by Lynne Cox
The old fisherman walked cautiously over to us. His eyes were clouded with cataracts; his hands were dry and crisscrossed by cuts. When we asked him if he could give us some information about currents around the Cape, he said he would try and he smiled. But when he discovered what I wanted to do there, his smile disappeared.
In addition to the great whites there were other aggressive sharks, such as tigers and bronze whalers. The tigers were always in the area, while the bronze whalers were migratory and only swim to Cape Point in the summer. These sharks are so aggressive that one had recently jumped into a local fisherman’s boat to get at him.
He gave us another tidbit of information: usually sharks bump their victims before they bite them, to make sure they’re food.
The old fisherman asked me if I was sure I wanted to swim around the Cape. I nodded, but in truth, I had some real doubts; I’d never swum with so many sharks before. We had a solid plan, I told him. Alex’s diving team would be in the water with me, watching for sharks. Another diver would be towed behind a ski boat, hanging on to a rope with one hand and carrying a shark gun in the other. If the diver sighted a shark and it looked threatening, I’d get out of the water; if there wasn’t time for me to clear the water, he’d have to shoot it.
Shaking his head, the fisherman asked me if I was frightened. I nodded. He looked directly into my eyes, as if to make sure it was okay and as if to say, Don’t worry. First he closed his eyes and nodded slowly, then opened his eyes, put his hand on my shoulder, and chanted something in Zulu. When he finished, a younger man said that his grandfather had just given me a Zulu blessing. He had asked the Great Spirit to keep the sharks away so I would return safely to shore.
Despite his kindness and blessing, for the next week, prior to the swim, I had shark dreams. One night I dreamed that Big Ben swallowed me whole. I rode on a stream of water over his tongue, past his enormous uvula, and down into his stomach. But my presence irritated his stomach, and he coughed me out. Another night I dreamed that a Jaws-sized shark came up from under the water, bumped me, and tried to bite me, but my team managed to grab me and drag me out of the water in the nick of time.
Alex and I had discussed using a shark cage, but the cage would be impossible to tow through high surf. And during the swim, if we suddenly got a set of waves, they could push the cage down, taking me with it. Besides that, the drag created by the cage would create a current that would enable me to swim up to 30 percent faster; I would be towed by the cage. To me this was cheating. So we decided to have two boats for the swim, one positioned on either side of me. The larger, thirty-five-foot ski boat would be on my left side, closest to shore, as we rounded the cape; on my right would be a rubber inflatable, a Zodiac. Alex and Sonnichsen would be in the Zodiac, and Mario and Doug and a few other spearfishing friends on the ski boat. They would take turns standing guard, and because of the intensity of the swim, they would change places every twenty minutes. The man being pulled along would hold the tow rope with one hand and a spear gun in the other. We had discussed using bang sticks, but the crew said they were too dangerous; they could explode by accident, injuring or killing the diver and swimmer. The spear guns sounded like a better idea. Two local swimmers, Hugh and Dennis, offered to ride along in the ski boat to serve as shark spotters.
Once the elite diving team, Sonnichsen, and I reached Cape Point, we picked our way through flowering protea bushes and shrubs to the cliffs overlooking the ocean. To the left was the powder blue Indian Ocean and to the right, the deep-cobalt blue Atlantic. Directly below us was a seething white line of foam jutting directly out from the point for at least half a mile. This was where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans collided.
From our vantage point a thousand feet above the beach, we could see the waves breaking. We couldn’t tell how large they were, but the granite cliffs beneath our feet trembled as the waves impacted the beach. We could hear the concussions of waves as they broke on the shore and their echoes as the sound carried around the cove. It was ominous.
Sonnichsen and I had discussed the pros and cons of the start and finish and had finally decided to start on the Atlantic side, in an area called McClears Beach. Our route would take us around Cape Point and back into Buffels Beach, on the Indian Ocean side. The swim would cover a minimum of ten miles, all depending upon the currents.
