Saskatoon woman completes swim across English Channel

Saskatoon native Airen Bowers describes herself as "half woman, half fish." That nickname was put to the test this past weekend when she swam more than 30 kilometres across the English Channel.

The swim, which took more than 16 hours, was Bowers's second attempt. She originally planned to do it last September, but cancelled due to bad weather.

"I was just really happy and relieved and proud and, yeah, grateful for all my support folks who are on my boat," she said of arriving on the French shore.

"It was a really, really epic moment."

According to the Channel Swimming Association, which tracks and authenticates channel swims, the shortest distance between the two coasts is just under 33 kilometres. However, due to the movement of the tides, many participants end up swimming much further.

Bowers said she swam somewhere between 40 and 50 kilometres by the time she was finished. At the time, the water was 16 C.

"I was swimming on a bigger tide than I expected," she said. "That final tide was really hard to push through. I was sort of swimming in place for almost two hours where I was hardly moving at all, just trying to keep my stroke rate up, just trying to keep my arms moving.

"It was pretty exciting. I was surprised I was able to walk out of the water at the end, but somehow your body just takes over and you know what to do."

Bowers said she had three-fold motivation for the swim. She turned 50 last September, which was also the anniversary of her father passing away in 2019. She also fund raised for Canadian Tire's Jumpstart charity, which provides funds for children to play sports.

Bowers has been a long-distance swimmer her entire life and considers the channel swim to be the most iconic in the sport.

"The English Channel just seems to hold a mystery," she said. "It's that body of water where so much history happened. And it doesn't look like it's that far to swim, but it really is a bit of a beast."