Wednesday 24 October 2012

By Any Means



Swimming the English Channel strikes me as the quintessential English experience. It involves rich history, inclement weather and a healthy dose of stoicism. Over the last several months I somehow managed to convince five other Rhodes Scholars, to do something incredibly stupid- jump into 15C/59F water and swim through the busiest shipping lane in the world for a 10 second stay in France, a country that is notoriously hostile to the English.

We were scheduled to swim anytime between September 29th and October 4th, but after the wettest year in English history, we should have known better. After waiting for almost two weeks, I finally got a call from our boat pilot on Sunday, October 7th saying that the weather was clearing and we might be able to swim on Tuesday or Wednesday. One of our swimmers, Alice, had been sick with a virulent strain of Fresher’s Flu (a nasty epidemic that sweeps through Oxford each fall) and after much deliberation we decided that Alice would not be fit to swim. But weather windows were becoming fewer and further between and the seasonal tides were about to shift in such a way that a successful crossing would become nearly impossible. So we proposed switching from a six-person relay to a five-person team. We packed every warm piece of clothing we owned, loaded up on granola bars and tea, piled into a hired car and headed down to Dover on late Monday evening. We arrived well after most of the town had gone to sleep and found ourselves at one of the most hostile looking hostels I have ever seen. It hardly merits the name. After a very short sleep, our alarms went off at 4AM. More than a few of us reconsidered the wisdom of our international voyage.

After considerable confusion about where the marina, and an embarrassingly late arrival we piled our inordinate amount of food and luggage (8 duffle bags, 6 grocery bags full of food and 24 liters of water) onto the deck of the Sea Satin and set off just after 5AM accompanied by two pilots, a crewmember and an official observer who would be responsible for certifying our swim. According to the Channel Swim & Pilot’s Federation (CS&PF), in order to qualify as a certified relay swim each swimmer must swim for 60 minutes, no more, no less, without a wetsuit and without touching the boat or another person. Once the order of the relay team is established, the team must maintain that order for the duration of the swim.

I had somehow cajoled my good friend Caroline into swimming first. No one wanted to jump into the water in the inky pre-dawn darkness but who better to do it than our US Naval officer and competitive triathlete? As we motored out to the beach, Daz, the burly crewman who would assist in our swim, handed Caroline an electric glow stick that she should affix to her swimsuit to avoid getting run over by the boat. Just as Caroline went to tuck it into her coat pocket the boat lurched and she chucked it over the side, much to the annoyance of Daz. Not an auspicious start to our morning.

Caroline braves the dark

Caroline bravely dove into the sea and swam to the beach with just the beam of the boat’s spotlight guiding her way. She climbed out of the water and at exactly 5:30AM the boat horn went off. Caroline charged into the water in traditional triathlete fashion, running with high knees and plowing through the gently lapping waves. Within a few minutes she pulled alongside the boat and settled into a steady rhythm as the other five of us enthusiastically cheered her on with a vigor and volume that was sure to prove unsustainable. I was the second swimmer and before I knew it I was stripping down to my suit and shivering on the back of the boat as Daz counted down the seconds. Dawn was breaking and the white cliffs of Dover were just beginning to emerge out of the darkness. I don’t know if it was actually light enough, or Daz didn’t want to risk another glow stick but I dove in without the traditional rave attire.

I gasped for air as the involuntary spasms of my lungs signaled my body’s primal revolt against the cold. This was a very bad idea. I don’t even want to see France, I thought.  There’s obviously a reason why people invented boats, maybe I should just get back on board. Well if Caroline survived an hour, there is no way I am getting out after 30 seconds. The internal monologue continued but I eventually caught my breath and settled into a casual rhythm while thinking about all the places I would rather be. After a time the numb sensation subsided and my muscles began to warm to the challenge. The sharp taste of salt filled my mouth and I had to pay careful attention to the swells in order to avoid choking down huge gulps of seawater. My hands made streams of bubbles as they churned through the water and as the bubbles occasionally floated into my peripheral vision I was convinced that I was catching a glimpse of a shark. Maybe Moby Dick. Or perhaps the Loch Ness Monster.