Alex and John headed back to the harbor to get the Zodiac and meet up with the ski-boat crew. When they reached the point by boat, they would wait for us about a mile offshore. Alex was concerned about the Cape rollers. These were waves that got up to thirty feet high in the summer and one hundred feet high in winter. Caused by storms and calving icebergs in Antarctica, these rogue waves would suddenly rise up from out of nowhere and sink ships that were sailing near the Cape. Alex thought that if they stayed at least a mile offshore they would avoid any problems.
Doug led the way down a narrow rock trail; I followed with Mario and a group of journalists. Doug was carrying a long steel rod. It was the spear gun, but it measured less than an inch in diameter. I wondered how that was ever going to stop a shark.
The path narrowed, grew steeper, and became overgrown with thorny scrub. Doug warned me to be careful where I placed my hands. I thought he was concerned that I would get a handful of thorns. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the problem. There were large venomous snakes in the Cape area—Cape cobras, coral snakes, ring-necked spitting cobras, and puff adders. The Cape cobra grew up to five feet long. It could spit venom eight feet away, blinding its prey, then move faster than lightning to bite it. All of these snakes liked to coil up and rest in the bushes.
As we approached a rocky area, Mario wanted me to watch my footing. He had seen puff adders sunning themselves in the area just last week. The puff adders were locally known as large lazy snakes that wouldn’t slither away or give you any warning they were underfoot. If you stepped on one, it would just turn and inject its deadly venom into your leg.
I was scared to death of snakes. We managed to make it safely to the base of the cliffs, and I was relieved—until Doug told me that we might encounter one more snake in the water, the yellow-bellied sea snake, known as the cobra of the sea. These sea snakes don’t attack. They do bite if disturbed, but their mouths are very small. There was a good possibility that we would see them in the sea slicks, long narrow lines on the ocean’s surface where the currents converge, where debris accumulates, and where the water is calmer.
When we reached the powdery white beach, the waves towered above our heads. They were at least fifteen to twenty feet high, taller than any wave I’d ever seen. And they were breaking on the beach with so much force, I couldn’t hear anything else. I’d had no experience with huge surf, but I knew that if I made a mistake, I would be clobbered.
Doug and Mario squeezed into their wet suits while I took off my sweats and handed them to a journalist. He planned to go around the Cape by car and meet us at the finish. It seemed like it was taking an awfully long time for Doug and Mario to get ready. Mario shouted in my ear that he was also a little worried about the surf.
Doug asked me to give the journalist any rings or earrings or bracelets before I got into the water. There were snook in the sea, barracuda-like fish with sharp teeth. They could be aggressive, and it was better not to wear anything that would attract them.
Doug and I walked down a slope to the edge of the beach, Mario lagging behind a little. The waves were crashing with so much force I could feel the shock vibrating through my entire body. Wave foam was flying over our heads and into our faces. Following closely behind Doug, I looked back and saw Mario licking his mask to keep it from fogging, then pulling it over his head.
Almost as soon as I entered the water, the bottom dropped out from under me. I was in foam five feet high, up to my neck. It was like entering the largest bubble bath in the world, only this tub was filled with fifty-eight-degree water. Waves were surging toward us, gaining height by the second. A rip caught Doug and me and dragged us rapid
ly toward a wave that must have been twenty feet high, its crest beginning to curl. I fought the water. Trying to remain near shore until the wave broke, I leaned back, then sprinted across the froth. It was so strange: I was pulling fast and hard, but the water was so full of bubbles there was nothing to push against, no resistance, nothing to grab so I could propel myself beyond the waves. Another wave towered toward me. It broke above my head. I dove deep, pulling fast through the foam, working hard to get down low, really low, before the wave collapsed on me.
The wave was tumbling, rolling forward, pulling me up, as if I were drawn by some invisible string, then bending me backward. I didn’t want to go backward over the falls. Pulling as hard as I could, I tried to go deeper. My lungs were burning. I wanted to come up for air, but I couldn’t. Another wave was breaking, one after the other in successive concussions. They were too large to swim through.
