I then joined the South End Rowing Club in San Francisco which is near my college [Mills College].

Anne connected me to a swimmer from the Dolphin Club, but I joined South End instead of the Dolphin Club due to the fact that South End lets their swimmers swim outside of the Aquatic Park.

I met South End and Dolphin club member Kimberley Chambers. On our first training swim, I swam some butterfly strokes. I was doing freestyle and my shoulders were in pain due to some technical errors I do in freestyle that I have progressively been trying to fix for the past 10 years. Kim saw me do butterfly and then casually said, ‘You should do the channel fly.’ The idea sprouted in my head.

I then met with Dan Simonelli and Susanne-Baab Simpson for their 6-hour English Channel qualifying swim when they visited the Aquatic Park and did my first long-distance butterfly swim. It felt so much healthier for my shoulders.

I am lucky because I have one of those bodies that swims butterfly very naturally. It has also been my favorite stroke since age 12 when I won my first Junior Olympics in the 100 butterfly and when I was 14 and made the Championship Finals at my first Junior Nationals in the 200 butterfly.

The 200 fly has always been my signature event and I love doing 200-400 butterfly sets in the swimming pool.

I met Michelle Macy during that 6-hour training swim with Dan and Susanne. She and Dan commented, ‘Sshe looks so strong. Melissa needs to beat the previous English Channel butterfly record.’ I obviously am nowhere near prepared for the English Channel, but it is another one of my dreams.

I do not have the secure funds to do the swim or set my 1-2 year pre-booking date, but anything can happen. I still have until 2019 until my financial aid for college/graduate school here at Mills College ends, so it will be a while until I can secure a job to fund a swim like that. However, anything can happen, and I know that through the grace of God, I can raise the funds to do the swim during my college/graduate school years.

My shoulders have felt like bricks for the past day, but with icing and no movement, have been recovering extremely fast. I made sure to take care of my shoulders prior to the swim to make sure I did not go into the crossing with any injuries. I was having tendinitis flare-ups 2 weeks prior to the swim due to a 10-hour test swim I did in my training program, so I listened to Dan and Steve Walker, a marathon swimmer from South End who wrote out my training plan and who is currently swimming the North Channel.

In the summer, I only swam freestyle in the swimming pool at Mills College when I had triple/double shifts working at the on-campus fitness center and did not have time to take the bus to San Francisco. I travelled 4 hours total every time I commuted to the club from my on-campus job and on-campus residence.

I would sometimes do individual medley sets in the pool, because IM sets really push my cardiovascular levels and get my heart rate up. I did not like the 82°F Mills College pool water though – it is too hot. So I tried to commute by bus to the club as often as I could to swim in the ocean.

At one point, I was so dedicated to my training that I was running on 4 hours a sleep at night with 9-hour and 8-hour training swims due to getting out of work late from my job. It was hard. But I really liked waking up at 4 in the morning to make it to the club. I thought taking the bus and trolley to San Francisco everyday and swimming in the Ghirardelli Square area made me cool.

Terranea seemed so close when the sun rose. I thought it was so much closer than it was. It was a humorous experience. I got so excited about being close to reaching shore in the middle of my swim because I was seeing trees and indentations in the land that I went from 0.8 mph to 1.8 miles per hour.

We had originally planned for my escort boat to be on my right, me in the middle and the kayak on my right at my 1 o’clock. However, the exhaust fumes were terrible and we moved to the left side. The fumes were still bad, so my kayaker and I decided to stay in slightly in front of the escort boat.

During the swim, I almost got run-over. I remember seeing the front of my escort boat right by my feet when some crew members were shouting at me to move. The same thing happened about 3 more times.

So having my kayaker in front of the boat did not go so smoothly. But it prevented the fumes from getting into my lungs. I am unsure of whether it was a captain or kayaker or personal error, but something was not going smoothly.

My two crew chiefs had medical emergencies prior to my swim and cancelled. I went into my swim with no crew chiefs and very stressed because everyone was unorganized. David Harvey, the captain of the boat, did not pilot for much of the time either. John York, one of my observers, was very upset with the fact that I had no one organize prior to the swim since I was dependent on my crew chiefs and they couldn’t make it. It was hard.

My kayaker and old friend Kevin Anderson ended up being positive and kind and bringing his son, Tommy Anderson, to be my support swimmer.

Dan Simonelli was previously committed to crew for Robert Palmese‘s triple-crossing attempt that same night [which ended up being a 3-hour swim due to Robert having an injury].

So I was at a loss with my crew and many people were frustrated with me. My college rowing coach came on the boat to witness the swim and for moral support and ended up pulling the boat together, taking the responsibility of managing my feeds.

It was an unorganized swim, but I was positive in my mind, and thought about positive things. I knew things were not going the way they were supposed to be when I vomited and had an emotional breakdown around 3-4 am during my swim because I was stressed and disappointed about the disorganization of my crew.

However, I had interviewed Charlotte Samuels, a well-known swimmer, a few weeks prior to my crossing. Through me interviewing her for Swimming World Magazine, we became friends. She had received excellent mentorship and guidance throughout her marathon swimming training and knew that I was short on mentors and moral support – so she gave me a lot of advice. She told me to sleep on the way out to Catalina to prevent the mental hurdle of viewing the crossing before embarking on it.

She told me to never look back at the island, which I did not do and I knew her swim was very difficult. She went through emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion and stress and knowing that she pushed through those barriers and crossed in 20 hours motivated me to push further, no matter how long I took or how hard it was.

I know it might sound strange to think about inspiring people while I swim, but I needed to inspire myself and coach myself to go further. I thought about my old teammate from Mission Viejo Nadadores, Fran Crippen, and about how great of a teammate he was to me, almost like a big brother, and how if he knew I was swimming the channel butterfly, and he was still here, he would be extremely proud of me.

I thought about all the people and friends from Mills College following my tracker and how much love they had for me and what I was doing with my channel swim by fundraising for three non-profit organizations benefitting homelessness.

Honestly, I like butterfly so much that I want to do more than become the first American or person to do any crossing or group of crossings. I am so competitive that I want to beat the previous times set my marathon butterflyers. I know that I am very fast.

If I had had my feeding down, my crew set, and less of a heartache getting my funds and commute logistics together prior to this channel, I have no doubt that I would have been faster than 12 hours. Being a student with internship commitments, job commitments, fundraising projects, and commuting obstacles is great, and a privilege.