Swimming to Antarctica

by Lynne Cox

  The night I arrived in the Soviet Union, the country was celebrating Yuri Gagarin Day. It was a very strange sensation; I felt like I was at home in the States on the Fourth of July. Yet, in reality, I was looking out across Moscow’s enormous skyline, watching fireworks exploding like blazing flowers and stars, celebrating Gagarin, the first Soviet cosmonaut and person to fly into space. Gagarin’s spaceflight, along with the launch of Sputnik—the first satellite in space—would ignite the U.S. space race and lead up to the start of the nuclear missile buildup. Gagarin’s historic flight had not only changed Russia; it had changed the United States and the world. It was not by chance that I had been invited to be in the Soviet Union on this historic day. Bob Walsh told me that when the Soviets had decided to invite me to their country, they’d chosen this date to celebrate the Bering Strait crossing as well.

  It was very strange to be treated like a celebrity in the Soviet Union, to have people stopping me and handing me flowers or pins or asking for autographs. It was even stranger when I was inside the Kremlin gates, viewing the historic churches, and a man from Armenia recognized me and gave me a key chain with some rubles—an Armenian custom, he said.

  When I spoke with officials of the Soviet Sports Committee, I told them about my next three goals. The first was to swim across Lake Baikal. When I said that, the eyes of the members of the committee lit up. Yes, they said, that is exactly what you have to do next. And they became very enthusiastic. They told me that Lake Baikal was the most beautiful lake in all of the Soviet Union. It was the deepest lake in the world, more than a mile deep, and at twenty-five million years old, one of the oldest lakes in the world. The lake was pristine and clear; it contained one-fifth of the world’s freshwater. They knew all the statistics: the lake was four hundred miles long, and averaged between eighteen and fifty miles wide. There were twelve hundred creatures unique to the lake, including freshwater seals. To Russians, Lake Baikal was the gem of Siberia, a sort of mecca that everyone in the Soviet Union dreamed of visiting one day in their lives. Once I saw their reverence for the lake, I couldn’t wait to see it either, or to swim across it.

  During that same meeting, I proposed two successive swims. One would go from Hokkaido, Japan, to Kunashir, one of the Kuril Islands to the north, controlled by the Soviet Union. The other proposed swim was across the Heilong Jiang–Amur River border, from the Soviet Union to China. The reason for these swims was to promote further cooperation and understanding between these countries.

  The Soviet Sports Committee immediately began working with me on all three projects and set up meetings for me with embassy representatives from Japan and China. For the next few years I worked on gaining Japanese and Chinese support, but because of political complications between the Soviet Union and Japan, and within China, I finally decided to move on to other projects.

  The swim across Lake Baikal, however, was as successful as it was amazing. Thousands of Siberians came to the town of Listvyanka, a village on the edge of the lake, to celebrate the finish of the ten-mile swim. They threw long-stemmed pink roses into the water as I swam by, and they cheered, “Welcome, Lynne Cox. Welcome, USA.” A few months later, to commemorate the swim, officials placed a plaque at the starting point and named the cape beside Cape Tolstoy Cape Lynne Cox.

  Buoyed with these successes, I decided to try other swims, ones that had never been attempted, that could be vehicles for opening borders and for furthering cold research. In 1990 I decided to attempt a swim across the forty-two-degree waters of the Beagle Channel. To do this, though, I had to gain support from both Argentina and Chile and cross a border that had been contested at one time or another by both countries. It took a lot of work to get both countries to agree to support the swim, and at one point while I was in Argentina with my crew, I nearly had to walk away from the swim because of the political tensions. Fortunately, the commanders of both navies were able to work out the logistics, and with their support, I became the first person to swim across the seven-mile-wide Beagle Channel from a beach in Ushuaia, Argentina, to Puerto Williams, Chile.

  From there, I decided to swim across the Spree River, from East Berlin to West Berlin, at a time when the Berlin Wall was still intact. My idea was to get support from East and West Germany as well as England, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States, since they controlled various sectors of Berlin, and to promote cooperation between all of the countries.

