Kismetic

Could I have been destined to one day swim from Alcatraz?

Could I simply have been wasting time and imagination yesterday, making connections where none exist?

Could be.

Hear me out.

Browsing one of my online news sources, SFGate.com (a hybrid of the the San Francisco Chronicle, more celebrity junk than news, really, but I digress), I came upon a new video feature called "This Forgotten Day in San Francisco History," with Michael Callahan.

In this week's episode, Callahan honored a moment 42 years ago Wednesday, when a British expatriate, Kenneth Crutchlow, swam from Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay to Aquatic Park.

It wasn't the first such crossing. Despite legends of a few prisoners escaping Alcatraz in the early 1960s, swims from Alcatraz are reported to have taken place as early as the 1920s.

Mr. Crutchlow, who became an adventurer of long-distance runs and trans-ocean rowing treks, made news of a sort that day because he swam solo from Alcatraz apparently without any training or acclimation to the 50-degree water. It took him an hour-and-a-half, to emerge into 38-degree air: Very cold, for the California coast.

Foolhardy doesn't begin to describe his feat. Hypothermic is more like it, even deadly, considering his lack of preparation.

Here's where the magic happens. Michael Callahan could have said anything else in his video — the history of Alcatraz swims, a bit about Mr. Crutchlow's adventurous spirit, the effects of cold water on the body — but he says this:

"Was there nothing better to do in San Francisco this December Sunday? How about a Niners' game? They were playing Atlanta at Candlestick, and they won!"

I know this — because I was there! On Dec. 10, 1972, the same day Mr. Crutchlow swam, I was attending my one and only NFL game. In fifth grade, I lived for the 49ers, before I realized what football could do to knees. My Aunt Patti's husband Jim had given my dad and me tickets, for seats just below the concrete rim of the bowl that is Candlestick Park (at least until it's torn down soon).

It turns out the famous howling winds of Candlestick Point, somehow undetected in the construction of the stadium, catch on the rim of the superstructure and roar without relent just inside the lip, an icy freight train going nowhere fast. There my dad and I sat, leaning into the cold, cold blasts, watching the little figures on the green rectangle far below.

Mr. Crutchlow, meanwhile, was emerging bare-chested from relatively warm water into the hard chill of the air. 

Based on our understanding of the game, Dad and I made decent guesses about which little red figure far below was quarterback John Brodie, and which may have been wide receiver Gene Washington. All else was a blur of red and white on green.

That's just one connection. Wait, there's more.

My dad, I learned after his death, was a strong open-water swimmer. My mom told him about his exploits, how effortless he made it seem.

Bim-bam-boom! Don't you see?! Thirty-eight and a half years after that 49ers win against the Atlanta Falcons, I'm out in the chilly water of San Francisco Bay, swimming from Alcatraz. Only the water isn't chilly because I'd been swimming almost daily in chillier water of Lake Natoma where I live.

No disrespect to Mr. Crutchlow, but I finished in 48 minutes. Not fast, but better than an hour-and-a-half.

Coincidence?

Yeah, probably.

•••

In other news, this urgent email arrived:

"Congratulations ,

You were chosen as a potential Executive for the 2014 Australian Executives
Registry of Distinguished Professionals and Executives.

Our candidates are approved based upon the profile information they provide. Upon final confirmation, you will be listed among thousands of accomplished members in the WorldWide Executives Registry of Distinguished Individuals."

It comes from someone named Elvis Dalton, so it's authentic. Elvis forgot to greet me by name, but small matter.

Though I knew my parents had been keeping secrets from me, this is a doozy! How, in all my years, did they not tell me I'm Australian?! And an executive?! A potentially distinguished executive!

To think of all the board meetings and strategy sessions I've missed! The income I should have earned! Executive-level games of golf at the club in the dead of winter, which would be in the middle of summer Down Under!

All I have to do is click here to accept my candidacy. Maybe I should pass; I've missed so much already.

Gang aft agley*

Along for the ride, past Coit Tower, behind kayaker Mark with the orange flag. All photos by Liam Turner

Despite my every sabotage, I did it — I swam the swim of my dreams.

Golden Gate Bridge to the Bay Bridge, on Sunday, six miles.

