Hello, my name is Matthew Jenkins and I’m from Llanelli, Wales. Back in 2019, I started to swim at various open water swim events and my first challenge was to swim from Caldey Island to Tenby in Pembrokeshire. From then, I have set myself open water swim challenges notably, raising money for Burry Port RNLI. I have competed in many open water ice swims gaining top 10 finishes in all events. Back in February 2024, I became an age category silver medalist Ice Swimmer at the GB Ice Swimming Championships at Cheltenham. My next goal/challenge would be to swim from England to France and become a channel swimmer. To become a channel swimmer, there are several factors to achieve this. Firstly, you have to become a member of the Channel Swimmers Association. From here, the CSA will guide you through the process of booking a pilot, observer, qualifying swim, training advice, medical information and nutrition. At present, there is a 2 year waiting list to become a channel swimmer. Once you are allocated a slot, you will need to be ready to go with 2 weeks notice and once conditions in the channel are favourable, we go! Whether it be 11pm in the evening or 2am in the morning. My friends who I swim and train with are encouraging me to do this challenge, and after watching my fellow ice swimmer and friend Makala Jones from Pembrokeshire recently complete the swim in an astonishing time of 16hrs 25mins, it has inspired me to take on one of the most challenging swims known to mankind. The swim can take you on an extraordinary mental and physical journey through the busiest shipping lanes in the world. You start at Folkstone and aim for Wissant beach on the French coast which can take anything from 10 to 20 hours in most cases. As the crow flies, the distance is 21 miles, but with the strong currents and swell, you could end up covering double that distance. Not only would I be sharing the water with gigantic tankers and passenger ferries, I would need to contend with hundreds of various types of jelly fish without wearing a wetsuit! Each channel swim can cost just over five thousand pounds, which is a considerable amount of money just to do a swim, but it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity! To date, there have been 1881 successful solo swims. I would love to go down in history to be part of this elite group of swimmers. The breakdown of this is £3700 to book the boat pilot, who will chaperone me while I swim and £1600 for admin/membership fees, official observer, medical fees, accommodation and nutrition. I have already put down a deposit of £1000 to secure Masterpiece Charters who will be my pilot crew. Any additional funds raised, I would like to donate to the Burry Port RNLI lifeboat and another charity close to my heart, of which I will announce soon. If you’d like to donate any amount as a kind gesture of support then in return, I will do my very best for you to enable me to take on this mammoth challenge. My journey will be documented via my Instagram page @morfa_merman with constant tagging of all onboard supporting businesses and regular updates on my training, to get me to the beach in Folkestone and setting off to France. If you would like to get your business name on my Dryrobe, please click on the Go Fund Me link to get involved. Many thanks. Much love, Matthew Jenkins @morfa_merman
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