CHANNELLING FOR GOOD BRUCE SALT Bruce Salt is the first Namibian man ever to swim across the English Channel. Considered to be the ultimate endurance-swimming challenge because of the long distance and extreme conditions, crossing the Channel takes approximately fourteen hours as swimmers navigate one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.
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he swim involves continuous swimming through waves of up to two metres, and swimmers must dodge shipping vessels, jellyfish and litter – all in freezing-cold ocean waters.
“It’s been a long year and the focus has totally been on swimming. I’ve done 850 kilometres this year, with the biggest week covering 37.5 kilometres. I’m nervous, but the training is done, so now it’s all down to the weather,” he said. “You have a lot of time to think while you’re out there. You swim for half an hour and then you are allowed to tread water and have something to eat and drink, and then you continue. The rules are that you are only allowed to wear a Speedo, goggles and a cap, along with what they call ‘Channel grease’, which is like Vaseline. That helps with friction and with some insulation in the seawater, which is about seventeen degrees Celsius.
What in the world would move a person to do such a thing? In 2011, Bruce’s older brother, Neil, succumbed to lymphoma. “Neil had to go to South Africa a lot, for consultations, for chemotherapy, and we were able to be there to support him. But we saw that there were a lot of people who didn’t have any support. With his passing, Neil left a substantial amount of money to start a fund to support the families of people with cancer, to help make sure that there can be someone with you when you are going through this traumatic experience. We, being Hochland 154 Round Table, felt compelled to grow this fund to make sure that it can continue.”
“You start with your feet out of the water on the one side of the Channel, and only once your feet are out of the water on the other side do they stop the clock. For everything in between, you’re on your own. “What I am doing is a bit extreme; there is no balance in it, and I am a person who ideally prefers balance. Without balance, you are isolated.”
Out of this pain, Bruce’s idea to swim the English Channel was born. He secured sponsorships for his swim, with proceeds going to the Cancer Care Namibia Fund. Working closely with the Fund, the new Namibia Oncology Centre in Windhoek refers cases of families who need assitance after a family member has been diagnosed with cancer.
Outside of the water, Bruce went through physiotherapy and biokinetics to strengthen himself, adding that, “For someone who hasn’t really got a body for swimming, this really shows that anything is possible. You just need focus and to show up. I want this swim to demonstrate that everything is possible.”
“My brother was someone who liked to help people, more so ‘undercover’ – he didn’t usually tell people. But once you have someone you know or love affected by cancer, you realise how many people are affected by cancer. So far, we have assisted twenty Namibian families with this fund.”
The open-water swim Bruce was about to embark on is one in which he had to swim completely alone – a beautiful metaphor for what the patients go through without the support of their families during their difficult times.
In 2016, 99FM MYD spoke to Bruce days before he left to cross the Channel, after he had been training almost every day for a year.
On 3 October 2016, Bruce successfully completed his swim at a time of thirteen hours and forty-six minutes.
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