Swimming to Antarctica

by Lynne Cox

  The media fell silent and did something I had never seen before from the press: they nodded in agreement.

  Dr. Keatinge and Dr. Nyboer were getting agitated. They could see that I was starting to stagger.

  “We’ve got to move her now. She’s really cooling down,” Dr. Keatinge said.

  But the reporter with Radio Moscow asked in English, “Who were the corporate sponsors?”

  Suddenly I was embarrassed. I saw all that the Soviets had done— they had moved ships, helicopters, people, everything to this island. Later I would find out they had spent nearly a million dollars. What could I tell them? That no large U.S. corporation had really supported us? That none of them had believed the Soviets would open their border? I didn’t want to embarrass the United States.

  Thinking for a moment, I said, “Our sponsors were the American people. They were individuals from all over the United States. They were the ones who supported us. And we had some support from companies like Rocky Boots, Alaska Airlines, and Monotherm.” My teeth were chattering so hard I couldn’t talk anymore.

  The Soviet press didn’t understand. They looked perplexed. Didn’t corporate America, the free-enterprise system, support you? Didn’t you get paid millions of dollars for doing this?

  I tried to explain that it was the American system that gave me the freedom to make this swim, but that I hadn’t done it for money. I didn’t tell them that I was now in debt trying to pay for it. Instead, I tried to explain that becoming friends with them was the most important thing.

  “Look, Vladimir,” Dr. Keatinge said sternly, “her temperature is dropping. It could affect her heart. We’ve got to move her immediately. Can you walk, Lynne?”

  I couldn’t flex or grip with my feet. I had no idea how I was going to walk barefoot across the rocks and ice sheet. But two Siberian women emerged from the crowd and presented me with a pair of sealskin slippers with brightly colored red and blue beads on the top of the slippers, and fur surrounding the rest of them. Vladimir explained that the Inuit people who lived on the Siberian mainland, in the Chukhoka’s Luorovetlian region, had made the slippers. They’d chewed the sealskin with their teeth to soften it, then hand-stitched the skin together. With the help of the two women, I slipped them on. They fit perfectly. How had they ever known my size?

  Stumbling and sliding across the rocks toward the tent, I walked with my arms outstretched for balance. The distance to the tent was only two hundred yards, but it felt like half a mile. When we finally arrived at the tent, there was a cot with a heavy sleeping bag, extra blankets, and hot coffee. Standing at the tent entrance, holding a blanket for me, was a woman with dark reddish-brown hair.

  Everything we had requested by telex was in the tent except for the “babushka,” the colorful shawl. My body was shaking like a blender turned up on high. My hands were lifeless clubs. I pulled the coiled wire out of the bottom of my swimsuit and extended it to Dr. Nyboer so he could plug it into the monitor to measure my core temperature. Vladimir entered the tent and explained that the woman with the reddish hair was a Russian doctor. She had been sent specially to take care of me. And she was beside herself. She could see how cold I was, and she was worried. Using hand gestures, she told me to take off my wet swimsuit before I climbed into the sleeping bag. It was one thing to be naked in front of her, but another to do so in front of the two men on my team. I pretended not to understand and tried to climb into the sleeping bag. She wouldn’t let me get away with it. Finally she got it, and waved Dr. Nyboer and Dr. Keatinge out.

  Quickly the Russian doctor placed hot packs at key sites: under the back of my neck, in my armpits, and in my groin area. She felt my cheeks with her hot hands. I just wanted her to keep her hands on my face. They felt so good, and I couldn’t imagine how my face felt to her. She leaned on top of the sleeping bag, giving me the warmth of her body. It was so strange; I felt like her daughter, the way she was fussing over me. My breathing was very rapid as I shivered, laboring to generate heat.

  Dr. Nyboer stepped back into the tent. “What was my time for the swim?” I asked. My teeth were chattering.

  “Two hours and six minutes,” Dr. Nyboer said and he checked the monitor. “Her temperature is down to ninety-four, but I can see it’s beginning to climb back up.”

