Vera Rivard of Springfield New Hampshire, may be just 16-years-old, but she successfully swam across the English Channel, completing a 33-mile (53-kilometer) swim she called an “adventure.”
Rivard left Dover in the United Kingdom in the morning and arrived on a beach near Calais, France, just before midnight on Tuesday, the Valley News reported. The swim took her more than 14 hours, the newspaper reported, and she is the second American to cross the channel this year.
“As she leaves the beach in England for her English Channel attempt, I will be the proudest parent ever! Not if she finishes, not how fast she swims, but that she was brave enough to start,” Rivard’s mother, Darcie DeBlois-Rivard, wrote on Facebook.
A support boat accompanied Rivard across the channel through favorable conditions, the newspaper reported. Rivard’s swim cost her family around $15,000, about a third of which was covered by donations and sponsorships. The trip included a two-week quarantine in Dover, the newspaper reported.
Link:Associated Press