SWIMMING teacher Ann McGrath is on the crest of a wave after completing a Channel relay swim with team-mates who answered her advertisement on the internet.
The 49-year-old from Mudeford was banned from swimming as a child by her cautious parents after she was diagnosed with a hole in the heart.
But 26 years after doctors gave her the all-clear to swim, she is now planning to follow the Channel relay with a solo attempt.
Ann, who teaches swimming and hydrotherapy at the Littledown Centre and Mudeford Junior School, said: “I wasn’t allowed to swim until I was 23 but I love swimming in the sea.
“I have done the Round Brownsea Island swim five times and the Channel was the next challenge.”
Mother-of-three Ann, whose relay swim raised £800 for Christchurch Scoutlink and Mudeford Junior School’s special needs department, advertised on the Channel Swimming Association website for swimmers to join her team.
She doesn’t actually know the full-names of her team-mates except that one was a 17-year-old American called Daniel, another was Clive and the third was a 72-year-old man who hopes to become the Channel’s oldest solo swimmer.
“Conditions were absolutely beautiful and we got to France in thirteen-and-a-half hours last Thursday,” said Ann, who has been training in the sea with East Dorset Open Water SC as well as on her own in a pool four times a week.
“It was absolutely brilliant. I had a school of dolphins following me, a seal swimming beside me and jellyfish underneath – and I didn’t get stung.”
She added: “I enjoyed every minute of it. I started on a high and I am still on a high.
“It has given me a taste for it and the next challenge will be to swim the Channel on my own – though it will be a couple of years before I’m ready to do that.”
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