  Dr. Keatinge was right there beside him and suddenly I felt like their patient. It was a weird change; I’d been the team leader for so long. Dr. Keatinge reached down, took one of my arms between his hands, and slid his hands down to my hand. The warmth of his hands felt so good, I didn’t want him to let go. “Her skin is still very cold. It’s probably about forty degrees.”

  They set the cardiac defibrillator on the table. When the Russian doctor saw it, she bolted out of her chair and shook her head vigorously. She clearly thought they were going to use it, and she quickly moved between them and me. She gave them a look that said, You’d better not touch her.

  Dr. Keatinge tried to explain that it was there just as a precaution. He asked Dr. Nyboer to check my heart.

  Dr. Nyboer opened his black bag, threw the top of the sleeping bag back so my entire chest was exposed to the thirty-degree air, and put the icy stethoscope on my chest, which was suddenly covered with goose bumps.

  “Sounds strong and even. You doing okay?” Dr. Nyboer asked.

  I nodded and covered my head with the sleeping bag so I could breathe into it and trap body heat. This troubled the Russian doctor—she wanted to see my face. She wanted to be able to rub her hand on it so she could tell if I was rewarming. She pulled the sleeping bag back down.

  A minute later, Dr. Nyboer returned, threw the bag back again, and placed the stethoscope on my chest. My body was fighting like mad in a refrigerator-like tent to get warm, and every time I’d start to create a warm airspace around me, someone would open the bag. I knew they needed to make sure my heart wasn’t going into fibrillation, but I couldn’t stand it.

  In the background, I could hear voices and people singing, both in Russian and in a different language. It sounded like they were celebrating—it was a Siberian beach party. I wanted to be out there with them, but I just couldn’t manage it yet.

  Fortunately, my old friend Rich Roberts came into the tent and said that the Soviets had set up two buffet tables on the rocky beach. They were covered with starched white tablecloths, and waiters wearing white smocks were serving hot tea in china cups, dried fish, bread, and chocolate-covered coconut candy. On the cliffs above the tables two army officers were watching everyone with binoculars and taking pictures. There was also a soldier posted to guard my sweat suit, which I had dropped outside the tent.

  About an hour later, when I finally felt warm, I looked up at the Russian doctor and said, “Hi, my name is Lynne. What’s yours?”

  “My name is Rita. Rita Zakharova.” Quickly she opened her wallet and started showing me family pictures.

  “Your children?” I asked, pointing at the pictures.

  “Nyet, no.” She shook her head and said something in Russian that I didn’t understand, then: “Not children. I babushka.”

  “You’re a babushka?” I asked—a colorful shawl?

  “Yes.” She nodded quickly. “Grandchildren.” She pointed to the pictures.

  Rita Zakharova was the babushka I’d requested—a grandmother. To me, she was the warmth and color of Russia.

  She opened a bag, reached in, and excitedly handed me a gift—a beautiful hand-painted lacquer bowl decorated with bright orange, red, and gold flowers. Oh, what can I give her? I thought. I picked up my cap and goggles and handed them to her. Rita motioned that she couldn’t accept them. When I insisted, she took them as if they were precious gifts. If only I could tell her what a precious gift she had given me, sharing her warmth with me. Somehow I think she understood without my having to speak any words. Both of us were almost in tears. She felt my cheeks again and nodded. They were finally warm, and I could feel my lips. Rita smiled, hugged me, and gave me permission to leave the tent
and see what was happening outside.

  21

  Success

  I heard the Inuits singing more clearly. There were people standing around the table and waiters serving them great cups of tea from a huge stainless steel samovar, and there were people standing side by side, Americans and Soviets, just talking. The Soviets had welcomed us with heartfelt gladness, as if we were long-lost friends.

  Claire Richardson said that Pat Omiak had tried to communicate with Zoya and Margaret, the two Siberian Inuit women who had given me the sealskin slippers, but they spoke a different Inuit dialect, called Siberian Yupik. Pat knew, though, that the elders on Little Diomede used to hunt and trade with the Siberian Inuit and could speak Siberian Yupik. He knew that the elders on Little Diomede were at the community center waiting to hear from us, so Omiak called them on the two-way radio. Zoya and Margaret got on the radio and spoke to the elders while the entire village of Little Diomede, including Maria Sullivan and Dr. Nyboer Sr., listened in on the conversation.

