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submitted 3 weeks ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[-] Zagorath@aussie.zone 242 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I fucking hate the way Facebook changed how the site works so that clicking on an image no longer puts it in your browser history. Earlier today I saw a post where the swimmer whose track was shown in this specific image responded to the comments. It was actually quite an amusing interaction and I wish I could go back and share it here.

But also: the swimmer was a she, not a he.

edit:

wait I found it:

Sophie's link: https://sophie-adaptive-athlete.com/2023/01/18/2023-channel-swim-introduction/

Text transcription

A series of Facebook comments.

Claire Fletcher: He didn’t make it. Is he ok or he still swimming? [attached is a close-up of the path, showing that it ends some distance away from the coastline]

Sophie Etheridge - Adaptive Athlete: Claire Fletcher I did make it, the GPS transponder was on my pilot boat but the beach was too shallow for it to come in close enough so instead my pilot launched the small RIB boat to accompany me to shore 🙂

Melissa Dupree Haws: Sophie Etheridge - Adaptive Athlete wow! The real swimmer here! I’m so amazed at this feat of athleticism.

Claire Fletcher: Sophie Etheridge - Adaptive Athlete omg the actual swimmer is here AND a she not a he! That’s amazing! What made you want to do it? Was it a personal goal or for charity? Full respect to you by the way, well done!👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Robert Mothersole: Sophie Etheridge - Adaptive Athlete so while you're here, if you dont mind me asking.....Why didn't you go straight ?

Sophie Etheridge - Adaptive Athlete: Robert Mothersole I did, in the English Channel the tides move up and down rather than across so you get 6 hours up, then 6 hours down. I swam on a Spring tide, which is a bigger tide to start with and I'm not a super fast swimmer (around 2 min 15 per 100m). So i was pushed up the channel for 6 hours, then down the channel for 6 hours twice...so i was swimming forwards but going sideways, if that makes sense?

Sophie Etheridge - Adaptive Athlete: Claire Fletcher its a long story...it was a personal, life changing goal, it raised money for charity and that money went to training swimming teachers to become specialist disability swimming teachers. If you want to know more then I write a blog and during the year of my channel training I documented my training each month. This is the first one explaining about me/how I got to where I was at the time - https://sophie-adaptive-athlete.com/.../2023-channel.../ If you scroll through my other blog posts I wrote multiple blogs about my actual swim too 🙂

Claire Fletcher: Sophie Etheridge - Adaptive Athlete that’s truly amazing! Well done you! Should be very proud of yourself! I am going to binge read your blogs now with a cuppa lol

Robert Mothersole: Sophie Etheridge - Adaptive Athlete it does make sense, it's a bit different from the local swimming baths, thanks for your answer and congratulations on swimming the Channel. Brilliant achievement 👍

Sophie Etheridge - Adaptive Athlete: Claire Fletcher hope you enjoyed them and your cuppa!

[-] Zagorath@aussie.zone 131 points 3 weeks ago

Also, there was this hilarious comment under the original image:

Matthew Bowen: Fucking idiot. Obviously he couldn’t go straight for completely obvious reasons that I’m completely familiar with, as I assume everyone is too. What a loser

[-] ruuster13@lemmy.zip 32 points 3 weeks ago

"They're replacing the internet with something else" is literal. It's harder and harder to find what you want because you're not allowed to have what you want anymore. You're allowed to work hard till you die and hope Big Tech shares its merciful bounty with you. You can't spell "social media" without "soma."

[-] purplemonkeymad@programming.dev 22 points 3 weeks ago

In case you are interested, facebook now opens links in a site of thier's, but it contains an embedded window of the site you were linked to. This means that facebook can follow any other links you follow while on that site. It has the site effect of you not visiting that site but instead facebook's "hidden window" shows in the history.

It has no practical reason to exist other than allowing them to gather more data.

Some mobile browsers might have an add-in to auto-break you out of the window.

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[-] CoolThingAboutMe@beehaw.org 17 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

There's a sports scientist, I've forgotten her name but she wrote a book called Women are Not Small Men. In her book she says that long distance swimming is one sport that women actually outperform men in.

Edit: her name is Stacy Sims

[-] Psythik@lemmy.world 14 points 3 weeks ago

Why are you using Facebook?

[-] caurvo@aussie.zone 12 points 3 weeks ago

I'm still in it for niche hobby groups. Unfortunately the kind of information I'm looking for is hard to come by elsewhere. Even Reddit was not as good a source of community knowledge for these activities.

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[-] protist@mander.xyz 192 points 3 weeks ago

For roughly six hours the tide will take the swimmer 'up' the Channel, and then as the tide changes direction, the following six hours will take the swimmer 'down' the Channel. This up and down movement of the water is relentless and unavoidable.

When traversing the English Channel, the boat pilot pays respect to the aformentioned tides when heading for France, which means the tidal affect will be perpendicular to the direction of the swimmer. It is incredibly rare for a swimmer to ever be swimming with or against the tide.