At last there was a gap in the set. Fighting up through the foam, I gasped for air and looked around. Doug was to my right; he told me to sprint out farther before the next set hit. I couldn’t see Mario, and neither could Doug. A minute passed, maybe two; we tried to see over the backs of the waves, but they were too high. We discussed the possibility of going back in to shore to find him. Doug said it was too dangerous.
Finally, maybe a couple of minutes later, the waves subsided and we saw the journalists pulling Mario out of the surf. He was standing up, but his mask was down around his neck, and his flippers were off. He waved for us to go on without him.
Together, Doug and I kicked offshore. With a spear gun in one hand, Doug was unable to swim and he was unable to see what was below us. I wondered if he felt as much of a target as I did.
There was no sign of the Zodiac, so we decided to keep going. The water was lapis blue, clear, and felt thick with current. Warm sun shone on our backs, and puffy white clouds cast dark shadows on the water. Still there was no sign of the Zodiac, so we turned parallel to the coast and headed south, toward Cape Point.
The current twisted and turned around us, and we moved through pockets of shocking cold and warm. Finally, in the distance we saw Alex and Sonnichsen in the Zodiac and the ski boat just behind them.
Tired from kicking so far, Doug climbed into the ski boat while another diver jumped into the water, grabbed a rope tied to the boat, and held on. We started moving together; then something large bumped me on my right side. Sharks always bump their victims before they bite them, the old fisherman told me, and so I thought it was a shark and nearly jumped out of my skin. But it was the Zodiac. The wind was flowing across the Zodiac’s bow, making it difficult to keep the boat moving in a straight line.
We rounded Cape Point and watched the lighthouse on the cliffs at the very tip slide to our left. We were now a mile from shore, and I watched the breaking waves outline the golden African continent with a line of white.
Quickly we reached the line of foam where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans converged. Here the water boiled with current. We changed course three or four times to find our way through the current, and it took us nearly an hour to round the point. Soon, though, we were six miles from Buffels Bay. But the wind was beginning to increase. It was gusting up to thirty-five knots, a short, rapid, hard-to-find-a-place-to-breathe chop. I was ticked off at the wind. It wasn’t supposed to be blowing, and it wasn’t supposed to be blowing from this direction.
Clouds passed across the sun and turned off the sunlight like a light switch. It was now impossible to see anything below. The divers changed position again. And then something rammed me. I jumped and looked over. It was the Zodiac again. In the wind and chop, Alex was fighting to maintain control and I was fighting to control my emotions.
As we moved into the Indian Ocean, the water warmed up to seventy-two degrees, and it was clear and turquoise blue. Long strands of kelp that looked like mermaids’ hair gently rolled in and out with the small waves. Brightly colored fish swam beneath us, and for the first time I began to relax, stretch my strokes out, and enjoy the swim.
Doug’s voice snapped me back to reality. “Lynne, see the debris over there? That’s where the yellow-bellied sea snakes congregate. You’ve got to move offshore.”
It didn’t take me more than a moment to react. I quickly swam back into the current flow, where waves slapped me in the face, but I didn’t care; we were just four hundred yards from shore and I could see two wild ostriches and a crowd of cheering South Africans. It was all downhill now.
Turning to my left to breathe and to see how Doug was doing, I suddenly stopped. “Where’s Doug?” I shouted, looking down into the water. He wasn’t hanging on to the rope. Oh my God, where’s Doug? I wondered. I didn’t see a shark.
The crew hadn’t heard me, so I shouted again, above the wind: “Where’s Doug?”
Alex pulled the Zodiac close to me, then looked down. “Go on. Go on! Sprint for shore!” he shouted.
I wasn’t just going to leave Doug. I looked down again. I couldn’t see him. What happened to him? Was he okay? Alex and John were shouting at me to go, insisting that they had the situation under control.
I started sprinting. I was scared for Doug, and for myself. My fear increased with each moment; without any shark spotters, I was really afraid of being attacked. Glancing back over my shoulder I could see both crews leaning over the sides of their boats and staring into the water.