(Really, it was St. Francis Yacht Club to AT&T Park, where the San Francisco Giants play, about the same distance, but that doesn't trip off the tongue or evoke quite the knowing enormity. More on that in a bit.)

(Full disclosure: tide assisted. Hell, tide enabled: The measured swing of my arms and languid flash of feet were mere pantomime, the current doing all the work. More on that too, later.)

The idea of this swim became a water parasite digging into my brain shortly after I began open water swimming three years ago. It took hold soon after the infection that caused me to want to swim from Alcatraz.

As a result, I share the mania of many open water swimmers — at the sight of any body of water, I immediately wonder whether I can swim it.

With every infrequent crossing of the Golden Gate Bridge, the parasite's tendrils would entwine my neurons and squeeze. I'd take a measure out to the Bay Bridge, scanning the distance and the sailboats and ships chalking the serpentinite water, and try to picture myself making that long crossing. Such a long, long way.

Two years ago, Nancy and my swimming friend Jim drove out to Treasure Island, the human-made village hard by Yerba Buena Island, on which the halfway point of the Bay Bridge is anchored. Between Treasure and Yerba Buena islands is a human-made cove, and a coach with swim-art.com was leading a swim. Jim and I were the only "skin" swimmers, going without a wetsuit. Partway through the session the coach, on a stand-up paddleboard, asked if we were cold. A couple of the wetsuited swimmers said they were. Jim and I just looked at each other.

Cold? Bring it.

Happy with hope and hubris, trying not to hyperventilate …

Alight with hubris, Jim and I looked out on the sunset, the water of the Golden Gate bright fire, the orange span of the bridge sharp in the late light to the right, the Bay Bridge looming up and to our left, The City high and alive between, just across the water.

"Let's do this!" said Jim. "Bridge to Bridge!"

"Yeah, we gotta!" I said.

"I'm doing this, you in?" Jim said again last December. Swim-art.com was advertising a Bridge-to-Bridge expedition swim for June, and warning that the America's Cup (better known as Larry-Ellison-plays-with-his-toy-boats-and-lets-you-pay-in-installments-to-watch) would truncate the big-swim season. If you want to swim bridge to bridge, in other words, this was the only chance this year.

(Straight-up plug for swim-art.com: Though I know of other expedition swim guides in the Bay Area, I'm sticking with Leslie Thomas who runs swim-art. Almost all the coached and guided swims I've taken have been with her group, and the vibe is strong: This is swimming for the joy of swimming. It's not about racing, it's about being your best self in the pleasure of swimming. I'm not a racer, I'm just trying to be a swimmer. If that's your thing, look up swim-art.com)

"I'm in." I signed up right away. Six months to get ready, I remember thinking.

Thus began the best-laid schemes o' this mousy man, almost all gang aft agley. I needed to be trimmer, fitter, stronger to make this swim. This was no day at the beach, but a real swim. Do not trifle. So one by one, I tried and failed at every attempt to improve:

