Swimming to Antarctica

by Lynne Cox

  Once I was in Ushuaia, my goal was to swim for an hour a day at sprint pace. The first day I worked out in Ushuaia Harbor, the weather conditions were the worst I’d ever been in. The winds were gale force, gusting up to fifty knots, and the waves in the harbor were walls of four-feet-high rapidly breaking chop. I wasn’t sure about swimming alone in the water that day. It looked dangerous, and usually when conditions are bad, they get worse before they get better. I told myself I had to get in and swim; I needed to condition to the water temperature, and I needed to accept every challenge, because what I wanted to do would be far beyond what I did in any training swim. I decided to swim within twenty-five yards of shore so I could get out of the water quickly if I needed to. I searched for a place where I could enter the water and swim safely.

  In that area, the harbor was filled with exposed rocks covered with sharp barnacles and mussels. I was afraid of swimming smack into them and slicing my hand or head open. And there was kelp, the kind that scratched like small rose thorns. I had to keep pushing myself mentally. I told myself to figure out a way to just get into the water and swim. I took off my sweats and shoes. Standing there in the wind in my bathing suit, I was freezing. At least, I told myself, the water won’t feel as cold now. I found a crack between two rocks and squeezed my sweats into the crack and piled my shoes on top so they wouldn’t be blown into the sea by the gale. Then I climbed down the rocky embankment, sat down on a rock, and pressed myself into the water.

  It was a shock when I slipped into the forty-degree water; I turned my arms over rapidly and swam with my head up, over cresting waves, as crystal water droplets flew off my fingertips. I swam about a quarter of a mile, to an area where the Argentine navy anchored their fleet. The weather was so bad it looked as though all the ships were tied to the wharf in the harbor. Turning around to begin my second lap, I caught a faceful of water, then battled the waves the entire way back to the starting point. I did six laps, and when I turned around after the last one, an enormous and brilliant rainbow stretched from the Argentine ships. I took it as a good sign.

  For the next six days, I worked out in the harbor. I had to push myself every day to get into the water, but with each day that passed, I found that I was able to stay warmer for a longer time period. After my swim, I walked back to the Albatross Hotel, where I was staying, climbed the four floors to the top of the building, where the hotel was the warmest, and walked back and forth quickly until my feet thawed, then jogged back and forth in the hallway to warm up. It felt good to work so hard, to know I had the chance to do something that had never been done before. Still it was hard being there on my own. I stayed in touch with friends and family by e-mail every day and their words and encouragement made me realize that even though I was alone physically they were with me in spirit.

  At the end of my last solo workout, the day before my crew arrived in Ushuaia, I glanced up at the city, with its small bright red, yellow, turquoise, green, blue, and white houses built on steep hills, encircled by the end of the Andes Mountain chain, still glistening with snow. Looking up into the sky, I saw the wind tearing thin clouds apart, and encircling the sun was a huge and brilliant rainbow, formed by the sun shining through ice crystals. I thought, This is another good sign; it’s the circle of completion.

  On the Sunday morning my crew would arrive in Ushuaia, I woke up at four a.m. I tried to talk myself into going back to sleep, but I kept rolling around in bed. Finally, at five-thirty, I decided to go for an early-morning workout. It seemed like a good idea; there would be a lot of people walking around the harbor area later in the day, and I wanted to maintain a low profile, not wanting to have to explain what I was doing to anyone so I could stay focused on my training and on the swim.

  As I stepped outside the Albatross Hotel, a cold, thirty-knot wind cut right through my sweat suit. This would be the last workout I did on my own, and I was happy that this part of the training was nearly over. It had taken a lot of discipline for me to swim in forty-degree water every day, and I knew having my friends there would make it easier and more fun.

  When I reached the rocks where I usually began my workout, there were two men in their late twenties standing nearby, talking. I tried not to make eye contact, and I walked about a hundred yards from them and sat on some rocks. I waited, hunched over, hoping they would leave so I could maintain my low profile. But the wind was blowing harder. I had to either swim now or go back to the hotel, get warm, and return later. I wanted to get the workout over with. Unzipping my sweats, I took them off quickly and squeezed them between the rocks.

