Weather, rather than concern about water quality, may have driven people off Galway beaches at the weekend, but wild sea horses won't drag Tracy Piggott away.
"I'll be wearing a full-face mask and a wetsuit. So my skin will be well protected," she says. "Which may be just as well!"
On this opening day of the Galway Races bets have already been placed on her. The television presenter plans to swim six nautical miles underwater from Finavarra Point in Co Clare to Blackrock, Salthill, to raise money for the John Durkan Leukaemia Trust.
In January, Durkan, well-known jockey and trainer, lost his battle with the illness at the age of 32. At his funeral, a trust was set up to raise £2 million for a new research centre at St James's Hospital in Dublin. Here, treatments will be developed for inherited and acquired diseases, such as cancer, heart disease and leukaemia.
Tracy has been training for three months under the direction of Ian Perry and Rory Golden of Northern Divers Ireland, along with Sgt Tosh Lavery and the Garda Underwater Unit at Santry, Dublin. Her director of operations is Henry O'Donnell, an endurance swimmer who covered 24.7 miles from Tory island to Donegal in 10 hours, and most recently won a bronze medal in the 5,000 m race at the World Masters Swimming Championships.
O'Donnell and a full support team will accompany Tracy, both in water and in five support vessels - supplied by the RNLI, the Garda Underwater Unit, and the Galway Bay Sub-Aqua Club. An evening's celebration has already been planned for tomorrow in the new Galway Bay Hotel, one of the challenge's sponsors. Tracy's dad, a lad named Lester, will travel to Galway, and the trust chairman, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, will also be there.
Sponsorship cards are available from most bookmakers and from the trust's offices in Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin (tel:012303009). Credit card holders can also make donations via the Tote, the members of the Allied Betting Shops Association and the Independent Bookmakers' Association. Most bookmakers are donating a free bet on the Galway Plate to the trust, and will add to the credit card total.
Two banks accounts have been set up to facilitate donations; at Allied Irish Banks, Stillorgan, Dublin (account number 3541 7098, sort code 933570) and Bank of Ireland, Montrose, Dublin (account number 2784 8853, sort code 901351).