• Bought a medicine ball and stretch cord (with ergonomically sensitive plastic handles!) for building my core. I took them out to Lake Natoma twice, declaring it my own outdoor gym, where I would perform a battery of upper body exercises, alternating swim days with workout days. The medicine ball rolls around in the trunk of my car, banging the wheel wells in mocking reminder …
• Decided to start running. Pulled out a "Chi Running" DVD swimmer friend Stacy and given me a year and a half ago. Watched it twice on my computer. Bought running shoes and anklets. Anklets! Ran twice. The shoes are neatly stowed by my bedstand. Neatness is a bad omen …
• Found our old PX 90 DVDs. Re-learned how the DVD player works. Did the stretching session twice and the cardio once … 
• Pulled out my copy of "Lane Lines to Shore Lines," a wonderful if homespun DVD swimmers Gary Emich (1,000 Alcatraz crossings!) and Phil DiGirolamo made for open water swimmers, and Alcatraz hopefuls in particular. Watched 30 of its 70 minutes, stopping where the narrators describe the benefits of drafting off another swimmer. As if anyone could swim as slow as me …
• Finally found my DVD "Outside the Box: A TI Program for success in Open Water," by Terry Laughlin, developer of the maligned Total Immersion swimming technique I practice. Worried how far away I'd strayed from the technique. Never opened the box …
• Resolved to reacquire bilateral breathing skills (usually it's three strokes, breathe from the left side, three more strokes, breathe right, etc.). In the cold water I developed the bad habit of breathing every two strokes from my left side only. When I realized the swim would follow the flood tide into the Bay, I would be looking toward Marin County to the north, then Oakland and Alameda to the east, and I wanted to see The City on occasion too. I practiced bilateral breathing for maybe six minutes, choked on a lot of water, gave up …
• Thought about swimming nearby Folsom Lake on windy days to practice in heavy chop, but balked at the too-warm water …
• Made plans to swim the Bay. Went to one of swim-art's training sessions, never made it for another because of work or out-of-town obligations …
• Forgot my comfortably ugly Crocs™© at home, and had to walk around Fisherman's Wharf in heavy thrift shop slip-ons I use for my tour guide gig. In an array of sweatpants and fleece jacket and bright yellow beanie and decrepit dress shoes, I resembled a west coast, 21st Century Ratso Rizzo …
• Forgot my neoprene hood and made do with a silicone cap and two swim-art latex caps, which squeezed my head in a rubber vice …

In the end, the only thing I did right was swim, almost every day, in the cold water of Lake Natoma. It's the only exercise I've been able to stick with in the first place, so I stuck with it. In the last couple of miles I've managed longer distances, 2.5 miles instead of the usual 1.3.

Then the cold water abandoned me and I worried. Temperatures have risen ahead of schedule, and Lake Natoma hovers at 61-62 degrees Fahrenheit. The Bay was siting at 58-60, a shocking difference when it comes to water.

Ultimately, Jim couldn't make the swim, but wished me good speed.

I told almost no one, and then just matter-of-factly. I didn't want to come back from a failed swim and explain; either way, though, you know I'd blog about it.

Such a swim costs six to seven times more than a typical open-water race. It's a trophy swim, to be sure —my combined birthday and Christmas gift, so you don't hafta get me anything now — a chance to swim in one of the most beautiful places in the world. But that fee pays for a lot of safety. The lead boat, passenger boat, chase boats and kayakers dwarfed in number and precaution almost all of the open-water races I've joined.

Leslie Thomas and her team needed all of it Sunday.

Twenty-two swimmers and friends and family boarded the Silver Fox at the St. Francis Yacht Club. I stayed with my son, helping him move the last of his stuff into his new apartment in The City. He came aboard with his camera.

Though evening fell Saturday bright and sharp with a fine golden mist — picture perfect — the entire Bay disappeared Sunday, swim day, under a great suffocation of white shapeless fog. Leslie began the pre-race instructions in a cold wind with her back to the Bay, all of us scanning in vain for shreds of blue sky.

All we could see of the Golden Gate Bridge, made more menacing by its veil …

The Silver Fox hauled its human cargo out to the Golden Gate Bridge. I tried to keep a smile pasted to my face, as I thought of the great distance this boat was making just to get to our starting point.

The bridge was a kaiju, a great beast of expanding size in the shroud of mist. It planted one leg in the water before us, its other leg lost in long stride in the distance. It bellowed its great fog horn of warning. A fishing boat curled past and then in front of us at high speed, causing our boat to rock sharply side to side. Excited swimmers and their spectators got quiet. Leslie moved quickly about the boat, talking on the radio.

A pod of escorting kayakers was lost in the fog. Leslie blasted a canned-air horn and listened for the kayakers' whistles. A sailboat appeared suddenly close by and vanished.

By radio, a kayaker said they were fixed on a location and that the Silver Fox needed to come to them.

After a while I just closed my eyes, because in the whiteness I had lost any sense of where we were. The fog horn's bellow quieted, then honked again somewhere else.

A tugboat's coming under the bridge, Leslie said. We have to wait.

Finally I saw the lights of the tugboat, thinking once it passed we'd jump in and get going. Except the lights disappeared and dark vertical shapes pushed out of the mist in their place. Trees. We were on the Marin County side of the Golden Gate. Or were we?