  One of the men shouted at me incredulously in Spanish, “Are you going swimming?”

  “Sí,” I told him.

  “Mucho frío?” he said. Very cold?

  I nodded, pulled off my shoes, put them on top of my sweats, and climbed quickly down the embankment. I sat down on the rock ledge and pulled my cap and goggles on, lowered myself into the water, took a deep breath, pushed off, and started swimming fast with my head up. One of the men shouted something at me a couple of times, while his friend stood beside him with his mouth wide open. I hoped they wouldn’t tell anyone.

  The water felt colder than it had during any other workout, probably because I was chilled by the delay. Knowing there was no one around who could help me if I got into trouble, I swam only twenty feet offshore. It was tough going. The tide was low, and the kelp beds were floating a couple of inches below the water’s surface, so that I had to swim through the center of them. My arms kept getting tangled up in the kelp ropes, and I kept hitting my hands on rocks. It felt as if I were swimming through a gauntlet.

  Finally I reached the Argentine ships, turned around, and swam back to the starting point. The two men had left, but another man, a tall, lean man wearing a light brown cap and uniform, was standing on the embankment. He spoke to me in Spanish, and I couldn’t understand a word. So I said, “English?”

  He shook his head and continued speaking Spanish, only more loudly. He said something about a marina. It was too cold to sit there and carry on a conversation, so I decided that if I just agreed with him, he would go away. I said “Sí,” turned around, moved farther offshore, and sprinted toward the Argentine ships.

  He was startled, and he shouted at me. I again heard the word marina, and again shouted, “Sí.” I laughed when I saw him jogging around the cove, trying to catch up with me. I thought the marina must have been the small beach near the pier where the Argentine navy was anchored. I wondered if he was from the harbor police or the coast guard. Maybe once he saw me swim, he would realize that I was okay, and just walk with me for the remainder of the workout. It would be nice to have company.

  When we reached the Argentine fleet, the man started down an embankment toward the sandy beach. Just as he nearly reached the water’s edge, I turned around and sprinted back toward the starting point. This was the most fun I’d had all week.

  All of a sudden I heard him blowing a whistle. I put my head down into the water, pretended I hadn’t heard, and continued swimming. He was scrambling up the rocks, blowing his whistle louder now, and jogging back along the sidewalk. People were beginning to congregate on the sidewalk above the embankment, staring and pointing at me with astonishment. A blue police car with sirens blaring and lights flashing stopped near the crowd. Two officers jumped out, a man and a woman, and they climbed down the embankment.

  Another truck arrived, also with its siren blaring; two more men in brown uniforms leaped out of it and scrambled down the rocks toward the water. The first man in uniform blew his whistle in shrill bursts and waved furiously at me. I angled back toward shore, thinking, How am I going to talk my way out of this when I can’t speak the language? Swim closer to the shore, I told myself. The man finally stopped blowing his whistle. He thought I was going to climb out of the water, but I didn’t want to. There were so many rocks covered with barnacles, and there was a lot of broken glass. I was afraid of getting cut. I pointed to the opposite shore, w
here I knew I could climb out safely and get my sweats and shoes, but the man shook his head. I took a few more strokes toward him and pointed at the starting point again. He adamantly shook his head, then balanced on a rock five feet from me, squatted down, and extended his hand. I lifted my goggles and smiled. “Gracias,” I said, wondering how much trouble I was in. He continued to extend his hand, but I didn’t take it; there were too many sharp rocks. “Gracias,” I repeated, pointing to some smoother rocks to the right. He leaped in that direction, and I climbed out on all fours.

  My feet were stiff, and they hurt. The man’s uniform had the word Prefectura written on the shoulder. He pointed near my feet, warning me where there were shards of glass. A small policewoman reached down to take my hand. I was afraid that I would slip and pull her in, so I said, “Gracias” again and stayed down on all fours, grabbing a rock to pull myself forward. When I reached the top, the policewoman motioned for me to get into the police car. I pointed to my swimsuit; I was dripping wet. They didn’t want to get the back seat of the car wet, did they? The policewoman spoke with the man from the prefectura, and I think she told him that I was his responsibility. He seemed to accept that. He asked me something in Spanish, but the only word I caught was ropa.

