I received an email on Monday from a young man it has become a real pleasure to know.

There are as many compelling stories as there are teams and individuals that take part in the annual Island Charity Swim.

There are many fine athletes who take part each year but there are also as many people who have to work extremely hard to get themselves physically fit enough to claim the reward offered for making their sponsorship commitments.

Many struggle to climb the first mountain demanded of them and then have to face their own inner demons during the gruelling swim from Mudjimba to Mooloolaba.

Standing outside shopping centres for eight hours at a stretch with the begging bowl out can be a tough way to raise money to be allowed to swim around in the ocean well off the coast for 11 kilometres.

The unique combination of commitments creates a bond among participants that has proved a winner for the Nambour and Currimundi special schools during the past eight years.

Hard working swim committee secretary Rob Abbas described it the other night as the swim family and he is spot on.

Parents and principals from the two schools have, for several years, been critical to the event’s organisation and as well as doing many of the things necessary to make the event a success, join in fulsomely in the celebrations that follow.

Held on the grass in front of Mudjimba SLSC, the after party is catered by parents from the school, a wonderful band always turns up to enliven tired bodies that have been up from well before dawn, and sponsors provide the drinks.

It is a perfect venue, allowing parents to bring their kids along, and fitting given the tremendous support the surf club provides each year.

One of the greatest pleasures I get from the swim is the way that my Mudjimba neighbours have embraced it, forming teams, raising money and becoming part of a story that is retold and retold throughout the year.

It’s a tough swim.

Some took longer to get there than others and that brings me back to the email I received on Monday.

This year Australian butterfly champion Nick D’Arcy from Minyama came on board to swim the distance both ways with mate Jack Carmine and sponsor Jess Kirley.

Nick and Jack swam together, superb athletes who train with Brian Stehr.

It was a hard swim for both of them and they left the water exhausted.

They made it to Brisbane later in the day for Nick’s delayed 21st birthday celebrations but the effort, while leaving them elated, had clearly drained them.

Their particular form of water torture raised $20,000 for the two schools.

The email though came from Jess, who, with his partner Matt Elliott, sponsored the two-way swim through their PuntingAce.com charity fund.

The pair of professional punters, both 29, originally chipped in $10,000 from their own funds and committed to raise another $10,000.

That proved harder than they had expected, taking more than 30 different sponsorships to raise $8000 of the amount.

Jess, who is an endurance athlete running marathons and half marathons, had only a month to prepare for the swim.

But he produced what for me was the defining swim of the event’s eight-year history, leaving Mooloolaba a little after 6am on Saturday morning and returning just before 1pm.

In doing so, he became only the third person behind Jack and Nick to swim it both ways and, at six hours and forty minutes, set a benchmark for the longest time yet spent in the water during the event.

What he was thinking about during his remarkable marathon wasn’t the pain or the distance still to go.

His concern was that he was still $2000 short of the fundraising target he and Matt had set for themselves.

The pair rectified that issue in a quick discussion moments after Jess eventually made his way onto the beach agreeing to make up the difference themselves.

Jess’s email said:
“G’day Bill, had a great time Sat evening. Thanks for getting us involved in the swim this yr, I think it’s the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.”

To Jess and Matt, Joy and Garth Prowd and the great team at USM events, special school parents including the wonderful Wendy Hayes and Mary Taylor, the principals, the surf club and all the sponsors, teams and individual swimmers who work so hard to make this event such a success, thank you for being part of the most rewarding thing that most of us have ever done.

And thanks to my son Joe, his Mudjimba mates Scotty and Billy, the boat support from Steve and Debbie, Wendy and Marina and the guiding hand of Geoff Dews for getting me to the finish line ... eventually.