Then the bright shape of a building, a familiar building: We were back where we started, at the St. Francis Yacht Club. We'd start from here.

A shortened swim. I was happy: At least we could swim. We didn't have to cancel.

Into the water, warm and soft compared to what I swim in daily. My arms disappeared to the shoulder in the milky blue-green water, plumes of tan silt falling in where strokes had passed. The water rolled heavily, but somehow despite my inefficient breathing technique, the water didn't choke me or splash my face.

Buddied with Liz, a startup developer, we joined with kayaker Mark to become the Full Moon Flooders — our impromptu team name — and swam into the void. Mark was the only marker to follow, in his green shortie kayak with the orange flag fluttering behind. I lifted my head every four strokes, far too often, unsure of my surroundings.

In an incomprehensibly short time, The City pushed gray and muted out of the fog, moving fast past me. We were in a "super moon" flood tide moving at 3 knots, more than three miles an hour.

Done! Not done? not done …

Pier 39, make a hard right we were warned, or we'd get pushed east to Treasure Island. Just follow me, Mark said. The Bay Bridge loomed, and like most landmarks I swim to, seemed never to get closer until finally it did. I crossed beneath its lofting, forbidding green span, finished, elated.

"We're swimming to AT&T Park," Mark said, motioning another half-mile away. My will had dissipated at the Bay Bridge, but with Liz close by, I pushed on, easing off my shoulders, relying on my hips, one stroke at a time, the current still pushing us.

Finally, finally, finally, the Silver Fox floated in the distance, the light towers of the ballpark looming behind. Apparently the much faster swimmers had blown past the Bay Bridge and just kept swimming, and we followed impromptu.

Six-ish miles in an hour and 28 minutes. It typically takes me that long to swim three miles, so you get an idea how strong the current was.

With neither shiver or shake I got back on the Silver Fox we motored past The City, retracing the route, the bridge, the piers, the Ferry Building, Coit Tower. We swam past all of them. My son handed me two Oreo™® cookies, Leslie Thomas' post-swim trademark treat, and we watched The City go by, then Alcatraz. The Golden Gate Bridge remained concealed and monstrous.

So happy to be here …

Knowing all the factors Leslie weighed to determine whether to stage the swim has made me all the more comfortable. We were in safe keep. The smiling faces of the kayakers shepherding our route confirmed this.

I'll be back. Bay Bridge to Golden Gate Bridge next, hoping for bright sun, but swimming in fog if fog be.

Doing what Dory says.

*To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough, by Robert Burns

Being water

Right where a man had drowned 14 hours earlier, David and I guessed at the time.

"8?" I said.

"You think it's that late?" said David. "Quarter to eight, maybe."

I hoped he was right. We were halfway through a five-mile swim, and I had to be back in time for work by late morning.

The time and our tenuous grasp of it worried me, but not the swim. I could make the swim, even as the destination seemed to drift farther and farther away with every stroke.

The drowning, which I read about the morning after our swim, gave me gloomy pause … and made me wonder how I had come to this strange and happy place:

Almost all my experiences in water had been bad.

Before learning to swim, I once fell fully clothed into the pool at my cousin's house. Above the white panic and the chlorine froth and the ka-chucketa whoosh of blood in my ears and my own screams, I could hear my cousin laughing, could see her face red as she convulsed in guffaws.

She had no idea I couldn't swim, having learned how long before me. Of course she thought her older cousin must be able to swim! Of course everyone older than she could swim! She thought I was just putting on a show, so she had no reason to call for help. She meant no harm. The locomotion of thrashing and sheer will to live somehow bobbed me in reach of the edge, where once I vomited water I made her cry with my angry yelling.
  
During swim lessons as a kid, the coach said I was doing well enough that I might even be good at swimming distances. One set of lessons progressed into another, each with bigger challenges and requirements than the one before. At one point in the summer, I was to swim a long distance; I bet it was 200 yards, or eight lengths of the pool. I felt condemned to failure.

My dad told me to pace myself. I learned after his death he was an accomplished open water swimmer. He never told me this, never got in the water and said, "I'll show you how." I learned to swim from the girl teaching at the Cabrillo High School pool.