It was the fastest four hundred yards I ever swam. The cheering crowd pressed in around me, and someone threw a towel around my shoulders. I excused myself; I had to see what had happened to Doug.
Alex and Sonnichsen jumped off the Zodiac and hugged me. They were blocking my view. “What happened to Doug?” I asked.
“He’s over there.” Alex pointed. “I’ll let him tell you the story.”
Doug was standing in ankle-deep water straightening his spear. He said, “A twelve-foot bronze whaler shark came up out of the kelp for you. He had his mouth all the way open and I knew he was going to attack, so I went down and shot him. I hit his dorsal fin, and the shark bit the spear, bent it in half, and pulled it out of his side. Then he swam off. The blood from his wound attracted others. That’s why the crew had you sprint in to shore.”
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Sure. It’s quite a good thing that the wind was blowing from the northeast, though. It only blows from that direction one percent of the year. If it had been blowing the normal way, the water would have been turbid, and I wouldn’t have seen the shark,” Doug said, and smiled, rightly proud of himself.
Yes, we had been lucky, I thought, and remembered the old Zulu fisherman who had given me his blessing.
I returned to UCSB to complete my junior year of college. That winter I received a letter from Sandy Blewett, the swimmer I had met a few years before in England, the one who had helped me on the Cook Strait swim. Sandy was planning to attempt a crossing of the English Channel. The year before I had coached her to swim the Catalina Channel. She had been successful and now, with more confidence and training, she asked me if I would coach her for the English Channel.
That summer, my brother, Dave, and I had been training off the California coast with David Yudovin. We had met Yudovin in 1976, when he wanted to swim across the Catalina Channel. He had asked Dave to coach him, and he was successful on the Catalina swim. We had all become good friends, and in following summers Yudovin and I trained together in the ocean off Seal Beach.
Yudovin and I had planned to swim across the Santa Barbara Channel together from Anacapa Island to Ventura, California; the distance was ten miles in a straight line. We had wanted to make the swim during the fall of 1977, but the weather never cooperated. After that our schedules hadn’t meshed, and I’d finally lost interest. Yudovin had decided to continue waiting and had gotten John Sonnichsen to agree to accompany him in the boat, and I decided to help Sandy Blewett, to return the favor she had done for me. I was very excited about working with her again.
We met in Dover, England, in May 19
79, and I watched Sandy swim; she looked really good. After her workout, we walked along the pebbles of Dover Harbour and talked. The air off the North Sea was fresh and sweet, and the sky was brilliant blue. Warm late-afternoon sun cascaded over the white cliffs, giving them a halo of gold. I thought of Fahmy and was glad to be back in Dover again.
As we walked along the harbor, we saw six swimmers moving between the pier and the Hovercraft port. The coach standing on the beach looked familiar. He looked like Monir. Five years had passed since I’d seen him in Egypt. I had met other men, but none of them had ever impressed me the way he had. We had written off and on, but gradually we had stopped writing. Our lives, it seemed, had gone on. But I often thought of him and wondered how he was doing.
This man seemed taller from the back, more muscular. Slowing my pace, I studied him. He must have felt my presence, because he started to turn; I held my breath. It was him, really him.
“Somehow I just knew you would be here this year,” he said, and smiled. His voice was deeper, his face more mature, but the brightness in his eyes was still there.
I wanted to throw my arms around him and give him a big hug, but I couldn’t; it wouldn’t have been proper with the other swimmers there. In Egypt, people didn’t simply hug one another. So I extended my hand, and he took it; my eyes never left his. We both smiled. It was so good to see him.
He had to finish giving the team their workout. I waited, while Sandy said she wanted to go back and take a shower and get warm.
It was simply good to stand beside him and watch him coach. I could tell that his team loved and respected him just as much as I’d loved my past coaches. It was a wonderful thing to see.
When the workout was over and the team went back to the hotel, Monir and I stayed on the beach to talk.
He had traveled to England the year before to try to break my record but had missed it by twenty minutes.
