Swimming to Antarctica (5 page)

We had the plastic ketchup bottles on the lead boat, along with thermoses filled with warm tea, coffee, and apple cider, and with fresh water.

While the paddlers fixed the flashlights, the crew in the lead boat tossed us the fresh water first. We rinsed the salt water from our mouths, tossed the bottles back onto the deck, and then were thrown our choice of beverage. Floating on our backs, we drank the warm liquids as the crew shouted words of encouragement. I heard my father say, “Good job, sweet.” I smiled. I was happy he was with me on the swim. He always seemed to know the right thing to do whenever someone needed to make an important decision.

We tossed our empty bottles to one of the lifeguards and the lead boat pulled ahead, becoming once again a small white light on the black horizon.

“All right, let’s get moving,” Ron yelled.

In the back of our minds we wondered who would be the first to get out. Who would be the coldest or weakest swimmer? Who would go first or second? None of us thought,
It’s going to be me.
And none of us wanted it to happen to anyone. We wanted to complete the crossing as a team. And somehow we sensed that if one of us climbed out of the water, it would diminish the strength of the team. I used that as a motivator and told myself that no matter what, I was not going to be the one to get out. I was going to make this swim.

About two hours into the swim my eyes adjusted to the starlight and I began to relax and stretch my stroke out. I felt as if I were swimming through a black-and-white photograph of the sea at night. Without color, the world I swam through was in stark contrast, reduced to luminous blacks, brilliant whites, and tonal grays. Looking up toward the sky on a breath, I watched the brightest stars travel across the heavens as we moved across the sea. Each time I breathed, I looked deeper into space, seeing stars beyond stars. Suddenly I felt as if I were falling upward. Shaking my head, I searched for a star to fix
upon, to help me regain my balance. But I couldn’t find one, so I looked down into the deep water. I felt as if I were teetering on the edge of a great abyss. The sky was expanding upward and outward, and I felt I was on the upper inches of the water, and the entire sea was dropping below me.

My mind searched for some stable reference point, but this was so different from swimming along the shores of Seal Beach. There was no pier, no homes, no palm trees—nothing. I had promised myself not to look back, but I had to. Only there was nothing behind us— not even Catalina Island. This made me feel more jumbled. To regain some sense of security, I swam closer to Stacey, and my hand hit her shoulder. We both jumped, but that contact snapped me back to reality, and I marveled once again at the night. Falling stars were arching across the black heavens, leaving long contrails of fiery white light. And in the phosphorescent ocean—the results of a large phytoplankton bloom—silvery bubbles rolled out of my mouth, and as my arms churned the water, they etched a trail of white iridescent light across the shimmering black sea.

We moved together and began to slide into our pace. About an hour passed, and we stopped to feed beside the lead boat. We felt a school of small fish swimming around us, bumping into our legs and feet. Flying fish the size of mockingbirds were leaping out of the water. They’d emerge from the depths and fly across the air, flapping their fins and sailing across the sky. Some flew right into us, and we let out squeals of delight. Some arced over the paddleboards, and a couple landed in the boat. In the phosphorescent light, they were magically turning iridescent pink, blue, purple, rose, and green.

Inspired by the natural light display, we plodded on. Ten miles into the swim, about four hours out, Nancy was having problems. “I’m so cold,” she said. Her teeth were chattering.

The crew encouraged her to keep going, and we did the same. But she began stopping every one or two hundred meters. “I’m so cold. I don’t think I can do this.”

The voices of her teammates surrounded her with encouragement. “Come on, Nancy, just pick up your pace. You’ll be fine. If you swim faster you’ll get warm. Come on, you can do it.”

She swam for another hundred yards. “Ron, I don’t think I can keep going. I’m just so cold.”

“Pick up the pace, Nancy. You’ll be fine,” he reassured her.

“But Ron, I don’t think I can. I’m so cold,” she whined.

Her talk of coldness was making me feel cold. And it was having the same effect on all the team. As long as we sat there treading water, we were undoubtedly getting colder. Every time we stopped, we lost heat. It was heat that we’d never get back. A chill crept into my body, and a shiver rippled through it.

“Let’s go, Nancy,” Andy said now, impatiently.

“I just can’t.” She started crying. “I am too cold. I have to get out,” she insisted.