Such a little piss-ant kid, prone to tantrums and quitting over board games and games of catch, I'm sure I gave my dad plenty of reasons to let someone else suffer the trials of trying to teach me to swim. Tantrums in the water are unsafe.

I don't think I ever swam those 200 yards. I probably quit the lesson before then.

At a lake in Idaho where an uncle had a cabin, I was supposed to learn to water ski. My uncle was a man's man, the prototype of mid-century American men, taciturn, tough. The process of teaching me to water ski was to put me in a life jacket and into the water, put the skis on me, give me the end of the rope and pull me around with the boat, until eventually I was to figure out on my own to put the skis up just so and rise to a standing position.

But I didn't. I hung onto the rope as long as I could, as many times as I could, drinking water like soup, as they say, from a fire hose, before I couldn't take it any more and let go, bobbing in the water, blubbering. My uncle offered tips such as, "Oh, fer cryin' out loud! Just stand up! Just stand up! Is he cryin', now? Hey, quit cryin', ya baby!"

He left his two sons, my older cousins, in charge of the crybaby for the rest of the weekend.

In high school my drivers' ed teacher was also the water polo coach, Bob Boyer, who asked me during class to try out for the team. I can't imagine why.

He described water polo as a cerebral sport; maybe he knew I got good grades. But book smart ain't street smart. Book smart ain't toughness. As I would prove.

Still, Coach Boyer recruited me! How hard could it be?

Really hard, he neglected to say. Just staying alive required constant effort. It was sink, literally, or swim.

I showed up in my gym shorts over a jockstrap. All the water polo players had Speedo®™-style briefs; that alone should have compelled me to call it a day. But I jumped in. A coach showed me the egg-beater kick, a circular outward flailing of legs designed to keep players stable and afloat; that was the extent of player development; the season was already under way and most of the players had been together a couple of years.

I don't even remember Coach Boyer asking me if I could swim.

Immediately after being shown the egg-beater, we were to egg-beater around the perimeter of the pool, our backs against the wall, hands up.

The goalie was the classic Charles Atlas ad, a 97-pound weakling I knew in junior high who had transformed through water polo into the Muscle Beach body, shoulders out to there. He could egg-beater at high speed, lifting his torso from the water past his navel for several seconds. He made the sport look easy. It isn't.

Sputtering and sinking, eyes inflamed by chlorine, psyche rubbed raw by reality, I didn't last one practice.  

As an adult 12 years ago, I crawled onto shore during a swim test at a Boy Scout canoe training campout, and crept behind the group of other adult leaders who'd also finished the test. Dizzy and heaving, I was sure I was going to die, and wanted to do so quietly. I lost one of my new water shoes in the schlumping attempt to reach shore.

After another canoe outing, I dipped into upper Lake Natoma to cool down. Instead the freezing water shot through me and I arose as if electrocuted, splashing to get out as fast as I could, resolving never to do that again. This was late June, the water temperature in the low 60s.

Yet, I swim.

Why? It became the exercise I could stick with. For all that water drama, I still liked the water. Though not the best swimmer, I enjoyed it for its solitude, a sort of Benjamin Braddock kind of solitude.

As a kid I even invented a new swimming stroke, the corkscrew, the body twisting front to back, front crawl to backstroke. I imagined the Olympics would eventually incorporate the corkscrew. It didn't catch on.

Five years ago, I learned a new swimming technique in the pool, one that would get me from Alcatraz to the mainland with vigor. Gradually I left the pool completely for the open water. It wasn't easy — the first chop I encountered immobilized me with the same childhood feelings of collapse and panic. But friends bade me go on. Now I swim year 'round without a wetsuit, gathering distance. A pittance compared to many swimmers I encounter, but a lot for me.

It's hard to picture the panic and disorientation the drowning man felt the day before our swim. His name and age are known. Beyond that, he has become law enforcement's cautionary tale about respecting the cold water and one's swimming ability.

The water feels warm to us, about 55 degrees. David downed a sport gel and I ate a slimy cranberry-orange bar with a couple of gulps of coconut water, and we headed back into green water. Texas Hill, the little island, was next. Then the marker buoy. Around the bend, then a diagonal across the dark wide stretch back to the boat dock. David zigzagged far ahead of me.