My teammate Mike, in his infinite wisdom, had decided to watch Jaws the night before and thoughtfully put the theme song in all of our heads. He also decided to read up on water conditions in the English Channel and helpfully informed us that in the two weeks while we had been waiting for clear weather, the water temperature had fallen by three degrees. Celsius. And was now a balmy 13C/55F.
The white cliffs of Dover fading behind us
The toughest thing about open water swimming is the sense of abstraction. The landmarks, when they do exist, are too far away to offer any meaningful sense of progress. There is no one to talk to. No change in terrain. Nothing to mark the passage of time. And in the Channel, time was all I could think about.
Meg's first leg
Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, I got the one minute warning. MJ jumped into the water and I was rolled my way onto the ledge of the boat and staggered up the ladder. Katy, our industrial engineering major, had efficiently moved all my warm clothes below deck, started the kettle for tea, and was waiting to wrap me in a towel. I quickly got dressed and sat down with the tea, never more grateful to be dry. In the time that I had been in the water seasickness had begun to set in and no one else wanted to spend much time below deck. I didn’t feel the least bit queasy and looked out the port window to see MJ gamely struggling through the cold.

MJ perfects the art of heads-up breaststroke
MJ is Australian and spent the summer doing ocean swims in southern Australia, where the currents are pushing cold water north from Antarctica.  In my experience all Aussies are charming, witty and self-deprecating but MJ takes it to a whole new level. By MJ’s own admission, “if he went down, he was going to go down talking.” So when I saw MJ doing heads up breaststroke, I assumed he couldn’t stand the silence. Turns out, MJ was getting debilitating, skull-splitting headaches every time he put his head in the water. Unable to swim freestyle, MJ was unable to generate enough body heat to stay warm. But he gamely suffered through the cold and made it to the end of his 60 minutes.

Mike takes in the view
He was followed by Mike, a South African water polo player who claims he swore off training all summer and just at copious amounts of Ben & Jerry’s. You wouldn’t know it from looking at him, but it seemed like a winning strategy because he plowed right along, occasionally switching to a leisurely backstroke as if he was just enjoying the view of Dover receding into the distance. Meanwhile, Alice was looking a bit green. It’s an expression I hadn’t fully appreciated until Alice bolted up onto the deck and made for the barf bucket. Mike lost his breakfast over the side of the boat not too long after coming back aboard.

Katy's flawless freestyle

Our fifth and potentially final swimmer in the relay, Katy, is from Montana, so we figured she knew more about cold H2O than the rest of us put together, but was perhaps less well acquainted with its liquid form. She had been threatening to do breaststroke for an hour but in typical Montana fashion she undersold and over delivered. Maybe she realized that breaststroke was just too cold, maybe she has just been holding out on us, but she quickly settled into a graceful rhythm that quickly ate up distance.



Meanwhile Alice had decided that she felt well enough to swim and we spoke with our CS&PF observer, who assured us that she could still be added to the list as our sixth swimmer. Now I should note that Alice did more training than the rest of us put together. She swam every day for over a month and managed to get a tan in Oxford, which is nothing short of miraculous. She also swam while travelling in China, surrounded by trash, dead animals and all manner of strangelydressed Chinese. Alice also has zero percent body fat and no amount of McDonald’s dinners, Mars bars or donuts heaped with ice cream can seem to change that. Usually that is something to envy but insulation is key to swimming the channel. Alice braved her two hour cold water test swim this summer and was confident that she was sufficiently recovered from Fresher’s Flu to support the team. So she gamely dove in. But twenty minutes later, it was clear that the cold was getting to her. She switched to breaststroke and began to admit to being dizzy and confused. We assured her that her color was good, her lips weren’t blue and her swimming was steady, but after another ten minutes the cold became too much and we told her that discretion was the better part of valor.

When we pulled Alice onto the deck she could barely move or speak. We covered her with every towel, blanket and sleeping bag on the boat and waited for her to being to warm up. After a few minutes we pulled off her wet suit, zipped her into a parka and bundled her up again. Alice’s bout with hypothermia marked the end of our certified swim, and I assumed we simply had to return to Dover. But Lance, our pilot, approached me and explained that while our names wouldn’t be going down in any record books as an official relay team, there was nothing to stop us from swimming to France. We took a vote and unanimously decided to press on. Katy and MJ snuggled down with Alice to help get her warm and Caroline jumped back in the water for her second swim.

