by Lynne Cox
“Here, Nancy, let me give you a hug,” Dennis said, opening his arms wide and chasing after her.
Andy grabbed another glob and also took off after her. Someone slimed me on the shoulder and I laughed, then moved out of the light to escape. I didn’t want to waste any energy, and I knew that this swim was going to take every bit I had. I also needed to calm down and think. There would be plenty of time to do this during the swim, hours upon hours, but I needed to find my focus.
I looked up at the sky. The moon was distant and less than half full, perfect for the swim. It meant that we would be making the crossing on a neap tide. There would be less water movement between high and low tide, less tidal change, and less current, and this would give us more of a chance of completing the crossing.
Looking more deeply into the sky, I found the North Star and noted our position in relationship to it. I planned to use this as a reference point during the swim. A breeze was stirring the water, and I felt my skin begin to chill. The last thing I wanted to do was start off cold. I told myself to calm down, to take it one mile at a time, and to never look back once I left shore. I knew I was prepared, and I was confident.
Running my hands along the back of my head, I parted my long brown hair, wound one side around my hand and stuffed it into my white cap, then did the same for the other side. The waiting was making me anxious.
Ron finally came ashore. He was speaking on the walkie-talkie with my father, who had come along as the team physician. My father was checking with Ron, asking him where he could find the blankets on the lead boat in case someone went into hypothermia and needed to be bundled up. I could hear the sounds of the paddlers moving their paddleboards into position; it was so black that someone ran into someone else. This all seemed to be taking an incredibly long amount of time. I worried again about cooling off.
Finally, Ron called us over for a last-minute pep talk. “In a few minutes, Stockwell and Johnson, in the dory, are going to turn on a spotlight so they can see you enter the water. Mr. Yeo is going to fire the starting gun, then accompany you on the paddleboard. I want you to stay close together. It is very dark here. Darker than I expected it to be. We don’t want to lose any of you in the water. If there is a problem, I don’t want you stopping. We won’t be able to see you if you stop. You’re going to have to keep swimming with your head up and tell us what your problem is. I don’t think you’re going to have any problems. The water is calm. The forecast is for light and variable winds late in the morning. I don’t think we could have a better day for this. You’ve trained hard. You’re ready. Is everyone set?”
“Yes,” we said. We turned and wished one another good luck, then we hugged. We walked to the edge of the ocean and Mr. Yeo said, “Okay, take your marks,” and then he fired the gun. We saw the white flash and heard the gunshot echoing off the cliff walls.
I walked into the water, dove through the surf, and began swimming. It felt wonderful, exciting, strange, and scary knowing that I had just pushed off Catalina Island and was now swimming across the vast Pacific Ocean to the North American continent. Turning my head and breathing, I saw the universe filled with light from distant constellations. I felt even smaller, and yet somehow powerful.
Swimming was difficult. While we could see the tiny lights on the dory and on the paddleboards, we couldn’t see one another. We were on edge. There were deep-water pelagic sharks in this channel: big ones, white ones, man-and woman-eating ones. No long-distance swimmer had been attacked during a crossing, yet we knew that they were down there somewhere and that any moment we could become a midnight snack.
We were swimming erratically—fast, moderate, then faster—and we were unable to settle down and establish a pace. This was using way too much energy. We needed to get into our flow and maintain one speed for efficiency. The truth was that we were excited and scared. We had never swum in such blackness. We couldn’t see our own arms or our hands pulling right beneath our bodies. For safety and a sense of security, we were swimming closer than we ever did in workouts. Stacey unintentionally elbowed me in the ribs; I nearly jumped out of my skin. Overcorrecting, she cut too far left and ran into Nancy. Spooked, Nancy let out a series of bloodcurdling screams. That set off a series of chain reactions, and we ran into each other, overcompensated, and ran into someone else.
Sharks are attracted to thrashing and splashing, sounds that resemble sick or injured fish. This is their food source. Using sensors on their snouts, they can detect electrical fields and feel, through their noses, the movement of fish and people in the water. Donald Nelson, a shark expert who did pioneering work in this field, once told me that sharks can detect even minute electrical fields emitted by fish and other animals. I wondered if they could feel the electrical impulses of our hearts. Mine was beating fast and strong. I pushed that thought away. It wouldn’t help me at all in my effort to swim across this channel. But I knew the way we were swimming, we sounded more like food than swimmers.
In the distance we could barely see the lead boat. It looked like a star on the water. The paddlers and kayaker were not visible, but I could hear them saying, “You’re doing a great job. Keep going.”
I lifted my head to find the tiny light on the dory and tried to maintain a constant distance from it, hoping that I could establish a pace this way. After perhaps an hour, it was hard to tell whether this plan was working; there were no reference points to help me determine the distance we had covered or the time it had taken to arrive at that point. Still, it seemed like we were settling into a pace, beginning to stretch out our arm strokes and slow our rapid breathing. Then someone squealed and adrenaline shot through my body, and I felt myself swimming on the upper inches of the water. Worse were those moments of not knowing. There was a delay between the scream and finding out what happened.
“It’s okay; it’s just seaweed. Don’t worry, relax—just reverse your stroke and you’ll untangle yourself,” one of the paddlers reassured us.
“There’s a problem,” someone said. There was a discussion, but it was hard to catch the conversation with my head underwater, so I swam with my head up.
“The lights on these boards are fading,” one paddler shouted. “So is the one on the dory. Look, it’s fading to orange. The batteries are dying. Mine’s nearly gone.”
“We don’t have much time before they both go,” said the other paddler.
“Does anyone have extra batteries?” someone shouted.
I heard Stockwell on the walkie-talkie in the dory talking to someone in the lead boat. “They’re searching,” his deep voice boomed across.
“Have them move closer together.”
Then someone whistled loudly and said, “Hey, hold up for a minute.” It was Mr. Yeo. “You guys are going to have to stop for a minute. We need to put some new batteries in our flashlights so you can see us.”
“Ahhhhhh! Shoot!” we said, treading water. “How long are we going to have to wait?” When we stopped swimming, we couldn’t hang on to anyone or anything or we would be disqualified.
“This is really dumb. How could they have forgotten the batteries? Are we going to have to stop the channel swim because of this?” Andy said.
“I’m getting awfully cold just treading water,” Nancy said.
When we were swimming, we were generating heat, but once we stopped, our heat production diminished substantially. In a swimming pool, where water temperatures usually ranged from seventy-six to eighty degrees, we wouldn’t have lost body heat very quickly, but the cool sixty-five-degree seawater began leaching heat from our bodies. Nancy sucked her teeth, making a shivering sound.
Someone was saying something on the radio. It was garbled. Stockwell translated: “They found them. It will only be a couple more minutes. They’re going to turn the lead boat and bring the batteries here. That way you can also have a feeding.”
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.
&nb
sp; 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.”
