The final posting: Dakar-Goree Challenge

It's very early on Tuesday morning and I am about to set off for the airport, and London. I have been out at a concert and for some reason have enough energy to stay up and write, instead of getting a couple of hours' sleep.

I've been full of energy, infact, since Sunday, when you will know that I did the Dakar-Goree challenge, and completed it. The adrenaline, perhaps, or the thrill of going back to London and seeing my family, have sped me through the last hours and I am happy to report that my body doesn't even ache.

It was a sunny day, even though I prayed for cloud, and Now and I set off with a bag full of peanut butter sandwiches, arriving at the starting beach at 11. I had already got myself greased up with sun cream, and then friends started arriving and someone started taking photos.



There were really a lot of people there, and lots of kids. Not just strapping 17 year old kids, of which there were many, but tiny 8 year old kids who, many of them in their knickers, appeared to be getting ready for the race too.



They milled about on the beach, occasionally glancing out to Goree Island, shimmering somewhere in the distance, while I lathered myself in more sun cream and tried to gulp down as much water as possible before the start.

But start we did, not before Peter (Monsieur Ambassador), had ralied the British (and Danish) Team and staggered us in colour co-ordinated positions, much to the amusement of the Senegalese.



As we all moved along the beach to some unknown destination, suddenly someone was shouting and we were all off, hundreds of people splashing into the warm ocean and launching themselves horizontal in the hope of finding a few cubic centimetres within which to move the arms and legs.



Much as the Senegalese have no sense of spatial awareness when it comes to moving vehicles along a road, so, it seems, it is in swimming too. At one point, with a foot in my face and another coming in from the side, a little boy swam from behind and when he was right on top of me- and I mean he was actually weighing down my legs and much of my lower back- he carried on going until I shouted, heh, attention! He didn't even look up and so I put down my feet and waited for the little minnows to zoom by. It was only after a kilometre or so that I could even start putting my head down in the water, for fear that I was going to get a foot in the face.

Well, one kilometre followed another, and then it started to get a little boring. Luckily the support team of Cecilia and Zal, Now and others were on the boat and gave some good cheer which spurred me along, but it was only really when I hit the raw sewage slick that I really got inspired to finish the damn race.

There was one bizarre moment when a French man in a canoe paddled by. I was hanging on to the 5th buoy, and looking at the island and thinking how tiny it was and how damn thirsty I was, when he called out "do you want some raisins?".

"Yes!" I gurgled.

"Then come over here," at which point I thought, maybe this is a trick. I'm going to go over there and he's going to kick me back into the water, or worse, under the water, and make away with my goggles. And to answer an earlier question, yes, ingesting too much sea water does play with your sanity.

But raisins I got, and some cold coca-cola, and no, he didn't throw them to me and expect me to catch them in my mouth. I ate them in the normal fashion- mixed with sea water.

He also told me that it was only 1km to go, but that was a lie. It was at least 2.5km but then another French man came along, a swimmer this time, and said, it would be such a shame to give up now. And that was all it took, and I was away, across the channel of strong current that divides the first half of the course from the island. After two and a half hours, I arrived, 142nd out of a few hundred, and half an hour under my predicted time.

The first thing that happened was that someone had to pull me out of the water. I couldn't actually get up the beach, I was so dehydrated and hot, but someone thrust a bottle of water and a sandwich into my hand and I went off in search of shade. About half a second later a little boy appeared and said, "toubab, give me your sandwich". Is there no respite?

The boat carrying Cecilia and Now and Zal arrived an hour or so later, alongside the British-Danish team, and then we all climbed aboard and had champagne. I have no idea if I'll do it next year; someone is talking about Goree to the Madeleine Islands, which is 7km, but I think they're mad.

Next report from London. Where I hope it's freezing cold.