Swimming to Antarctica

by Lynne Cox

  I didn’t understand why he was so excited, so he explained that by training in cold temperatures, there was a good chance that I could adjust enough to stay in the water for a longer time period and maintain a normal body temperature.

  This meant that there was a good chance that I could swim across the Strait of Magellan, and he, Dr. Drinkwater, and Anne Loucks offered to accompany me off and on during the training program and to continue gathering data. For two months, I trained in fifty-four-degree water. During one workout in fifty-degree water, Dr. Drinkwater took my core temperature. It was 101°. None of us knew what would happen to me in the Strait of Magellan if the water temperature was in the forties, but I decided I had to try.

  12

  The Strait of Magellan

  When John Sonnichsen and I arrived in Punta Arenas, Chile, we were welcomed into local people’s homes and shops. And whenever John and I walked on the street, people came over to us and wished us mucha suerte—much luck. Having their support made me feel very welcome and happy, and at the same time, I felt the burden of expectation. No one had swum across the Strait of Magellan, and it seemed that everyone in the entire city of Punta Arenas knew that this was my goal and wanted to show their overwhelming enthusiasm and support.

  The pressure of expectation increased considerably during my first day training in the strait. The water temperature that day was forty-four degrees. It was so cold that I was able to get into the Atlantic Ocean only as far as my knees. For twenty minutes I stood there thinking, How in the world am I ever going to make this swim? Granted, in a straight line, the distance across the strait is only a mile and a half, from the tip of Chile to the island of Tierra del Fuego. But before we even started on this adventure, John and I knew there was no way I would ever swim in a straight line. The currents and tides could be as strong as ten knots, faster than a rain-fed river after a torrential downpour. This swim, we predicted, would take me at least an hour.

  John and I had just traveled to the other half of the Americas; we were tired and jet-lagged, and I told myself to take that into consideration, to give myself a break. Still, that initial dip was very daunting; I just didn’t know how far I could push myself

  The next day, pushing negative thoughts and feelings aside, I slid my feet in and walked into the icy water again, this time to my shoulders, and made myself stand there for twenty minutes.

  On one level, my progress was incredibly slow; yet at the same time, I realized that I was doing something that had never been done before. Everything I attempted had to be performed cautiously, in small steps. I had to allow time for my body to gradually adapt.

  Little by little, over the course of the first week, I managed to extend my training time in the water so that I could swim for up to an hour. My big reward came after every workout. There was a family named Fernandez who lived in a large home on the beach near my training area. Every day they would come outside and walk the beach with John, and they invited us into their home afterward to get warm and have hot chocolate with them. They let me thaw out in their hot tub and sit with them beside a fire while the two older boys played their guitars and sang Chilean folk songs for us.

  One day the two sons donned their wet suits and swam out into the strait with me so they could show me shipwrecks along the shore. In a mile’s area there were perhaps fifty shipwrecks, some fairly recent, others hundreds of years old. It was like swimming over liquid history, fascinating and yet eerie; we were passing over a graveyard of ships that had traveled from the far reaches of the world, from Italy, Portugal, Britain, and Spain.

  After two weeks of training I was able to stay in forty-four-degree water for up to two hours. One of my most difficult training sessions was on Christmas Day. It was the first time I had ever been away from my family at Christmas, and although I enjoyed being with families in Chile, I realized how very far I was from home.

  During that workout on Christmas Day the sky suddenly went black, as it had that day in New Hampshire when I was nine years old and swimming in the pool alone. This time, though, the Fernandez brothers and a small group of locals and tourists from England walked alongside me during the wild and pounding hailstorm. Once the storm subsided, they were joyful at having done something so strange and different, something all of us would remember for our entire lives.

  Unfortunately, the stormy weather continued through the next day. But on December 27, the Chilean navy, which had volunteered to provide assistance for the swim, informed us that it was time to travel by bus to what is known as the First Narrows. This is the passage, at one point only a mile and a half wide, that Magellan had discovered when sailing from the Atlantic Ocean through to the Pacific Ocean.

  When we reached the First Narrows, we waited for the Chilean navy ship the Elicura to land and drop its ramp onshore so we could walk aboard. As we watched Captain Furniss attempt to land, we held our breath. The tide was racing into the strait from the Atlantic at seven knots, moving like a flooding river. Two hundred meters offshore, the current caught the Elicura and spun it around as if it were a toy boat. Alarms on board sounded, as men scrambled around deck. The ship was about to run aground.

  Quickly, Captain Furniss ordered his wheelman to steer offshore, but the ship wasn’t responding. The captain ordered more power to the engines, and a deep rumble vibrated the air and beach. The ship still didn’t move.

  John pointed. “Look at the stern. See all the brown water? The propeller’s in too close, and they’re churning up sand. He’s in trouble.”

  Hoping that they could ride the current to a point where it diminished and then cut across it, the captain ordered his wheelman to parallel the shore. There was only a small margin for error, and a delay between when the captain gave the order and how quickly the ship responded. Fearing he would run aground in those moments, we held our breath. The ship seemed to teeter in the current between the sea and the shore. Fortunately, the captain made the right call. As he anticipated, the current slackened, and he quickly ordered his wheelman to turn offshore.

