Exactly 1 month after their first attempt, the amazing Alan Ramsay and his team of Sanfilippo Superstars will be making their second attempt to swim to Rottnest Island in the Port to Pub swim from Leighton Beach to Rottnest Island.
Last month, after battling bad conditions for 18km of a 19.7km swim the race was cancelled and these amazing humans were left dissapointed. They didn't give up and decided to give it another go. Alan shares with us his motivation and why he wants to make a difference to the lives of children battling the childhood dementia, Sanfilippo Syndrome.
-What inspired you to fundraise for the Sanfilippo cause?
Matilda Page! We’re good friends with Kate and Lachlan and have seen what they’ve gone through to get Tilly and then with her diagnosis I can’t imagine what it would be like to have your child face Sanfilippo. The least we can do is try to fundraise for them
-Have you done a challenge like this before?
No, I only started swimming 4 years ago after a friend did Solo to Rottnest. Being Scottish I have not swum much. So I got in the pool started doing laps with a snorkel first, then moved to goggles and here we are.
-What inspires you?
My own kids. I want my kids to see what people can do together and for each other. It’s been a recent goal of mine to do the Rottnest swim.
-What do you want the wider community to understand about Sanfiilppo?
How close they are to finding a cure. Let’s make make a push for this final bit
-Tell us about what happened in the first event and why you've decided to do it again?
The conditions were terrible, we made it to the 18km mark (19.7km swim) before the event was cancelled. We were very disappointed, but when we had time to regroup we thought why not try again in another event. We’d done the training and are fit enough. We decided to call our team High Distinction this time as we got 90% of the way there last time and it came about as a bit of a joke.
-What are you looking forward to most about Event/what are you looking forward to the least?
Looking forward to: Crossing the finish line this time seeing our friends and family. One of the team is back to live in the UK, so it’s a must do for him.
Not looking forward to: Stingers, a bit nervous about the conditions.
-Tell us about the training you have had to do?
We’ve been swimming 4 times a week, swimming in the ocean doing big training sessions at least once a week. Meeting up for swims as a team. It’s a really nice to train together. We’ve gone out and done sessions with the boat and with the kayak to make sure we all know what to do on the day.
We’ve swum through our fair share of stingers.
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