The moon's position relative to the earth and sun changes, creating different strengths of tide. The smaller tides are called neap tides, and the bigger ones are spring tides. Historically, swimmers have made their attempts on neap tides, as the belief is that this reduces the effect of wind against tide. It also reduces the risk of the swimmer missing the land target of Cap Gris Nez in France.

Source: Channel Swimming & Piloting Federation

[-] adhocfungus@midwest.social 90 points 3 weeks ago

So she was swimming for roughly 18 hours? I'm impressed and terrified.

[-] khannie@lemmy.world 60 points 3 weeks ago

Savage feat of endurance. I wonder how many calories that burns.

[-] kboy101222@sh.itjust.works 54 points 3 weeks ago

All of them

[-] atomicorange@lemmy.world 36 points 3 weeks ago

At high intensity about 14k.

[-] Chee_Koala@lemmy.world 42 points 3 weeks ago

Damn, you can cross the English Channel on roughly 28 Belgian waffles?

[-] atomicorange@lemmy.world 62 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Depends on how well you lash them together. They’re bound to get soggy though.

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[-] hperrin@lemmy.ca 81 points 3 weeks ago

Tide comes in, tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

[-] FilthyShrooms@lemmy.world 77 points 3 weeks ago

[-] Sergio@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago

...when you remember that the moon influences Earthly rainfall...

[-] Lemminary@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago

Achshually... no I can't. Something about the moon idk I'm not a sciontwist.

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[-] cellardoor@lemmy.world 80 points 3 weeks ago

The curious thing is that from her perspective, she was only swimming straight the whole time, and only expending energy going straight. It was the 'gifted' energy of the tide that caused the oscillation (from our perspective).

Just struck me as interesting to think that from her point of view she was swimming as straight and as efficiently as was possible.

[-] Wirlocke@lemmy.blahaj.zone 37 points 3 weeks ago

It likely was the most efficient energy-wise, why waste energy going against the current when it'll undo itself anyways.

[-] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 16 points 3 weeks ago

An aquadesic line, if you will

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[-] StarvingMartist@sh.itjust.works 73 points 3 weeks ago

Tbh I think this is a perfect example of "there are no stupid questions"

Person didn't know or didn't think about currents, bet you he still got roasted though

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[-] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 59 points 3 weeks ago

She had to go around all the minefields we laid to keep the French out.

[-] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Do you still have the galleons filled with gunpowder or is the isle ripe for Spanish invasion?

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[-] AlexLost@lemmy.world 58 points 3 weeks ago

They probably did swim "straight" but it took them a really long time and this was the tidal flow during her swim, ergo they went straight but the water they were in moved back and forth.

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[-] cannedtuna@lemmy.world 56 points 3 weeks ago

Because he’s swimming the English Channel and not the English Strait, duh.

[-] Ch3rry314@piefed.social 49 points 3 weeks ago

Wait, I'm dumb. Is it water currents or map projection, or what?

[-] Skyrmir@lemmy.world 102 points 3 weeks ago

It's the tidal current throwing the swimmer around. They swam along the same heading the entire time.

[-] Codpiece@feddit.uk 58 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

It’s just really hard to follow google maps navigation when there’s no roads and some big waves.

edit: ffs :)

[-] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 19 points 3 weeks ago

No, there were probably waves.

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[-] foggianism@lemmy.world 34 points 3 weeks ago

Because it's not called "English Strait"

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[-] atticus88th@lemmy.world 28 points 3 weeks ago

Her sexual orientation has no effect on swimming skill, sir!

[-] BennyInc@feddit.org 26 points 3 weeks ago

Is it the tides?

[-] Denjin@feddit.uk 20 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Like that bloke said to Caesar. Beware the tides of march.

Should have just gone in April.

[-] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 13 points 3 weeks ago

Can't explain that

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[-] expatriado@lemmy.world 25 points 3 weeks ago

when i was young and stupid i used to swim to an island only 1 Km from the beach (-11.80574, -77.18933), and had to stop to recheck my direction, often i was way off course. the English channel is going to be way harder, better have a good compass, or be mindful of the time of the day and the position of the sun

[-] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 13 points 3 weeks ago

Support boat

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[-] Schmuppes@lemmy.today 13 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I was excited that you provided the coords. Thanks!

[-] Chee_Koala@lemmy.world 12 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

When I was young (also stupid) we were on holiday at Punta Verudela, Pula, (44.8348180, 13.8373873) and one day, that island in the distance (44.8312627, 13.8398307) looked too cool to not swim too it, and me, my dad and my brother decided to try and make it there. It looked pretty close, but I never swam so long in my life. Because we took our sweet time and had a pretty chill tempo, after about an hour, we made it! on our side it was all sheer and sharp cliffs though, so although the island was still cool and enticing, we had no idea if it was even possible to get up there somewhere, or how long it would take to swim around. Playing it safe, we swam back in about the same tempo and took another hour of relaxed swimming. Probably helped that the Mediterranean sea isn't as tidally active. Checking it now, the swimming distance seems around 440m (we approximated 1Km back then :) ) I wasn't scared at any point and just having fun, but thinking back now, so many things could have gone wrong. I think I would be a lot more afraid to try that again, without knowing what I'm getting myself into.