  By the time I gained permission to make the swim, the wall had been torn down, but the Spree River would prove to be one of the most dangerous waterways I’d ever swum in. The East German government had placed mines, razor wire, and large slabs of razor-sharp sheet metal in the river to prevent East Germans from swimming across it and escaping into West Berlin. Most of these devices had been cleared from the river, but the job had been done in great haste, and the East Germans weren’t sure if they had removed everything. They agreed to help and had one of their police boats escort me. During the swim we made at least five rapid course changes to avoid underwater obstacles, as well as many others to avoid the dead rats, trash, and condoms floating on the water’s surface. One of the most exciting parts of the swim was having people from East Germany and West Germany walking along the shore, all ten miles with us, to the finish of the swim in West Berlin.

  Departing briefly from doing swims to bring countries together, I decided to instead make a swim that would highlight cooperation between countries. The Amyara people who lived on either side of Lake Titicaca, in Bolivia and Peru, have gotten along together for centuries; many of them are related. In 1992, with help from Bob Gelbard, who was then the assistant secretary of state, I was able to quickly obtain permission to attempt a swim across Lake Titicaca from Bolivia to Peru.

  No one had ever swum across the ten-mile-wide section of the lake from Copacabana, Bolivia, to Chimbo, Peru, mostly because of the extreme altitude—12,500 feet—and the fifty-degree water temperature. But attempting this crossing really intrigued me. Training for it would be a challenge, and fortunately, I was able to work with Dr. Brownie Schoene, a pulmonary specialist who had climbed both Mount Everest and K2. Brownie helped me acclimate to the high altitude, but neither of us knew how I would react to the added stress of cold water.

  It was a shock for me. When I first attempted a training swim in the lake, I suddenly couldn’t breathe, which made me have big doubts about attempting the swim. In order to complete it, I would have to slow my work rate down to half speed, so I could breathe, and then hope I didn’t go into hypothermia. With this strategy, and the support of my crew as well as the Bolivian navy, I became the first person to swim across Lake Titicaca.

  From there, I decided to attempt a swim that had been suggested to me years before, by two Israeli composers: a trip along the Gulf of Aqaba from Egypt to Israel, and then another from Israel to Jordan. The swims would trace the process of Middle East peace. Getting permission for this project proved to be complex and difficult, but Tom Pickering, who had been the U.S. ambassador to both Israel and Jordan, gave me guidance, and eventually I gained support from Queen Noor of Jordan, Yitzhak Rabin of Israel, and high-ranking officials in Egypt.

  Working out the logistics for the swims turned out to be a challenge, but when we discovered that peace talks were under way in Eliat, Israel, between officials from Israel and Jordan, my crew and I walked into the hotel where the talks were being held, found out who was in charge of the talks, and met with them. That day we received permission, and a day later, with Egyptian navy and Israeli navy support, I made the seven-mile swim from Egypt to Israel.

  The following day, the Israeli navy and the Jordanian navy, working together, supported my swim. For the first time in forty-six years, the Jordanian navy welcomed the Israeli navy, opening the border for my support crew as I swam to Aqaba. There we were welcomed and honored at a reception hosted by Queen Noor. A few days later, we were invited to witness King Hussein, President Clinton, and Prime Minister Rabin sign the peace treaty betw
een Israel and Jordan.

  In 1999 I decided to do a series of swims simply for fun. Ever since I had met the pope, and he had mentioned that his favorite place to swim was in the northern lakes of Italy, I’d wanted to swim there too. So with a group of friends, I traveled to Italy and I swam across Lake Garda, Lake Como, and Lake Maggiore. We ate Italian chocolates, listened to a friend sing opera, and immersed ourselves in reflections of Italian villas as we crossed the lakes, completely enjoying the entire journey. There was nothing challenging about these swims—no political complexities or intrigue, and no physical barriers—and while I enjoyed doing them, just for the sake of experiencing them, I felt somewhat let down. I wanted to do so much more. An idea came to mind then, one that was bigger, more complex, and more challenging than any I had ever contemplated.

