The English Channel ––

A Distance Swimmer Takes On The Ultimate Crossing

By Steve Bigham

For rock climbers, there is El Capitan. For mountain climbers, there is Mount Everest. For distance swimmers, there is the English Channel. Next week, Newtown resident Jim Bayles will board a plane for England to attempt the most challenging and most important swim of his life.

“The English Channel is the granddaddy of them all for me. This is huge. This is what every distance swimmer dreams about,” Jim said this week. “More people have climbed Everest than have swum the Channel.

Jim says he is in the best shape he has been in in years. That is a good thing because the English Channel has a reputation for being merciless on swimmers. It took the life of a man just a year ago (despite the fact that he was swimming alongside a boat when he went down).

Jim, 50, has been tackling seemingly impossible swims for much of his adult life. Last year, he swam across Long Island Sound. He has also made successful swims to Manhattan from Greenwich, Staten Island, and the Tappan Zee Bridge. In 1999, he swam around the entire island of Manhattan. He is also the only person to swim under all 25 major New York City bridges.

And he has done it all for charity, either for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International or the Epilepsy Foundation of Connecticut. Jim admits, however, that the English Channel attempt, although another fundraiser, is mostly for him.

“A lot of this one is for me, I’ll admit that. It’s also to raise money for epilepsy, which my daughter Kate has,” Jim said.

The frigid English Channel is 17 miles across, but due to heavy tides the swim will be more like 23 miles. The water temperatures in some spots will be less than 60 degrees.

Jim’s swim will occur sometime between July 29 and August 7, depending upon the weather. The final decision on when he will go will be made by the captain of his boat, which he has hired through the Channel Swimming and Piloting Federation.

The father of three will be joined on the trip by two of his daughters, Jen and Brooke. His wife Trina and daughter Kate will mind the fort back home. Also going along is Jim’s close friend and swim coach, Mike Krein.

Jim will begin his swim from Shakespeare Beach in Dover, England, and end up at Cape Gris Nez, France, not far from Normany and Callais. He expects to arrive in France 10-13 hours after starting.

To train for the event, Jim swims between 20 and 25 miles a week and swam Lake Zoar from dam to dam this past fall. “Beyond the physical factors is the mental aspect of the attempt. After six to seven hours, the body is depleted of food and begins to use its stored body fat and muscle. The mind begins to wonder why one is doing this swim,” he explained.

For Jim, he will remember he is raising money to help others, to help fund research into the cause and prevention of epilepsy. He will also remember that swimming and completing the English Channel has been his lifelong dream. Finally, he will remember one of the quotes that has sustained him during this quest: “The will to do, the soul to dare,” as written by Sir Walter Scott in Lady of the Lake, Canto I, Stanza 21.

Fewer than 20 swimmers 50 and older have ever completed swimming the English Channel.

Jim, who grew up in New Canaan, went to the swimming nationals while at Dartmouth College, where he excelled in the 400 individual medley and barely missed qualifying for the 1972 Olympic trials.

The Bayles family moved to Butterfield Road in Newtown six years ago.

To help support Jim’s fundraising efforts call him at 270-0840.