Mark gave us what we needed, we gave him the feeds he needed; the whole day ran to plan like clockwork.

On the second turn the small tide meant we were on the outside of the sandbank and so far North. So far North we were actually running right toward Mid Nash buoy and got some epic pictures of him rounding it as the tide turned!!!

Superb weather, happy boat, happy swimmer; all we had left was to ride the ebbing tide all the way home, threading the needle between Tusker rock and Fairy Rock and landing him slap bang in the middle of Sandy bay to his waiting family. Superb swim!

Saturday was the reward for the days, weeks, months, years of hard work…and it really showed. It was an exercise in meticulous planning which made the execution simple. When Mark loaded the boat he had feeds prepared for 15 hours of swimming plus spares. I inwardly raised my eyebrows a little bit at the time, I had a number in my head that was a lot smaller than 15! Very happy to send him home with over 4 hours of unused feeds plus all his unused spares!