  Sounds like robe, I thought; he must mean clothes. I gestured to the place where I had started the swim. He escorted me along the street, where a crowd was watching and shouting questions. Traffic had stopped so that people could see what was going on. My feet were killing me, and I was cold, wet, and shivering.

  He signaled for me to wait while he climbed down the embankment and searched for my sweat suit. He found something and held it up to show it to me. It was the key from the Albatross Hotel.

  “Ropa?” he asked completely confused.

  How do you say “Someone stole my clothes” in Spanish? I wondered. “No ropa,” I said.

  He didn’t understand.

  “No sweat suit. No shoes,” I explained. I’d never had my clothes stolen before, and I’d never been arrested either.

  He gestured for me to follow him back along the road to the coast guard headquarters. The wind was howling, and more people were stopping their cars to see what was happening. I was so embarrassed to be walking down what was their main street in a swimsuit. I stepped on some broken glass, grabbed my foot, and winced. It wasn’t bleeding. I just wanted to get back to the hotel and get warm. But I kept trying to talk with the man from the coast guard, hoping to gain his sympathy so he wouldn’t put me in jail.

  “California. Nadadora—swimmer? You?” I asked, wishing I had studied Spanish.

  “Buenos Aires. Prefectura,” he said, pointing to the word written on his shoulder. He was trying, and that made me feel a little better.

  We crossed the street, climbed a hill, and entered the coast guard headquarters. It was attached to the Argentine navy base. Eleven years before, with the support of the Argentine and Chilean navies, I had swum across the Beagle Channel. No one had made that swim before, because of the cold and the strong currents, but my underlying reason for the swim was to gain cooperation from both navies and bridge the political distance between Argentina and Chile. The tall man in uniform guided me into the coast guard headquarters. There were four more men in uniform standing behind a counter. They were staring at me as if I’d just flown in from Venus. One man smirked and made a comment in Spanish. The man in charge agreed and moved over to the counter and tried to question me. When he realized I had no idea what he was saying, the tall man volunteered what he had learned from me during our walk to headquarters. The man in charge tried again, but all I could do was stand there and shiver.

  A man in civilian clothes entered the headquarters. He explained in fluent English that he was a shipping agent and was there to translate. He asked me what I was doing. I explained that I was just swimming in the harbor. I had been there twelve years before to swim across the Beagle Channel and had done it with the support of the Argentine navy. Admiral López and Captain Alvarez had been in charge of the swim.

  The shipping agent interpreted. The men from the coast guard shook their heads with disbelief. One of them said something. “No one could have swum across the Beagle Channel,” the man in civilian clothes translated.

  “In 1992 I became the first person to swim it. I swam from Ushuaia to Puerto Williams. Admiral López was in command, and Captain Alvarez was in charge of the swim,” I repeated.

  They still didn’t believe me, so I dropped it, realizing that arguing with them wasn’t going to help.

  The man in charge said something to the shipping agent and he interpreted for me: “You are not allowed to swim in the harbor without a permit.”

  “Who do I need to talk with to get a permit?” I asked.

  The shipping agent mentioned a name. It was the name of an officer from the coast guard I had met twelve years ago when I was going to swim the Beagle. How wonderful it would be to see him again.

  The shipping agent told me to come back on Sunday, the following day or during the week; I could get a permit at that time. The tall man and the shipping agent offered to drive me back to the Albatross Hotel.

  People turned and stared when they saw me jogging through the lobby of the hotel and racing upstairs. I think I stood under the hot shower for forty-five minutes; I was cold to the core. I packed my bags and moved to the Los Niros Hotel, where I would be staying with the crew that evening. All day long, I hiked around the city, burning off energy, anticipating their arrival.