  Zoya and Margaret asked about the walrus hunting and whaling around Little Diomede. Margaret said it wasn’t good for the Inuit in the village of Magadan, on the Sea of Okhotsk. Most of the whales were gone. She also asked about John Kiminock, who had sailed from Siberia to Nome in the 1930s and never returned. The elders knew John. He was now eighty-six years old and lived in Nome. Then the elders asked about John’s family whom he hadn’t heard from for more than fifty years. Margaret said two of John’s sisters had died, but three were still alive. They continued talking to each other, learning what had happened to their relatives during the past forty-eight years. On Pat Omiak’s radio, caught up in emotion, we heard someone singing; then the whole village of Little Diomede joined in. They were singing Siberian Yupik songs that they had memorized from old records. Zoya and Margaret joined in; these were songs they had learned as children. As they sang back and forth to each other, some of the villagers started performing traditional Inuit dances. The gap created by all the years of separation had been bridged.

  We continued to celebrate. One man gave me an Olympic Games pin, another man gave me a dove pin with the word mir—“peace”— etched on its wing, and the woman from the KGB gave me a pin with the U.S. and Soviet flags crossed together. When it was time to leave, the sun was shining brightly and the sky was blue and clear.

  When we reached Little Diomede late that afternoon, all the villagers came out to greet us. We were fogged in that evening and couldn’t leave until the next day. Eric Pentilla met us in the morning and helicoptered us off the island to Nome. Our departure to Nome was late, but Pentilla radioed ahead, and Alaska Airlines held the plane for us. When we boarded, twenty minutes late, everyone on the plane burst into applause. The captain had given them the background on the swim. Later, after takeoff, he came out to meet us. It was strange too; once we were in the air, people started asking me for autographs. I was happy to oblige, until the pilot asked the passengers to return to their seats, because there was too much weight on one side of the plane.

  The celebration continued that night in Anchorage, and in the morning, as promised, I flew with Maria Sullivan to New York City to appear on ABC’s Good Morning America. The other members of the crew had to return home, but Maria had offered to stay on and help with anything that came up. I was glad she was with me. Once we reached New York, the media barrage was unbelievable. Journalists were calling the hotel night and day from all around the world. Finally Maria asked the hotel manager to hold all calls.

  Going from Nome to New York City was a real shocker. It was August, and in Alaska it had felt like winter. In New York it was eighty-five degrees and humid. All I had left to wear were my sweats, and they smelled like dead walrus from the ride back to Little Diomede in the umiak. But it was wonderful having a hot shower and clean sheets, and ordering room service, sharing chocolate and cheesecake with Maria.

  I was so worried that I was going to have to wear the walrus-smelling sweats on the television program. There was no money left in my account for clothes, or anything. Fortunately, Maria had spoken with Joe Novella, the ABC producer, and in the morning he handed me his company credit card and said, “Buy whatever you need.”

  Good Morning America had me scheduled for an interview between Boy George and Colin Powell. When I entered the greenroom, Colin Powell was sitting there, waiting to be interviewed by Charlie Gibson. Someone came in and handed me a dozen roses; they had a card from Joe Novella congratulating me on the swim and the interview. That piqued Colin Powell’s interest, but he didn’t say anything. I introduced myself and asked him if he was the president’s assistant for national security affairs. He nodded, a little surprised that I knew this, and asked me why I was there. Once I explained, he said he had followed my story—all he wanted to talk about was the Bering Strait swim. He said that he thought the swim had already helped diminish tensions between the two superpowers. I didn’t want to talk about me, though; I was more interested in him. It seemed more than coincidence that we were meeting like this. I sensed from our brief conversation that he hoped the relationship with the Soviets would change for the better.

  Four months later, I got a call from a man who identified himself only as Viktor from the Soviet embassy. He asked me what my time was for swimming the Bering Strait. I told him two hours, six minutes, and eleven years. He thanked me and hung up.

