Finally! A beautiful day in Dover. However, the weather in the Channel is still very windy and her pilot said it will probably be Sunday before she heads to France. There are more swimmers here from across the globe waiting to swim the Channel as well. Karah has struck up a friendship with Matt Price, a swimmer from New Jersey, who coaches the West Point water polo team. Matt and Karah have become swim partners and are practicing swimming in the Dover Harbour. Karah also met up with a swimmer from India she met last summer at the San Francisco Swim Around the Rock event. Swimmers are a close-knit group world-wide.

Karah’s spider bite seems to be getting better, but it’s still a worry to mom.

Karah Nazor

Karah swam today for an hour. The water, she said, is warmer than the San Francisco Bay.

After her swim, her aunt and uncle, Les and Janice Herring, her stepfather (Hank) and I ate lunch with Matt, his mom, and a two-time All-American water polo player at West Point, at the Chaplin Cafe in downtown Dover. Afterward, Les, Janice, Hank, Karah and I toured Dover Castle. The castle sits high over Dover overlooking the English Channel. The view is breathtakingly beautiful, but it’s hard to look out to the sea and think that my daughter will be swimming across it.

Karah and I thank all our friends who have been e-mailing support via this Web site. We’ll stay in touch, and cross your fingers.

One more thing...the 18-year-old Indian swimmer wanted to know if Karah will turn into Spider Girl. I’m hoping for Aqua Girl.

(Karen Nazor Hill is a features department writer for the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Her daughter Karah Nazor, a former Chattanoogan who is a post-doctorate scholar at the University of California San Francisco, is planning to swim the English Channel. Karah is a longtime swimming enthusiast who swam with the East Ridge Youth Foundation, Greater Chattanooga Aquatic Club, Scenic City Aquatic Club, University of Miami and James Madison University. She won the first 3.5-mile Swim Around the Rock event around Alcatraz in San Francisco.)

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