  Watching this was terribly sobering. If a ship can’t land in that current, what’s it going to be like trying to swim across it? I wondered with a sense of dread. After that attempted landing, John and I thought the swim would have to be postponed for the day. But the captain wasn’t ready to give up. He made a second attempt to pick us up, this time allowing for more time to turn the stern in to shore so they could drop the ramp. But once again the current whipped the ship around and tossed it precariously within a couple hundred meters of shore. This time Captain Furniss reacted sooner, increasing the ship’s speed and pulling offshore. Then he immediately ordered the crew to lower a Zodiac inflatable rubber boat into the water. Two of his men motored in to shore to pick up John and me, as well as a number of reporters from all over Chile and the international press, who had been assigned to cover what they considered would be a historic swim.

  Maneuvering the rubber inflatable was much easier than trying to land the Elicura, and within minutes two frogmen had picked us up and ferried us out to the ship. The ship towered at least thirty feet above us, and as we came alongside under full power, the rubber inflatable began bouncing and rebounding wildly off the port side of the ship. Waves were washing over the pontoons into the rubber inflatable, and the wind was blowing sheets of water onto us.

  The only way to get on board was to climb onto a slippery pontoon, balance on it until the moment just before the boat and ship collided, then leap up to grab a ladder. It was risky. Missing the handhold would result in being squashed between the two boats or being sucked into the ship’s engines.

  John went ahead of me. The boats smashed together while his legs were sandwiched in between and he yelled in pain, nearly losing his grip on the ladder. Somehow he managed to hold on and pull himself up. Once on board, he leaned over and called me to follow.

  It was scary standing on the pontoon with my arms extended for balance. Just a moment before I leaped, a wave caught the inf
latable and it dropped out from under me. Leaning back, I tumbled into the boat, got up quickly while I had any nerve left, and leaped toward the ladder. It was narrow, slippery, and steep, and it bounced wildly in the waves. The climb was straight up. As the Elicura rocked and swayed, I was afraid to let go of each ladder rung so I could reach for the next. My hand missed once, and I froze there in midair, not wanting to go any farther, but knowing I had to. And the frogmen were waiting for me so they could climb on board.

  “Don’t look down,” John warned.

  Of course I did, and the sight of the boats colliding below me scared me even more. This was not what I expected at all. It wasn’t supposed to be this difficult to get to a swim. If it was as hairy as this, what was the swim going to be like? These are not helpful thoughts, I told myself. Focus on what you need to do now. Look at the rung, extend your arm, hold on to it, step onto the next rung, and don’t let your foot slip.

  At the top, John and Captain Furniss grabbed me under each arm and hoisted me on board. My heart was racing, and I was drenched.

  We followed Captain Furniss to the ship’s bridge. The slight but strong-looking man welcomed us on board and had us stand by the heater, near a table covered by a nautical chart of the Strait of Magellan.

  “We’ll take a look at that in a moment,” he said. “First, I have to check on my men and make sure they’ve managed to pull the rubber inflatable on board. Here, let me introduce you to Dr. Fernandez, the ship’s doctor. He’s here to ensure your safety during the swim, Lynne, and this is Commander Charlie—” I never did catch the commander’s last name.

  Dr. Fernandez greeted me with the customary kiss on each cheek, making my face glow. Maybe it was the intensity of the swim, or being so far from home, or maybe it was simply because of Dr. Fernandez. From the moment I met him, I really liked him. Dr. Fernandez was good-hearted and caring, and he radiated enthusiasm. He was also very attractive—tall and trim, with sandy blond hair and eyes as blue as the sea. I quickly gravitated toward him.

  When Captain Furniss returned, we gathered around the chart. He had been briefed on what we wanted to achieve. And he had been given orders to work with us, so from the onset we began to be a team, with John conveying our thoughts about how we wanted to coordinate the swim. I freely asked questions of the captain, Dr. Fernandez, and the commander. It was so exciting being on the ship’s bridge, looking out across the whitecapped strait, feeling the ship moving beneath my feet, and knowing that we were working with one of the top navies in the world.

  During the past few weeks John and I had been gathering information on the strait. We’d spoken with the Chilean coast guard, which at first had been supportive of the swim and then had decided it was too dangerous. The coast guard withdrew their support, said they would not supply any boat for the swim, and then pressured the Chilean navy to do the same.

  John and I were in a meeting with the admiral of the coast guard and the admiral of the Chilean navy when this happened. There was a strongly worded discussion between the two men. Neither John nor I understood enough Spanish to comprehend what they were saying, but from their body language we could tell that they were not happy with each other.

  Ultimately, through an interpreter—although he spoke some English—the admiral of the Chilean navy explained the situation. He said that the coast guard could do as they wished and that he understood the reasons for their protest, but he had given his word that he would support us for the swim. He had assured the Chilean ambassador and consul general in San Francisco that they would help us, and he would not back down on his word. Besides that, he firmly believed that we could achieve our goal with their support.

