Doncaster family raises monster £6,000 for charity with swim across Loch Ness

After years of training, the team – dubbed the Donald Clan Dippers finished their open water fundraiser swim in the Scottish loch made world famous by sightings of its mysterious monster.

The Donald family completed their first swim for charity starting in Fort Augustus and finishing at Loch End.

The relay swim took place last month, with family members taking it in turns to tackle the 22.6 miles long with depths of up to 230 metres.

The team was made up of husband and wife Mick and Lisa Donald and family members Wendy Still, Carol Murphy, Douglas Petrie and Meg Yule.

Lisa, from Dunsville, was the initiator of the challenge.

She said: “I watched the Stand Up To Cancer Channel Swim and thought that would be awesome to do a swim challenge of our own. It was my crazy idea.”

They swam for a variety of different charities including Global’s Make Some Noise, The Air Ambulance Service, Cancer Research UK, Friends of ANCHOR, Macmillan Cancer Support and the Children’s Heart Surgery Fund and managed to raise almost £6,000 between them.

Mrs Donald decided to swim for Children’s Heart Surgery Fund because her son had open heart surgery at four weeks old and felt like she wanted to ‘give back’ to the charity.

The swim took the relay team just over seventeen hours to complete, starting at 04:12am and finishing at 21:22pm, with each person taking it in turns to swim for one hour each on

rotation.

Lisa said: “The hardest part of the swim were the waves cresting over your head and the swell of the water pulling you back down.”

The water temperature at Loch Ness can average as little as 11 degrees, and the swim had to be delayed from August 6 due to the poor weather conditions.

Mrs Donald added: “The conditions were like a mill pond when we set off, but then up to 30mph gusts during the day so it was quite choppy at times. It was a rough swim for some, including myself.”

However, the Donald Clan Dippers had moral support from the 45 family members that turned up on the side-lines to cheer them on.

She added: “The camaraderie and the support and people shouting at you from the boat to keep going was an all-around team effort.

“My son was there spraying everyone with champagne at the end which was lovely.”

It was certainly a long and tiring day for all as they had to wake up at 2am to get to the starting point on time.

Lisa said: “Everybody loved it, and it was a real buzz of a day. We didn’t in all honesty think we would complete it, but the fact we completed it was just elation really.

“It was such as lovely memory for the Donald clan as well as there were family members in their late eighties down to nine months old.”

The team signed up for the swim pre-COVID in 2020, so have been waiting and preparing for years to complete it.

Apart from one of the team members, they were all novice open water swimmers, so had to do a lot of training alongside their already busy jobs of a paramedic, nurse, fire fighter and working in the army.

Mr and Mrs Donald trained with Leon Fryer and Jane Crosby at Swimyourswim at Hatfield Marina: “We did four years training, not necessarily for the Loch Ness swim but we had been swimming with them for a couple of years and then decided to do the Loch Ness swim, so they helped us with our training of up to four sessions a week.

“They are just fabulous, the training and the safety they give is second to none.”

When it came to being on the boat, the atmosphere was friendly and supportive.

Lisa said: “I found a local skipper called Stewart Griffiths from Loch Swim Alba, and he is a well-known skipper in Scotland for doing the Lochs.

“Stuart is such a top guy and made sure everyone was okay and made it a pleasure, especially for our first swim.”

The team enjoyed it so much that they are on the hunt for their next fundraising expedition.

Mick Donald said: “We have really got a buzz for it now and we are looking at what challenge we are going to do next.”