This month’s Swimmer’s Spotlight features one of our courageous swimmers, Calli.
Calli set herself the audacious goal of swimming the English Channel for her 40th birthday, and she completed it in June this year! What a privilege to witness her journey and the rallying together of community to help her get there. Here is the story of Calli’s English Channel journey.
Full name: Calli Ann Solik
DOB: 23 May 1986
City and country of birth: Johannesburg, South Africa. But I’ve been in Cape Town since I was 6 months old so consider myself a Capetonian :)
Profession/purpose: Sports law attorney and mom and full time chauffeur to my kids.
When I started open water swimming: At the end of 2021, so about four and a half years ago.
Swim attire preference: Skins
Sunrise or sunset swim? Sunrise.
False Bay or Atlantic? Both! I learned to love open water swimming on the Atlantic side but spend hundreds of training hours in False Bay. I can’t decide!
When did the idea of the English Channel first pop into your mind?
Chloe McCardle, who is the queen of the channel, so she’s done 44 crossings, did a series of webinars where she kind of broke down applying to do the channel and how to go about booking. And it just seemed like a very accessible idea at the time, and I just was kind of swept up with the fact that it was my 40th this year, and that it’s the 100th anniversary of the first woman to cross the channel, and the timing seemed fortuitous, and it all came together, and there was a booking at the end of June, and so all the pieces came together. So probably over two years ago.
How did you feel on the morning of your swim?
Slightly nauseous. I think the worst part actually, well one of the worst parts of the swim, was setting my alarm for 3:00 a.m. and eating a fried egg sandwich because I don’t love to eat early in the morning, so that was very difficult. But we’d done all the things to try and make it go as smoothly as possible. So we packed the car the night before. We’d made all the food and packed it in the fridge that needed to be taken, so we woke up as late as humanly possible and shoved down some breakfast. So I think I felt nervous but mostly excited.
What were the conditions like on the day of the swim?
When we arrived at the dock, it was clear and calm. And then in you go, you go onto the boat at Dover and then you go around the corner to a beach called Samphire Hoe. And in the course of that 20 minute boat trip, the clouds came over the mountain and the heavens opened and there was a huge thunderstorm. Luckily, obviously they were tracking, and the lightning was on the land or the swim would have been canceled. But probably one of the things I’m actually genuinely afraid of is lightning. And so it was very hairy to get onto the little dinghy and get taken out to the beach to start in the pouring rain with the lightning flashing. So I’d say the start was not great. The conditions were tough. It was very choppy. The wind picked up and I think I was a bit in my head for the first five hours just thinking “what are you doing?” And then as ever the rain cleared up and the sun came out and then it just felt like a dream for the middle part. And then at the end the wind picked up a little bit, so I would say the start was hairy but the rest was good.
What was your go-to swim snack/feed?
I used Enduren (I’m still waiting for my sponsorship) honey gels so basically I had made two big flasks of Rooibos tea and then I would have about 200ml of Rooibos and then Greg would decant one of the honey gels into the Rooibos mix so that it was like a couple of glugs and a swallow.
What was the most unexpected challenge?
I’d read a lot about the channel and what a technical swim it is. And especially how most swims fail right at the end. So when you can kind of smell the baguettes already. And I remember Greg holding up a sign that just said 45 minutes, you need you to give your best for 45 minutes. And I wanted to cry into my goggles because I thought I would be in my pyjamas back on the boat in 45 minutes. But instead I had to basically swim on a treadmill for 45 minutes just to break the tide. It’s one thing to read about it and know that it’s coming. And it’s another thing after 12 hours of swimming to be told to gun it for 45 minutes.
What got you through the swim when things got hard?
I had spoken to some people before and they said that it’s 100% physical and 100% mental. Kind of like that’s one of those things that people say, but it really was. The first half I was a bit in my head and it was like my physical body that did all the work. And then in the second half my physical body was quite caput. And I had to go into my memory bank of reasons why I was there and why I was doing it. So there were a couple of things obviously, like my family and the training process for my family and getting into a fit and happy physical body. And then for moms, there’s this expression for young moms when flamingos have babies, they lose all their pink color because they become totally physically drained from having babies. There’s this expression as mothers come into their own when their kids get older, called getting your pink back. Because your pink literally comes back into your person. And so I was thinking about all the moms that are my support community and friends, and thinking like what a big way to get your pink back and to show your community of people that you can also get your pink back.
What’s next?
(Roar of laughter) I think for the sake of everyone around me, maybe a series of shorter swims. I’d love to do a relay swim because I’ve actually never done a relay, which seems insane. But I know I definitely want to do Three Capes next, which is slightly shorter but very challenging.
What’s your advice to someone who would like to swim the English Channel?
There’s a whole lot of advice, but I think there’s two main pieces of advice I would give: 1) Admin, pilots book two to three years in advance, so you need to book today for like 2029 kind of thing. Which gives you plenty of time to stew about your decisions. And then 2) get a good coach. And work hard and focus on the mental side of it as well. Resilience – training your brain is really important.
Thank you for sharing your story, Calli, you are a true inspiration!
If you’d like to join her and others in our ocean adventures, we’d love to welcome you to the team.
