When most tourists think about Dover what comes to mind are attractions such as Dover Castle and the world famous White Cliffs, but for me, my initial thought about the city is my spontaneous adventure at the very end of my visit there.   After touring Dover Castle a few of my friends and I went to a pub to grab some lunch.  While there I realized I hadn’t seen the world famous white cliffs of Dover.  I was thinking I can’t go to Dover without seeing the cliffs, so with only a half hour to get down to the beach to see the cliffs and then get back to the train Hunt, Gregg and I, three of my friends ran to go see the cliffs.

Upon arrival I can honestly say that I wasn’t that thrilled and felt let down.  I had heard a lot of great stories about how majestic they were and how it was a one of a kind experience.  Maybe I had a bad view of the cliffs or something, but I just did not get the kind of excitement I expected, but then I saw the water and thought I need to go touch the water.  You know, say you’ve touched the water of the English Channel.  So, I ran down and touched the water.  Then I thought to myself heck, why not say I swam in the channel.  So, I conversed with Gregg and Hunt and Hunt and I in a spur of the moment decided to jump in.  As we were in the moment the beach goers around us stared with a look intrigue.

We jumped in took a quick swim for forty five seconds, jumped out, then looked at each other thinking of how we would dry off.  As you can tell we didn’t really think our plan all the way through.  We decided to just throw our shoes on and run to a place we could change.  We ran down a few blocks and finally found a place to stay, and then we realized we really had to run because the train, which was on the other side of town was leaving in fifteen minutes.  The three of us ran through the streets of Dover in a mad dash without regard to the traffic around us.  Finally we made it to the station and sat down with only a couple minutes to spare.

After that experience I can say that I feel this connection with others who have swam the English Channel.  It is definitely not on the same level as the swimmers who crossed it, but at least I can say that I swam the channel.