  23

  Swimming to Antarctica

  Cody, my yellow Labrador, pulled my tennis shoe out from under my bed and followed me downstairs. He saw me set my bags down in the hallway, and he lay down in the living room with his chin resting on my shoe. He looked at me with imploring eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Cody, you can’t go with me. When dogs go to Antarctica they either freeze to death or get eaten by their best friends. Amundsen, Scott, Cherry-Garrard, Shackleton—all of them shot their dogs and ate them. I’m sorry, Antarctica’s no place for you.”

  Sara, my parents’ brindled whippet, raced downstairs and stretched out beside him, something she had never done before. She had come to say goodbye. I hugged my dad and he returned the hug tightly— I think he was too emotional to speak. The previous year I had planned to travel to Antarctica to attempt the swim, but my father had been very ill, and I hadn’t wanted to leave him. He’d had to fight for his life. It was awful, and yet it was enlightening, being with him while he went through this siege. He always maintained a positive attitude, never wavered, and never gave up on living. Neither did my mother, who was by his side throughout the whole battle. They didn’t know it, but they were my heroes. Seeing their determination to hold on to life and live it fully made me realize that I had the same drive within myself. As far as I knew, I would be here only once, and I wanted to live as much as I could.

  My mother hugged me. Her voice was rich with emotion as she said, “I know you will accomplish what you want to. Good luck.”

  She had really come around. When I’d first told her and my dad what I was planning to do, two years before, they’d been totally against it. They said it was far too dangerous, and they were right: swimming in water temperatures in the low thirties was life threatening. But once I set a goal in my mind, I didn’t want to give up without trying. I just had to figure out a way to make the swim less dangerous.

  The Antarctica swim would be psychologically more difficult than any swim I had done before. There was so much emotion connected to it. Friends expressed their love and support by handing me care packages filled with hot chocolate and tea, popcorn and chocolate. Others felt concern; one of my closest friends, who had been with me on previous swims, was worried I would never return. And Laura, my younger sister, called at least a dozen times to make sure that I had a team of doctors with me and a rescue plan in place and tested in case of an emergency. David, my older brother, and Ruth, my youngest sister, were much more low-key about it, but they told me to be careful, and David told me to have fun swimming with the penguins.

  For two years I had been preparing for this swim, an idea inspired by Caroline Alexander, a friend who wrote a book called The Endurance, about Ernest Shackleton and his attempt to reach the South Pole. I had been looking for a goal that was a really big idea, something that would intrigue me and move me far beyond what I knew. Caroline suggested I swim in the subantarctic islands—off Elephant Island or South Georgia Island—recognizable places that were associated with Shackleton. But I wasn’t interested in doing a swim for the sake of it being recognized; I wanted to do something that had never been done, never been explored before in this way.

  Caroline and I discussed different ideas. Ultimately, I knew, I wanted to swim somewhere on the Antarctic continent, but I thought it would be good to do a test swim ahead of time near one of the subantarctic islands. First I wanted to see what I could do, then gauge my limits and determine how much farther I could go.

  For two years, I had trained very hard for this swim, and in a different manner than ever before. Instead of working on endurance, as I had in the past, my objective now was to build strength, speed, and overall cardiac conditioning. I trained by walking at sunrise with Barry Binder, my friend and the team leader for the swim, and Cody. We walked at a moderate speed from five to six miles per day. After that I went to the gym and worked out for an hour three times a week with Jonathan Moch, my personal trainer. Jonathan planned the season for me and broke it into four segments. The first quarter we worked on strength, using free weights; the second quarter on balance and stability, using a balance ball; the third quarter on a combination of balance and strength, using weights while I was balanced on the ball. During the last quarter we worked on endurance, strength, and balance to the point of complete fatigue. This last phase of my training was as much about focus as conditioning. When I got tired or overloaded with other thoughts, I lost my focus. One of my worst and best workouts was three days before I left for Argentina.

  Moch was having me balance on my knees on the balance ball and toss a ten-pound ball back and forth with him. When I climbed up on the ball, I couldn’t get my balance. I tried repeatedly, and I was getting frustrated.