  The next evening I received a call from my aunt Jeannine in New York City. “Are you watching television?” she asked. She sounded so excited.

  I said yes, I was watching the news; President Gorbachev and President Reagan were meeting at the White House, and they were about to sign the INF Missile Treaty. Both of our countries were going to start reducing their stockpiles of nuclear arms.

  For the next three hours I sat with my folks, glued to the television. President Gorbachev and President Reagan appeared with Raisa Gorbachev and Nancy Reagan. President Reagan spoke about this first history-making meeting at the White House, and then President Gorbachev made a toast. They raised their glasses and President Gorbachev said, “Last summer it took one brave American by the name of Lynne Cox just two hours to swim from one of our countries to the other. We saw on television how sincere and friendly the meeting was between our people and the Americans when she stepped onto the Soviet shore. She proved by her courage how close to each other our peoples live.” Later in the toast he would add that he saw the swim as a symbol of improving relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.

  Shortly after that, Italian television invited me to Rome for television interviews. A few days later, Pope John Paul asked me to meet with him at the Vatican. Meanwhile, through Claire Richardson, at a party at my home, I had met Dr. Gabriella Miotto. She was a long-time friend of Claire’s, who spoke fluent Italian. Even though we had talked for only five minutes, I thought she was a fine person. So when I got the invitation to go to Rome, since I didn’t have a spouse or agent, I called up Gabriella and asked if she would like to accompany me as my interpreter. Gabriella was in the middle of doing her residency in a small farming town near Bakersfield, working with people who couldn’t afford medical care. She said she would talk to a friend and see if she could get her to cover her schedule for the ten days that Italian television had invited me to be in Rome.

  Our trip to Rome would be unbelievable. I got to talk to the pope about swimming. A fine swimmer himself, he told me his favorite places to swim. He knew all about the Bering Sea swim and gave me a special blessing.

  Then I was asked to meet with President Reagan at the White House in the Oval Office. While I was waiting to meet with him, Ted Turner from CNN came out of the office. He was with a colleague. I had worn a Goodwill Games pin on my dress as a way to acknowledge Walsh’s and Turner’s support, and he saw the pin. Turner was an avid sailor, and he appreciated the significance of swimming across the Bering Strait.

  22

  Siberia’s Gold Medal

  Swimming across the Bering Strait cha
nged everything for me. Now my goal was not only to do something that had never been done before while providing data for cold research, but also to establish bridges between borders. My swims became more three-dimensional, more complex, and, in my mind, far more significant. It seemed to me that a relationship with a country is like a relationship with a person; it’s something that one must continue working on and developing. Even before I made the Bering Strait swim I knew that if I succeeded, I had to continue to try to do another difficult and symbolic swim that would bring our countries together. And so I looked at Lake Baikal, the jewel of Siberia, the deepest lake in the world, and the source of inspiration for Russian poems, literature, and songs.

  Because of the success of the swim across the Bering Strait, in spring of 1988, the Soviets invited me to Moscow to talk about future projects. They were willing to listen to any idea I had. Actually, as soon as I had completed the Bering Strait swim, Alexander Kozlovsky of the Soviet Sports Committee, had asked me what my next goal was, so I’d told him about Lake Baikal. I’d also said that I had other projects in mind too, projects I didn’t think I could discuss with him via telex or by phone. These were ideas we would have to share when we met in person.

  Bob Walsh, the man who was organizing the Goodwill Games, and who had spoken to the Soviet Sports Committee and to high-ranking people at the Kremlin to secure Soviet permission, invited me to travel to Moscow with him and a couple of other people from Seattle. We stayed in the Soviet Sports Committee hotel, a dormlike building that had been built for the Moscow Olympics, the ones the United States had boycotted because of the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Staying in Moscow was like being a character in a bad spy novel. The phone in my hotel room was tapped, the room was bugged, and I was followed wherever I went. This was standard operating procedure, according to Peter Kassander, Walsh’s assistant in Washington, D.C.