LEUT Spinks displays her true colours.

Lieutenant Emma Spinks has successfully completed the Everest of long-distance swimming by crossing the English Channel.

She completed the gruelling 34.5km crossing in 12 hours and 35 minutes and raised money for a UK charity in the process.

LEUT Spinks is currently on leave in the UK while her husband, LCDR Craig Spinks is instructing on Merlin ASW helicopters at 824 Naval Air Squadron, RNAS Culdrose, Cornwall.

She completed the crossing, from beach south of Dover to Cape Griz Nez in France, in late September.

“At 9.26am I set off on a mission to swim across the English Channel, at 10.01pm I finally got there,” LEUT Spinks said.

“The tides were only two days from the peak springs, so my swimcourse ended up looking more like right angle, than a straight line.

I covered about 55km in total.”

Opportunities to swim the channel are limited to just a few months of the year when the water temperatures are sufficiently warm and the weather andtides amenable enough to attempt the crossing.

LEUT Spinks had to abandon her first planned crossing three weeks earlier because of high winds and sea state.

But she persisted in the difficult task of keeping up her motivation and physical condition to have one final attempt before the season effectively ended.

“I showed up on the wharf on Monday morning somewhat dubious about going,” she said.

“I had convinced myself that the weather was not going to change and that it was going to be another false alarm.

But the wind stayed down and we set off on the boat to the starting beach.”

Under the rules of the UK organisation that governs the crossings, she was only allowed to wear a normal set of swimmers, goggles and a cap, and the air and sea temperature had started to cool considerably after a particularly cold English summer.

She was supported by a 40 ft vessel and crew.

Channel crossing

LEUT Spinks sets off across the English Channel towards France.

Her support crew helped to guide and feed her.

In addition, an official observer from the British Amateur Swimming Association to ensure she complied with the rules of the crossing.

LEUT Spinks was also motivated by the knowledge that two other swimmers were attempting the crossing the same day.

“My plan from the beginning had been to go out there and break the swim into 30 minute blocks and that’s what I did,” she said.

“My longest swim until then had been eight hours in the relatively calm surrounds of Dover harbour, so I found the first six to seven hours very hard going.”

It had been overcast all day, but about 10 hours into the swim the sky started to darken and LEUT Spinks had to prepare for some night swimming.

“I cracked the light stick that that was attached to my swimmers and asked for my clear goggles,” she said.

“I had always secretly been quite nervous about swimming into the night, but as it turned out my mind was too full of thoughts about getting to France to worry about the dark.

“In fact seeing the coastal lights in the night was the first time I had any indication that I was near France.”

At one stage it seemed highly likely that LEUT Spinks would end up on the wrong side of Cape Griz Nez, which would have seen the tides sweep her further away from France.

“I spent the next half hour swimming as hard as I could, the crew on the boat were yelling encouragement the whole time, but it was only when I heard someone say that it was 400m to go that I let myself believe that it was really going to happen,” she said.

LEUT Spinks had successfully competed in long distance open water swimming events in the UK over the past two years.

She undertook the swim to raise money for a UK Charity that helps those who suffer from life-threatening allergic reactions from everyday food products.

Her 9-year-old stepdaughter Morgan suffers from such a condition.

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