  Moch said, “Don’t get frustrated; get determined.”

  This advice helped, but I still wasn’t able to get focused and stay on the ball. Finally I said, “Why are you having me continue this? Can’t we do it later, after another exercise? Right now I’m just practicing failure. When my sister coaches young kids, if they can’t reach a skill after three or four times, she gives them something different to work on that will build that skill. Why can’t we do that now?”

  Moch smiled. “This is different. You’ve already done this before. You just need to slow down and focus. Stop thinking about all the people on your swim, all the problems, the logistics, the television, and everything else—it’s overwhelming you. There are going to be so many variables on your swim, and you’ve told me you’re going to have to go whenever you’re given a chance. So you need to work through this now, focus here, so you can focus there.”

  Climbing back on the ball, I emptied my head of everything else and managed to balance for five throws. This was an invaluable lesson for me. For this swim, the mental training and the physical training were completely intermeshed.

  In addition to dry-land workouts, for the past two years I had been training in the ocean all year long, and in my folks’ backyard swimming pool when its water temperature got colder than the ocean. I swam one-, two-, and three-mile sprints, alternating between swimming head up and head down. Swimming with my head up would enable me to conserve body heat, since up to 80 percent is lost through the head. But this body position in the water creates drag; it was like swimming uphill, and it reduced my speed and made me tire quickly. So I decided to alternate between head up and head down.

  I was to fly to Ushuaia, the southernmost city in Argentina, on the Beagle Channel, ten days ahead of my crew and train in Ushuaia Harbor. This would enable me to get over jet lag, acclimate to the cold water, and begin psyching myself up for the swim. My crew would arrive a day before the ship, the Orlova, sailed for Antarctica. Included in the crew would be seven friends, some of whom had been on past swims. Barry Binder would be the person I communicated with during the swim; he would help me with coordinating the logistics and navigation. Dan Cohen would be the rescue swimmer; Dan would jump into the water and help me get out in the case of an emergency. Bob Griffith and Martha Kaplan were the scouts; they would be positioned in the lead Zodiac watching the water for ice and potentially dangerous animals. Griffith, who was an expert with a lasso, would have one on ha
nd in case I needed additional help clearing the water. He would use the lasso to pull me over to the boat. Dr. Gabriella Miotto, Dr. Susan Sklar, and Dr. Laura King would be observing me during the swim, making sure I didn’t go into hypothermia. But if there was an emergency, they were trained to revive me.

  CBS would be covering the swim. They had sent their own crew, who would be traveling with us. Shawn Efran would be producing the segment with Scott Pelley for 60 Minutes II. Casey Morgan was assistant producer, while Chris Everson and Ian Robbie would be filming the story. Adam Ravetch would film the underwater scenes, and Mark Brewer would handle the sound.

  A week before leaving for Argentina, I started avoiding public places and made a point of washing my hands a lot. If someone near me sneezed, I held my breath and raced out of the area. After training so hard for this swim and working through so many details, the last thing I wanted was to jeopardize it all by getting sick. One of my greatest concerns was catching a cold or other sort of infection on the thirty-hour flight. The recirculated air in an airplane cabin dries out the nasal passages, making the area a perfect entry point to the body for rhinoviruses—which cause the common cold. I asked Laura King if there was some kind of lotion I could use to keep my nasal membranes moist. She recommended using Aquaphor, which was normally used on premature babies to keep their skin moist, and for dry, cracked lips. She also gave me a surgical mask to wear if I had the misfortune of sitting on the plane near someone with a cold.

  Blood clots were also a concern. They could occur during the long flight from sitting too long in one place. My father had advised me to get up, stretch my legs, and walk around to keep the circulation going. As an added precaution, I began taking Bayer baby aspirin three days prior to departure to thin my blood. I was also concerned about health problems that could occur after my swim. If my limbs were extremely cold during the swim, my blood circulation would be greatly reduced, and there would be a chance of getting a blood clot, so I decided to continue taking the aspirin through the time of the swim and for a week afterward.