An early 6am start for an orientation swim set us up for a great Turkish breakfast. We scrambled down some rocky stairs to pebble beach – a narrow cove with pebbles of all sizes. And three tents set up with sleeping bodies. We were way too early for them.

We waded in and set off at a comfortable pace. It’s hard to tell who the fast swimmers are at this stage! Except for College boys!

After breakfast under the purple bougainvillea our swimming party headed off for for our first swim.

The boat is amazing. So big and comfortable. The best we’ve had.

It takes a while to settle down and find a rhythm. My orange-cap group of 6 swimmers kept together often led by crocodile-eye George or my wing-woman Betty.

Video session time came around and, although I don’t think there’s much hope for change, I did the swim for the camera.

Lunch was prepared by Zeynap while husband Mustafa barbecued the chicken. Delicious. Best swim trek food ever. About 6 different salads and grilled chicken.

Following lunch it’s rest time and there’s plenty of room on deck to stretch out. Comfortable blue mattresses.

We are very well looked after by Zeynap, our Captain’ s wife and their son Effie. He’s 15 and obviously loves playing around with Eoin our guide.

We swam along the gorgeous coast line around 2.5km in the morning and a 7 Island series of crossings in the afternoon. Quite a challenge for the first day. Around 6 km!

We had a drink in the evening to prepare ourselves for the video analysis! It’s scary seeing yourself on the big screen. My video followed the two College boys, Zippy Barry and the Silver Speedo. They were zippy with perfect strokes and I was ……. well not so zippy and not so perfect. But John the guide was kind and others didn’t laugh. So all is good and I’ll try to take the comments on board when I swim tomorrow.

So a good dinner in the village and off to bed!