“Okay, okay, Nancy. Let’s get her into the dory and transfer her to the lead boat,” Ron said, his voice filled with urgency.

Slowly she swam over to the dory. Stockwell and Johnson turned on a larger light, and we watched them lift her thin, stiff, pale body out of the water. Her lips were blue, and her voice cracked as she said, “I’m so sorry, you guys. I didn’t want to stop. I wanted to stay with you.”

“It’s okay, Nancy,” we reassured her. But my heart was breaking. To have trained so long and so hard for this and to have to get out.

“I think she’s going into hypothermia,” Stockwell said, and he radioed the lead boat to let my father know what was happening. He would bundle her in blankets and have her sit in a warm area and drink hot fluids to help her get her body temperature back up to normal.

When the lead boat arrived, we watched her being transferred from the dory to the boat. She shouted, “Good luck, you guys. I know you’re going to make it. I’ll be cheering you on from the larger boat.” And then she burst into tears.

It was so hard to see her that way. So hard to know that her dream died at that moment. Silently we wondered who would be next.

Sensing that we needed to push our minds away from what had just happened, Dennis said, “Come on, let’s stick together. We can do it.”

“Yes, if we stick together, we’ll make it,” Andy echoed.

“All for one and one for all,” Stacey said.

Perhaps four and a half hours into the swim, as the black veil of night was fading to gray, we were swimming strongly. The air temperature was still in the high sixties, as was the water, and I was actually starting to feel relaxed. My stroke was long and deep, and I was beginning to feel myself picking up the pace. For about ten minutes the team stayed with me, but my friends couldn’t hold the pace, so I had to drop back. Again, a little while later, I tried to increase the tempo. It didn’t work. And at their pace, I was getting cold. I needed to go faster to create heat.

Ron sensed my frustration and told me that he had spoken with Lyle Johnson and John Stockwell. They had suggested that I swim ahead of the group, then wait for them at a feeding stop. It was light enough for the team to easily see the paddlers.

It sounded like a great idea to me, but I asked the team, “Do you mind if I swim ahead of you?”

They didn’t care. I had been pushing them too hard.

Thankfully, I began swimming at my own speed. I began to fly across the ocean, like the first time I swam the three-mile race. Everything was working together; everything was in the flow. It felt so wonderful knowing that I could move across the powerful currents of the ocean.

Three times I got up to half a mile ahead of the team and had to tread water and wait for them for ten or twelve minutes. It was awful; sitting there was like sitting in a bathing suit in a refrigerator, but I had no choice; I had agreed to stay with the team. After our feeding, Stockwell and Johnson picked up their rowing pace, and I matched them. They went faster. I increased my speed. I could hear the wooden oars groaning in their locks, and I heard the men breathing heavily. They pushed further, and I followed. Sometime along the way, John Stockwell got on the walkie-talkie, then he shouted to me: “You’re halfway across the channel. And you’re getting faster with every mile.”

I beamed. I was swimming just like Hans Fassnacht, moving like a motorboat across the sea, and I was so excited.

An enormous raspberry-colored sun began rising above the gray Pacific, turning the morning mist to cotton-candy-colored pink and the ocean from slate to bright blue, lavender, rose, and gold. Warm light spread across the water, and now the golden-brown coastal range looked three-dimensional. There was the Palos Verdes Peninsula, and directly in front of us was Point Vicente, our landing spot on the peninsula.

We pulled a couple miles ahead of the team and Stockwell shouted, “Lynne, you’re more than an hour ahead of the world-record pace. Not just the women’s world record, but also the men’s.

“I just spoke with Ron,” he added. “He said you don’t have to wait for the others. You can go ahead.”

More than anything, I wanted to attempt it, and I was confident I could succeed. We were only three miles from shore. It was so possible. But it didn’t feel right; I had agreed to stay with the team. From the very beginning, that was what we had decided. They had let me join them. They had helped me. But I wanted to go. How would they feel if I left them to break the world record? Wouldn’t that diminish the attention they deserved for their success? How would I feel if they left me behind? I’d be hurt and angry.

The lead boat pulled alongside us, while the crew on board was urging me to go for it. My father was standing quietly near the railing. “You look very good,” he said, and smiled.