Getting warm
Our second rotation passed without much event. I was feeling quite good when I got back in the water and decided to push the pace. After the first minute or two of gasping, I never seemed to feel the cold much and I was grateful not to be seasick like everyone else. I’ve never been called a fast swimmer but I found I much preferred open water swimming to endless laps in a pool and my stroke, which wouldn’t win any beauty contests, seemed more efficient in the choppy water.

By the time I crawled back on the boat, Alice had fully recovered and re-emerged as a more chatty version of her former self. MJ was bravely pushing through another hour of heads up breaststroke and Alice talked him through the whole thing. She started with A and worked her way through the alphabet, naming one country per letter and offering a fun fact about each one. Oh, the things Rhodes scholars do to entertain themselves. Alice’s ramblings ranged from Hugo Chavez’s public image to the causes and consequences of fistulas. There is no way MJ could hear anything more than a few stray words and there weren’t even any seagulls to bear witness to Alice’s oratorical marathon but Katy and I were practically rolling on the deck with laughter as the soft-spoken Alice lectured MJ on why he, as a man, would never have to worry about fistulas, which only afflict women, unless his Speedo was disguising something other than what one would expect.

Still no sign of France
Just as Alice finished expounding on the many charms of Zimbabwe, Mike dove in for his second swim. However, he seemed to have pulled a muscle in his side while losing his breakfast, and he looked to be in a lot of pain as he restlessly alternated between freestyle, breaststroke and backstroke. Katy, utterly unflappable, continued to be the breakout star of the day, cursing smoothly through the water and silently signing hymns to amuse herself.

By the time that Caroline got in the water for her third swim we had been on the water for almost 11 hours. The French coast was in sight but still a long way off, and it was clear that the cold and seasickness were beginning to take a toll on people. Caroline swam well but lacked her usual vigor and by this time the seas had become quite choppy. I jumped in feeling energetic but the darkening skies made me apprehensive. I picked up the pace and didn’t stop for any time checks, hoping that we would make it to France before the weather turned or people’s strength gave out. The water was now extremely rough and I repeatedly found myself a long way from the boat and chasing it down.

When I climbed back aboard the boat, Katy pulled me aside and said, “We need to talk.” That’s never a good sign. I quickly got dressed and met Katy at the pilot’s GPS screen. He explained that we had just spent the last three hours trapped in a southbound current that was pulling us towards the Atlantic and parallel to the French shore. Uh oh, I thought, we certainly aren’t well provisioned enough to swim to North America. He went on to explain that darkness was about to set in and we were at least four miles from land. The tides were about to change and would begin to swing us back north, but we needed to go one mile north and then at least three miles inland, provided we didn’t catch another current that would drive us around the tip of Calais and add considerable distance to the swim. “Think about what’s feasible.” he said.

So Katy, Mike and I sat down to discuss our options while Alice prattled away to MJ and Caroline slept below deck. “Let’s talk math,” I said, shivering as I realized how much my body temperature had fallen while in the water. “Katy, you’re the one who does long division while you swim, what can we realistically do?” I was keen to keep going but didn’t want to force anyone to push on. If others weren’t feeling up to it we could take pride in our attempt and admit to having been beaten by mother nature. I told them that I could swim one, if not two more rounds but we would need other people to swim as well. The good thing about the uncertified swim was that we were no longer obligated to maintain the relay order and I suggested mixing our strong swimmers back into the rotation again. Caroline wasn’t feeling well, MJ was surviving based on pure grit and none of us would consider letting Alice swim again, even if she was foolish enough to volunteer. I asked Mike how he was feeling and he said that he was in pain but he had just taken a lot of ibuprofen and might be able to go flat out for an hour. We decided that we needed a mile from Mike, followed by another mile from me, then a mile from Katy, and if we could make those three miles, we would reassess and figure out a way to get to the French shore.

