Only the hardy wade into the Channel in winter, and this year I’m one of them. Nearing the end of my stone-cold morning swim at Mermaid Beach in Folkestone, Kent, I notice something out of the ordinary. A commotion has broken out around a small inflatable dinghy a few beaches away as it skirts a vicious pile of rock groynes there to protect the shingle beach. Shortly afterwards, a fellow swimmer hollers in my direction, wondering whether I’ve seen the arrivals. They tossed their lifejackets in the water when they landed, he says, with what sounds like disdain.
I swim back to shore and walk up the beach, following a coastguard car. The dinghy is still bobbing up and down on the rocks, surrounded by military-looking jetskis; by the time I get there, it’s empty. Six men sit, soaking, on two semicircular stone banquettes adjoining the beach, surrounded by police and medics. According to the chatter on police radios, other men might have fled into a nearby coastal park, perhaps because they had contact information for people to help them. All six have been handed rugs and bottles of water; they look stunned, and a little sheepish. I ask a police officer if I can talk to the men and he shrugs his shoulders. “They haven’t been checked for Covid,” he says.
