On the 24 September at 8:50am from Samphire Hoe Beach Harriet set off on her channel swim. Water temperature was about 15 Degrees and the sea condition was a slight swell but not too bad, dead calm would have been better but no complaints. Her pilot boat was Pathfinder and pilot Eric Hartley. She reached the first shipping lane in 2hours 45 min most swimmers take 4hours. No problems here as it did not seem very busy.

After 7hours 30min she reached the second shipping lane here a large container ship crossed our path and the bow wave was quite large nearly causing the pilot boat to come down on Harriet everything OK. Harriet had regular drinks every hour then half hourly with the occasional jellied sweet all this was given to her in a bucket on a pole, drinks in bottles were tied to a string and thrown. She had a slip up after 8hours by feeling she was making no progress but with encouragement from all that was overcome. With 2 miles left she was told to hurry along as the tide was changing and it could sweep her along the French coast adding 2 hours to her time. Harriet hurried and finished in a time of 10 hours and 59 min in pitch darkness with only the spotlights on the boat guiding her to the rocks.