  When I saw my crew entering the baggage-claim area at Ushuaia Airport, I was so excited. The baggage claim was on the other side of a floor-to-ceiling glass wall. There was a sign that said NO ENTRY, but there wasn’t any security. Susan Sklar kept waving at me. Finally, she came over to the sliding doors and I explained that I didn’t want to get arrested twice in one day. My excitement grew each time I saw one of my friends. Everyone was there. As they came through the glass doors we hugged. Yes, it was really happening. We were finally together and almost on our way.

  The next morning, with the help of an Argentine woman named Gabriella who worked for the Bureau of Tourism, my crew and the CBS crew met with the coast guard officials. Gabriella acted as our translator. Because I was writing a story about the swim for The New Yorker, and because CBS’s 60 Minutes II was doing a segment on it, we could not tell the coast guard about my plan to swim in Antarctica. We were concerned that other members of the media would pick up on the story. Through Gabriella, we told one of the coast guard officials that CBS was doing a documentary on me. They wanted to film me swimming in Ushuaia Harbor. The coast guard official said they would like to help. They said their only concern was for my safety, and they offered to provide us with a Zodiac escort boat, a driver, and a rescue swimmer. They wanted to know if I had a doctor who could accompany me. Gabriella Miotto, one of the team physicians, immediately offered to sign a release form stating I was in good health. As we walked to the harbor, they drove the boat over, and I slid into the water and began my training swim. The two men from the coast guard in the Zodiac couldn’t believe I could swim in forty-degree water.

  For the first time I could swim a quarter of a mile offshore, through the harbor, in clear, clean water. I could explore the city and mountains from the water. I felt great after that workout, and the following day, in addition to the support from the coast guard, we had the Argentine navy offering to provide backup boat support, as well as allowing the CBS crew to film from one of their ships. After that workout, one of the rescue swimmers from the Argentine navy came over to congratulate me, to tell me how impressed he was with my swimming in the harbor. At the same time, José, a local man who had climbed Mount Everest the year before, came over to tell me that he was amazed by my swim in the harbor. He told me that many people had climbed Mount Everest, but no one else could do what I had done. I thanked him and smiled, thinking, If he only knew what I was really training for. Their comments gave me a real boost, and I could feel a momentum
was building; we were on track, and we were ready. I was so excited.

  That night, we boarded the Orlova, a three-hundred-foot-long icebreaker leased by Quark Expeditions, which was partially sponsoring the swim, and set sail for Antarctica. We traveled through the Beagle Channel and into the Drake Passage, where the waves were as high as twenty-five feet—as tall as a two-story house. They pounded, tossed, turned, and rolled the ship. Sleeping that night was impossible for me; I was in the upper bunk, and I was afraid that I would fly out of bed and land on top of Martha Kaplan across the room. My fears weren’t unwarranted: at two a.m. a large wave hit the ship with so much force that the dresser drawers between the beds flew open and everything on top of the desk was tossed across the room, while two chairs crashed onto the floor.

  In the morning, we were still in the center of a storm. Waves were hitting the porthole and spinning so quickly that it looked like we were riding in a washing machine set on the spin cycle. Many of my crew were using medicated patches to prevent seasickness, but I couldn’t. I was afraid the drug would linger in my system and somehow affect me negatively during the swim. Still, I was also concerned about getting seasick. If that happened, I would deplete electrolytes from my system and stress it out. I couldn’t afford to get sick, so I stayed in bed, telling myself to relax, and imagined I was being rocked in a giant cradle.

  Finally, by noon, the storm subsided, but the majority of my crew remained down in their cabins. I met with Susan Adie, the expedition leader for Quark. She was the person who would work the logistics out with me and determine when conditions were safe enough for a swim. Susan told me she had some concerns; her biggest was ice. She explained that we had to stay away from glaciers. “There could be a catastrophic calving,” she said. “That’s when an iceberg breaks off a glacier and hits the water—you get a mini tsunami. That wave can swamp a boat, and if you’re in the water with brash ice—ice as small as a fist or as big as a VW—it will kill you.”