I'm asking you to support me to support the Manx Wildlife Trust in their excellent work to protect the Isle of Man's biodiversity. They do this by:

- Providing space for wildlife on 24 nature reserves
- Enabling the recovery of native wildlife through conservation projects
- Inspiring people to value nature and getting people actively involved with nature conservation
- Standing up for wildlife in fishing, farming, planning and land management

Manx Wildlife Trust's programmes include:

- Tagging small sharks. One of MWT’s tagged tope made it all the way to the Netherlands, indicating the area over
which they need to be protected.
- Carrying out an annual survey of Grey Seals around the Calf of Man, an important breeding area.
- Working to bring back breeding Puffins to the Calf of Man, using model Puffins to persuade real ones to nest there.
- Creating more native woodland every year through the Ramsey Forest project.

I'm raising money for Manx Wildlife Trust via a swim I am to do around the Isle of Man. The distance is somewhere between 80 and 100 miles, depending on how meandering my course is. I reckon it will take me 20 something days.

I'm doing this in part because I have always loved swimming, above all in the sea, without being especially good at it. Another part of my motivation is that I’d like to get to know the Isle of Man better. It is where my mother and that side of my family, going back over 500 years, are from.

As a kid I would regularly visit the Isle of Man and my earliest experiences of bird-watching were with my grandfather in his boat, around the Island's sea cliffs, caves and rocky bays.

Manx Wildlife Trust is the organisation that is doing the most to protect the Isle of Man's fabulous marine landscapes in the face of climate change, over-fishing in the Irish Sea and other threats. I want to help them continue this vital work.