Navan swimmers brave elements to cross North Channel in dark

Two Navan men including a novice swimmer are part of a trio who are celebrating this week after completing an epic swim from Northern Ireland to Scotland.

David Murnaghan from Boyne Dental, Blair Clinton of Chekhov’s Cafe and joiner Stephen Murray from Belfast took on the “Couch to Channel” challenge swimming from Donaghadee to Dunskey Castle close in Portpatrick covering a 34.5km distance in just over thirteen hours on Tuesday.

The three-person relay team left their starting point in the early hours of Tuesday morning returning as victors today after conquering the notoriously difficult challenging swim across the North Channel.

Led by Infinity Channel Crossing they navigated the 34.5km direct stretch in 43km of swimming on rotations for 13.43 hours.

The brave trio are the 4th ever three-person relay team to complete the challenge with only one ever two-person team and 89 solo swimmers to have completed it previously.

The idea came from Blair Clinton of Checkovs cafe Navan who has taken on adventure races before including Race Across America and Race Around Ireland. Blair was a beginner swimmer and talked David into the challenge.

There are seven channel swims in the world and the North Channel is deemed the toughest due to a combination of distance, low temperatures and Lion's Mane Jellyfish according to David who said:

“We got into the water at 2.55am and set off in the pitch black, we couldn’t see anything other than the lights from the boat.

“I jumped in an hour later and when I came back, they were all excited on the boat and said wow did you see the dolphins, there were two dolphins beside you within a metre, they nearly touched you!

“I had no idea; I didn’t see any of it all I felt was the sting of a jelly fish on that one!

“In the dark in the middle of the night, conditions were rough enough that three of the crew were vomiting over the side. Conditions improved over the day and improved with lovely pictures of nice, calm waters and blue skies. It helped us mentally as well going from darkness light.”

The Navan businessman says noting could have prepared him for the what he was about to endure. He added:

“It was a million times harder than I thought it was going to be, if I knew it was going to be as hard as it was, I don’t know if I’d have done it.

“During it there were definitely several times I was hoping something else would go wrong so we wouldn’t’ have to do it, at one stage the engine cut out and I thought please don’t start back up.

“The team and fear of failure kept me going, you couldn’t let the other people down, your teammates who trained all year with you, so you just have to keep going for them.

“You had one hour in the water where you are swimming hard, then you have one hour where you are shivering and recovering from the cold and then an hour to get yourself ready to go again.”

Unbelievably the trio found out just hours before they set off that their adventure was going to go ahead as David explains:

“We found out the same day that we were going to be going that day because there was a four-day window.

“On Monday morning we were told we’d be going in twelve hours’ time, there was no sleep since Sunday, all the way from last night.”

The trio was training for a year in preparation for the arduous endeavour.

“We decided last August time that we were going to do it and since last September we were training away over Bettystown and Laytown and swimming in the Clontarf Baths and we were using that a lot to do the cold-water training over the winter.

“It is pretty tough on the body just from a hyperthermia point of view.

“Covid stepped in and messed things up a lot for us, there were no swimming pools, so it made it more difficult, we were doing land training and that is where the ice baths and cold showers came in.”

​“Stephen and I both play water polo but when we decided to do this Blair was able to stop himself from drowning but wasn’t really a swimmer.”

It seems David’s family doesn’t intend for him to rest on his laurels for too long having already identified his next adventure.

“When I got off the boat, my daughter said dad I’ve thought of your next challenge you should run the Great Wall of China marathon!

“I might have to think about that!”