“Thanks, Dad. How’s Nancy?”

“She’s warmed up and she’s comfortable now.”

“Dad, do you think I should go for the record?”

“It’s your decision, sweet.”

“You’ll be the youngest person to hold the world record for the Catalina Channel,” Stockwell urged.

Johnson added, “If you wait for the others, you could be in the water for another three or four extra hours.”

As I treaded water, others shouted encouragement. “Go for the record!”

“I want to so badly, but I can’t. I agreed to stick with the team.” I was disappointed, but I knew it was the right decision.

Stockwell saw my expression and said, “Don’t worry, you’ve got plenty of time. You’re only fourteen. Sometime you’ll come back and break the record. And when you do, we want to be right here with you.”

For nearly thirty minutes I treaded water, staring at the California coastline. I wished they were faster. I wished we could break the record together. But when I saw the team slowly staggering toward me, I realized that we didn’t have a chance. We had been in the water for at least seven hours. Our skin was splotchy white and gray, our tongues and lips were swollen, and our shoulders were so sore, it hurt to lift our arms. The Vaseline around our arms and necks had clumped up, then melted, and the salt water had acted like sandpaper and chafed portions of our skin away. We looked like we had rope burns around our necks. And despite our goggles, exposure to the salt water had made our eyes painfully bloodshot, and our lids were beginning to swell shut.

Bending over, I grabbed my knees and stretched my back. If I had kept swimming, I don’t think I would have had any complaints, but now my sides and my neck ached.

Together we swam at an excruciatingly slow pace. I slipped water with my hands so I could stay with them.

Ron waved me to go ahead. I sprinted forward with Stockwell and Johnson. The cliffs of the Palos Verdes Peninsula towered above us. We waited. We only had eight hundred yards to go, and I just wanted to finish. There were people parking cars on the cliffs, scurrying down a steep embankment to the rocky beach.

Stacey was dropping back. She was about two hundred yards behind the boys, and she looked bad.

When Andy and Dennis reached me, they were too exhausted to talk. Grimly they took long sips of lukewarm tea. We waited for five minutes, but we were getting very cold. Stockwell and Johnson told us to swim four hundred yards and then wait for Stacey.

We crawled slowly forward, and then a current sweeping around Point Vicente slammed into us. The water temperature suddenly dropped to fifty-five degrees. It was so cold every muscle in our bodies stiffened up.

“I’m freezing,” Andy said.

“Me too,” Dennis said.

“Let’s just finish now,” Andy urged.

“Look, she’s not that far back. She will be here in only a few minutes. Remember, we wanted to do this as a team,” I said.

“I can’t wait any longer,” Andy said, and Dennis joined him.

I waited for Stacey and swam with her to shore.

Dennis and Andy finished the crossing in twelve hours and twenty-six minutes, ten minutes ahead of Stacey and me. We became the youngest group of teenagers to swim across the Catalina Channel. It was a huge achievement, and it awakened a dream that had been sleeping within me: I wanted to swim the English Channel. And now I knew I could make the distance. Both swims were twenty-one miles in a straight line.

While we were rewarming in sleeping bags on the beach in Palos Verdes, I overheard Andy talking with a reporter from the
Los Angeles Times.
He said that he and Dennis were very happy that they’d finished so strongly and that they’d sprinted into shore ten minutes before the girls. That made me angry, but I didn’t say anything. At that moment, I decided I was going to swim the English Channel and I wasn’t going to wait for anyone. I would try to set a new men’s and women’s world record.

As soon as I got home that morning I drew a hot bath. I must have sat in it for two hours, and I was so tired I went to bed immediately afterward.

Within a week after the Catalina Channel crossing, I asked my parents if they would support me on a swim across the English Channel to break the world record. They agreed to help. My mother suggested talking with Ron Blackledge to see if he would be willing to coach me.

None of the swimmers who had completed the crossing with me had any desire to make another channel attempt. They returned to pool swimming. If Ron coached me, he would have to do it on an individual basis, and my parents would pay him for his guidance. We discussed the idea over the phone and he asked if he could think about it, talk it over with his wife, and get back to me. Coaching a
swimmer for any channel crossing was a huge commitment, and although he immediately said he wanted to do it, he knew that it would impact his time with his wife.