Nighttime swimming
We agreed that Mike would swim for at least 30 minutes. If he made it a half mile, he would push on for the full hour, if not, the distance wasn’t going to be feasible and we might as well call it a day and make it back to Dover in time for a late dinner. By this time it was almost completely dark so we clipped a glow stick to the back of Mike’s Speedo and he dove in. True to his word, Mike pushed himself, repeatedly calling out to check his time and progress. I went below deck to try to bring my core body temperature back up and Katy stayed above deck to cheer Mike on. Mike covered a half-mile in the first half hour and pushed on. Realizing this might actually be possible, I shimmied back into my suit and headed out on deck armed with a glow stick of my own.

I can’t think of anything more isolating than swimming in the English Channel in the pitch dark. The boat has a spot light shining down in the water, but the pool of light is too close to the boat so swimmers paddle alongside at least ten yards off, trying to keep the lights in sight and praying that the captain is able to spot them through the waves. Base on the size of the lights in your field of vision you can get a general sense of how close you are to the boat, and based on the relative size of the lights to each other you can sort of judge the trajectory of the boat. But it is hardly an exact science. Occasionally I could hear fragments of MJ shouting encouragement but several times I hear bursts of yelling “Go left! Go left!” I was about to plow into the side of the boat and had to quickly change course. Keeping the boat in sight but not too close required constant attention. But everything else was black. There was nothing to see, nothing to hear, and nothing to feel. I lost all sense of time but refused to ask for a progress check. It wouldn’t help. I would know I was done when Katy jumped in behind me.

Finally I heard the horn and saw another glow stick. I crawled back aboard the boat and told MJ that while I had always liked Australian accents his voice was my new favorite sound.

When I asked Daz for a progress check he said we had a little more than two miles to go. It had been almost 16 hours since we set off from Dover. Katy had said she wasn’t sure if she could make the full hour but said she’d give it her best effort. Months earlier when I asked her to do the swim I had explained that it wouldn’t take the team more than 13 or 15 hours to reach France. I promised her she would be the last swimmer in the relay and there was no way she would have to swim three times. Swimming in the dark wasn’t even something that crossed our mind. But she was totally game and I headed below deck to check on the rest of the team.

Mike was asleep and neither MJ or Caroline seemed to be feeling very well. I got dressed and started re-hydrating, Alice now seemed immune to the cold (and wary of the nausea that accompanied trips below deck) so she stayed outside and kept Katy company. MJ soon headed out to join her and I chatted with Mike and Caroline to see if either of them were up to swim again. Caroline might have rallied if pushed, but I could see she wasn’t keen on facing the cold again. Mike looked spent. We still had at least one mile to go.

I said I would swim again but if I couldn’t make it through my fifth hour, I would need someone else to jump in. Mike agreed to be the reserve swimmer. I loaded up on bread, Nutella, Gatorade, anything that might bring my blood sugar back up. Katy made it through her first 30 minutes and pushed on. I changed back into my suit and Lance handed me a warm cup with a viscous looking fluid. “Drink that,” he said. “I can’t,” I said. “Caffeine makes me nauseous.” “It’s not an energy drink,” he assured me. “It’s pure carbs. It’s what all the solo swimmers use.” I forced down the sweet syrupy liquid and headed back on the deck. “How far is it to shore?” I asked Lance as I rubbed Vaseline under my arms to stop the chaffing. He said it was a mile and a bit. “How far is a bit?” I insisted. “Is it .2 miles is it .7 miles?” “It’s not .7,” he said,  “It’s a bit. No one else is going in after you, just think about the beach.”

At the hour mark Katy gamely called out to say that if the other swimmer wasn’t ready she was fine to keep going. But I was already strapping my goggles on. And as the horn went off I plunged into black water for what I hoped would be the last time. This swim passed much as the one before, as I alternately chased the boat and struggled to avoid running into it. The water was calmer as we approached the coast and after a while I began to notice an almost imperceptible increase in temperature. The water also seemed to taste different, although by now, the salt water had swollen my tongue so much it was hard to tell. I lacked my previous energy but settled into a gentle cadence and hoped I could keep it together. I figured that since I had dragge my friends into this mess and I owed it to them to make sure we had a happy ending. Somehow focusing on them made it easier. And besides, I had endured four-hour water polo practices before. With long breaks in between my swims, this should be nothing if not easier.

