Conquering the Rottnest Channel
by Kelly Stone
Doctoral student Sharon Mascall-Dare recently found out that swimming 19.2 km in open water may be enough of a challenge for her.
About halfway through the gruelling Rottnest Channel Swim off Perth, Sharon started thinking about swimming the English Channel and even popped her head out of the water to ask her support crew ‘how far is it to swim to France’?
"They just laughed at me and said ‘you haven’t even got to Rottnest yet – just keep swimming’," she said. "That was quite amusing and it wasn’t long after that I really knew about it. My shoulders started to really hurt, I’d been whipped all over my body by jellyfish and I thought, maybe I won’t be swimming the English Channel in a hurry after all."
Sharon, 38, who is also a UniSA sessional lecturer in the School of Communication, finished the event in 8 hours, 46 minutes and 23 seconds, with a slight swell and current pushing the swimmers – and the jellyfish – south.
"You’re not allowed to wear a wetsuit in distance swimming," she said. "My only protection or support was the boat that I followed. Your support boat is everything…the crew keep you on course, they’re the ones that feed you."
When the going got tough, Sharon thought of her grandmother who passed away in January in England.
"I wore my grandmother’s wedding ring during the race and I said to myself as I was swimming, she’s probably looking and thinking I’m giving it a good go," she said.
In the five months before the event, Sharon increased her training to between 20-25km a week, a significant increase on the 5km a week she was doing just one year before.
"For me, that was an enormous leap, because a year before that I would have only been doing 5km a week.
"The longest swim I did was five up and backs between Brighton and Seacliff – one up and back is 3.2km, so the five up and backs would have been 16km."
Sharon trained with Atlantis AUSSI Masters Swimming Club at Unley pool and received plenty of support
"A number of people in my club have done Rottnest before and it’s the stuff of folklore among distance swimmers," she said.
"Some of the club members would come down to Brighton and swim with me on Sunday mornings…Some of them would swim with me for three hours or more."
Sharon also trained at UniSA’s Magill campus pool after her research and lecturing and in Singapore while teaching offshore journalism students three times a year.
Sharon used the Rottnest Channel Swim to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis. She is a regular MS supporter and often takes part in the national Mega Swim, which raises money for the Going for Gold scholarship program to help people living with the disease achieve their lifelong dreams.
"I’ve been involved in the Mega Swim for years and we’ve raised thousands of dollars. This year, because I wanted to do the Rottnest swim, I thought I’d combine that fundraising effort with what we’d done at the Mega Swim to get the best result," she said.
"MS is a debilitating condition and this is a small way to help people with MS to fulfil a dream, whether it’s retraining so they can earn a living, or buying a wheelchair so they can get out of the house.
"I have a fantastic life in Australia and I think if I can contribute to helping others in the community in some way, then why not."