  I thanked the naval admiral for his backing and asked if I could borrow the interpreter to speak with the admiral of the coast guard. It was obvious that they were a little surprised that I’d taken the initiative. I don’t think they were accustomed to listening to nineteen-year-old girls, but they humored me. I didn’t want the swim to create any animosity between the Chilean navy and the Chilean coast guard, so I told the admiral of the coast guard that I greatly appreciated his concern for my safety, and that it was of concern to me too. That was exactly why I had contacted him, to request his help to ensure my safety throughout the swim. He knew more about the tides and currents in the strait than I ever would; he dealt with them every day. His men boarded and piloted all the ships that traveled through the strait as a safety precaution. He also knew the mistakes people made in these waters, all the things to avoid. So we needed his help, and his knowledge. I told him I had no intention of attempting the swim if it became too dangerous.

  In the end, the admiral of the coast guard said that he was still hesitant about the swim, but he would provide whatever information and assistance he could. I asked if he could help us get in touch with a man who operated a small ferryboat in the First Narrows, who would have daily and in-depth knowledge of the tides and currents in the area. When we left the meeting that day, the admirals shook hands, and they were smiling.

  As the Elicura sailed southward across the strait, toward Tierra del Fuego, we worked with Captain Furniss, his commander, Dr. Fernandez, and the crew to try to determine the best starting point, the swim’s course, and the end point. The forecast was mixed. And neither John nor I knew it at the time, but this was Captain Furniss’s first solo command. He was being prudent and cautious. He wanted the swim to be a success.

  We had hopes of starting the swim that afternoon, but the wind was howling across the treeless, golden Patagonian flatlands, gaining speed with each passing hour, and increasing up to thirty knots. The Strait of Magellan was a sea of three-foot-high aquamarine waves that exploded into whitecaps and swirled and seethed around the majestic ship, the only boat operating in the strait.

  It didn’t seem likely that the wind would subside quickly, but Captain Furniss knew that conditions in the strait changed more rapidly than anywhere in the world. There were time constraints on us; it wasn’t clear how long we could tie up the navy ship, but we knew it wouldn’t be more than a few days. So Captain Furniss wanted to get the swim off as soon as it was safe. He also had other considerations at home. We didn’t know it at the time, but his wife was in the hospital about to give birth. Hoping for a lull in the wind, Captain Furniss ordered his crew to cruise slowly back and forth along Tierra del Fuego’s shore. It felt as if we were pacing, letting off nervous energy.

  What this did, though, was to enable us to study the current alongshore by watching the movement of kelp in the water. The kelp was stretched completely out, at right angles to the shore. That meant that the current was whipping around the cove, moving at full bore, at nine knots. Tides were going to be critical in this swim, and our success would depend on the way we crafted our course.

  John and I were very concerned that the current flowing into the strait from the Atlantic would be so strong that it would push me too far west, to an area where the Strait of Magellan expanded; there the distance across was at least ten miles. We were also very concerned that the current flowing from the Pacific side of the Strait of Magellan would be so strong that it would push us completely out of the First Narrows and into the Atlantic Ocean, so that we would never make it to shore.

  What we decided to do was to start the swim at the tail end of the tide when the water was flowing from the Atlantic toward the Pacific, from east to west. Then the tide would go slack for a period of time. We had no idea how long this would be, but it would be when I could swim directly across and gain the most direct distance. Then the tide would turn and the current would flow in the opposite direction, from the Pacific toward the Atlantic, west to east. The change would start out gradually, then build like a freight train. Any miscalculation and we would be either too far east or too far west and would fail on the attempt.

  To hedge our bets, we figured that we would make the starting point in the area of the First Narrows in the middle of Tierra del Fuego. That way, if the current carried us too fa
r to either side, we would still be able to land onshore before being swept into the Atlantic Ocean or into the widest part of the Strait of Magellan. From that midpoint, we could aim for the center of the beach on the Chilean mainland. The beach there was seven miles long, which would give us a three-and-a-half-mile margin for error. There was another major consideration, too: the ferryboat captain had warned us that if a storm approached and the tide changed very rapidly, whirlpools would occur at the headlands, near the area where we would finish the swim. The whirlpools reached full velocity when the tide was flowing at maximum speed. They were extremely dangerous. Local people had told John and me that these whirlpools had taken down ships and small boats, killing everyone on board.

  Using binoculars, Captain Furniss studied the shore, looking for a small beach where we could land. The spray off the wave tops was so thick that he had trouble seeing through the veil of saltwater mist. He directed his men to sail closer to shore, then turned the ship directly into the current and increased the ship’s engines to nearly full throttle so we could hold our position and all of us could take a good look at the shore. We found a cove without many rocks or much kelp, perfect for the start of the swim. But the weather conditions were deteriorating so rapidly that Captain Furniss had to turn the ship around and head for the Chilean mainland before the storm hit.