Change Agent | Christopher Swain
Send Story to a FriendTesting the Bail-Out Plan on Swim Day #34
On September 12, 2004, I headed out from Burlington, Vermont onto Lake Champlain. My scruffy crew guy, Josh Parish, piloted our twelve-foot aluminum john boat away from the dock into a gusty North wind. It was going to be the twelfth day of my 129 mile swim up the lake.
We never should have left the dock.
Two miles from shore, we roared up the side of a double-crested, six-foot wave straight into a forty-knot gust of wind, spun sideways, and went airborne.
Josh, the boat, and I were all blown backwards through the air. I remember thinking, "I hope I don't get hit with any of this gear--or the goddamn boat" and "I wonder what the motor's doing" and "There go the oars."
I had my wetsuit on, just not zipped yet, so the shock of 65 degree water was negligible. But Josh, faithful skipper of my escort boat, wasn't planning to swim that day.
As I surfaced, I heaved in a breath of air and gasoline vapor and started a mental to-do list. It went like this: 1. Find Josh. 2. If he doesn't come up in five seconds I have to dive for him. 3. 1-2-3-4-5! 4. Ah, here he comes good he's swearing he has an airway. 5. Grab the goddamned oars. 6. Let's get this boat turned right side up and get Josh out of the water. 7. Sh*t!
It felt like hours before we righted and bailed the boat, and by then Josh was so cold and weak that we barely managed to get him back into the boat. I rowed us back to shore with one oar while he shivered and I made a long list of all the ways I screwed up.
It turned out okay that time: We made it to shore, recovered, got the motor serviced, Josh forgave me, and were back on the water two days later.
But I was shaken. I had made a series of bad decisions that put us both at risk. Instead of swimming, I had ended up rescuing myself and my crewperson.
Five years on, the memories are fresh and the lessons are carved into the gray craters of my brain: Stay off the water when the conditions are against you. Bring the right boat for the job. Be prepared to change your plan. Be ready to rescue your crew and yourself.
Back at Mackerel Cove, Jen was set to kayak for me and it looked like we had great day for it: a sunny day with light and variable winds. The swim I planned was a long arc around Winter Island, into Salem Harbor, and down to Lead Mills.
As we were getting ready though, one logistical thing led to another and we were delayed about an hour. During this time the wind kicked up a bit. Not much, but some. Still, I took my time, photographing storm drain outfalls and algae, and suiting up.
After we launched, the breeze began to resolve itself into a crosswind which suddenly stiffened as we rounded Winter Island. As I made the turn, I could see Jen paddling for all she was worth and getting slowed nearly to a standstill every time a gust hit her kayak. In the water and free of wind resistance, I started to pull ahead.
(Pulling away from your escort boat is a dangerous move for an open water swimmer. Yet treading water waiting for your escort boat to catch up as you freeze and get slapped around by waves is a prescription for frustration. When I was swimming the Hudson River, I remember feeling this push-pull acutely, and yelling at my crew people to keep up even though they were paddling flat-out into the wind. I still feel bad about it.)
I stopped swimming and forced myself to take a few deep breaths. My mind started to slow down. I relaxed my hands inside my gloves. I glanced at the waves. I turned my head and listened to the wind blow against my cap. I squinted back at Jen. I waited a few minutes for her to catch up. Whe she drew abreast of me, I took hold of the grab line at the bow of her kayak.
"How's it going?" I asked.
"Not great," she said. "This wind is really pushing me--I have to paddle hard all the time trying to keep up."
"Yeah," I said. "I've seen this kind of thing before."
"I'm sorry," she said.
"Don't be," I told her. "It's not you. You're doing great. It's just..."
"What?'
Another deep breath.
"It's just that we shouldn't be out here anymore. The kayak was great twenty minutes ago, but now it's the wrong boat for this. We gotta bail."
"No, no, it's okay, I think I can do it."
And here's the tricky part--she probably could make it all the way down to Lead Mills. And I really wanted to get those miles in. Badly.
Except the effort, which would take everything she had into a quartering headwind, would leave her with nothing to spare. No energy, no attention available for me if I needed help, no reserves to draw on if something went wrong.
It was time to man-up and use some of my hard-won experience. We needed to get off the water. Soon. Luckily, after years of close calls, I actually had a plan for what to do if conditions changed when we were on the water. Every swim day I studied the map before I launched, and made mental notes of places that we could land and get out if we needed to.
"That's nice of you to want to try," I said. "I'm sure you could make it, but the trick here is not to risk anything if we don't have to." (This last bit was really more of a reminder to myself.) "We are going to pack it in. Do you see Stramski's Landing?" I pointed.
"Yup."
"Okay, let's head over there."
"Are you sure?"
"Yup. It'll be fine."
We sawed through the chop over to the beach at Stramski's. When we hit the sand I felt a wave of relief. I looked back out at the waves--whitecaps now--and thought, good call.
And then I sent a silent thought out to Owen, Jeremy, Rick, Andy, Josh, Chris, Nicole and the rest of the crew people who followed me, loyally, into harm's way over the years: I'm sorry for all the stress, guys. Thanks for sticking with me. It looks like I might actually have learned my lesson...
Thanks for reading.
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February 2, 2010 - 11:38am