I thought a lot about my water polo career in that last hour, recognizing that if it wasn’t for water polo I never would have considered myself athletic or had the temerity to swim the Channel. Coach Burgess, Coach Throop and Coach Klatt had always insisted that physical limits were meant to be broken. Thus far they had always been right.


After about an hour MJ shouted that we were 600 meters from the French shore. I pulled my goggles up and saw the vague outline of a beach in the distance. 15 minutes, I calculated, I can make that. Just as relief was about to set in, I began to have second thoughts. I was going to have to swim ashore. Getting to France sounded nice. Swimming up to the beach, in the dark, by myself, was my worst nightmare. I hate when anything touches me in the water. I don’t like seaweed or kelp or fish. I hate the surprise when your foot first touches down on the beach. Weedy ones are the worst, then the muddy ones. But even the sandy and rocky ones are bad. It’s not rational, but I just don’t like it. Now I wasn’t so sure I wanted to make it to France.

But that was the price that had to be paid to get out of the water.

What seemed like ten minutes later MJ called out “300 meters.” Five minutes later I heard “200 meters!” Either he can’t count or I’m swimming slower than usual, I thought. Finally the boat eased to a stop. “We can’t go any further!” MJ shouted. They shone the spotlight on the beach and I glumly waved goodbye and set off into the dark. I could barely see so about 50 meters from shore I pulled off my goggles and swam heads-up freestyle. About 20 meters from shore, I suddenly plowed into a rock. After the initial moment of panic, I thought, that’s strange, this is pretty far out for an outcropping. With the next stroke I hit another rock. Suddenly I realized, this wasn’t a muddy beach, it wasn’t a sandy beach. It was a boulder beach. It was too shallow to swim. And too uneven to walk. So with the waves rolling in, I lurched, crawled and rolled my way towards the spotlight. It must have been a sight from the boat. Finally I crawled out of the water onto a huge stone and carefully balanced myself before standing and waving back at the boat. A big cheer went up and I smiled into the darkness. Then, after about a ten second stay in France, I carefully slipped back into the water and crawled through the rocks before swimming back to the boat. When I flopped aboard for the last time it was just after 11:15PM. “Let’s go back to England,” I said.

Our total swim time was just under 18 hours. (17:42, but at that rate, minutes hardly matter). As we motored back across the channel, Lance printed out a chart of our swim and handed it to me. It was titled, “By Any Means.”

(See below for Epilogue)

Epilogue

We powered back across the Channel at full speed so that the Sea Satin’s crew could meet the next relay team that was scheduled to leave at 3AM. We arrived back in Dover at 2:30AM, approximately 22 hours after arriving at the Marina. It was too late to arrange for accommodations in Dover and most of us had class the next day so we piled into our tiny hired car and drove back to Oxford. We got back just after 5AM. I for one fell straight into bed, salty clothes and all.

When I peeled off my thermals to get in the shower the next morning I discovered an array of abrasions I hadn’t even felt the night before. Not exactly a hospitable welcome from France. It took a few days for us to regain our usual strength and most of us came down with cold along the way. Our friends gave us a hero’s welcome but I think we’re all just glad to have finished.

I would do it again but I don’t know if there would be any other takers. And that’s okay. One Channel crossing is more than I had a right to ask of my friends, and despite any initial reluctance or misgivings, they all performed superbly on the day of the swim. Everyone made some sort of extraordinary contribution, whether it was Caroline being the first to brave the dark water, MJ enduring the bone chilling cold not once, not twice, but three times, Mike pushing through the nausea and the pain, Alice meeting her physical limit and finding the enthusiasm to inspire the rest of us, or Katy who kept us all warm and fed, and swam more than even she probably imagined herself capable of. It was a team effort and I was honored to take part.

The Victorious Team (looking perky at 2:30AM)
(From left to right) Mike, Alice, Caroline, Katy, Daz, Meg, MJ 

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