I could make this swim.

(Rest in peace, Bob Boyer.)

Year of maniacal thinking

Where to now?

In 2012 I was to have swum from the Bay Bridge to the Golden Gate Bridge — or vice versa, tide depending — and completed a 10k open-water race.

I didn't.

I did:

• swim the length of my home water, Lake Natoma, finishing the 4.8 miles 30 minutes faster than my first attempt, the Independence Day before;

• cross Donner Lake for the second time, though many minutes slower than the year before;

• swim the Folsom Lake Open Water 2.4 mile for the second time, in about the same amount of time;
• use the full moon for light in a midsummer swim with friends at Folsom Lake;
  
• compete in several swims, including a three-mile race, at an alpine Oregon lake during a wonderful festival devoted to the sport;

• swim at least four times a week in Lake Natoma, through change of season and quality of light, through the slow rise and gradually painful fall in temperature, in fluctuating current, in mirror flatness, in heavy wind-churned chop, in summer clarity and winter murk, in heavy downpour and fog-white loneliness and the congestion of swimmers and darting devil-may-care paddle craft. I swam it with friends on the last day of 2012, and the first of 2013.

I hold the last most dear.

Take away all the rest, in fact, and I'd manage. Deny me my regular swims in Lake Natoma, though, and I'd mourn.

Every swim there is just the same, yet so different. From the south end of the lake, our swims hug the south shore, around a tiny island named (supposedly and as yet inexplicably) for Edgar Rice Burroughs, a distance that creeps up in my mind to 1.5 miles (it's probably just 1.3). From the north end on Saturdays, we swim across the narrow lake and then "upstream" around the trestles of a bridge and back in a big rectangle, about 1.7 miles.

With each swim I struggle and triumph, at different stages, to different degrees, for different reasons and periods — temperature, technique, hazards, work left to do at the office, going through my head constantly. Each high and low follows a cycle, its onset and duration a surprise. I learn little from each, except to know that they will return, sometime, in some way.

Long weeks will pass, for example, in which endurance suddenly escapes me. I'll go along fine for a half mile, a mile, and then one day just 100 yards will be hard. I end up counting strokes then, resolving to go 50, then 70, then 100, and on and on, for days, until I can resume my old stamina.

Sometimes the cycles are external. The stalwarts with whom I have swum the last year, for example, like to get in and swim as soon as we reach the water's edge; fast swimmers, they're soon way ahead. The swimmer I teamed with before (and if he's reading now, he needs to get his wetsuited fanny back out to the lake!) likes to get used to the water before starting out, kind of wade for a bit, let the cold take hold, which is more my style.

Lately a disturbing cycle has rooted, of slight dread. Not of the swim itself — once I'm in, then the struggles and triumphs, the sting of cold water on my forearms, the accidental swallow of green water, are so familiar. It's the going to and getting in that I resist lately. I overthink it and hyperventilate; I dawdle with the preparations (heat the water for the Thermos®© and for the hot drink on the drive over, pack dry clothes in one bag for the car trunk, and swim gear in another bag in the car seat so burglars won't be tempted to break in), so rather than getting in early before the fast swimmers arrive, I barely give myself time to start with them.

I know that sometime — who knows when? — this too shall pass and I'll be eager to jump in again. Maybe in three weeks or so, when the water will be its coldest.

Yet another cycle has waned (they often overlap): Call it acceptance, or resignation, or satisfaction of my Lake Natoma swim. It's been more than enough for me. And yet …

I'm curious again.

Last year began with big plans. Swim big, go farther, faster. I even attended a Bay Area workshop about swimming 10k races. Then I swam 10,000 yards in a pool just to see if I could finish within the time limit. I couldn't. I tried again; long before I could finish, an aquacize class had set up and moved my lane lines to one side of the pool while I was still swimming. The 10k race came and went without me, as did most of the other races I tried the year before.

I stuck to "destination" swims, mostly, so Donner's end-to-end course and mountainous beauty fit. So did the Oregon festival, even though the course was set by buoys, which somehow violate my notion of an open-water swim.

Something about the Oregon swims, maybe the high altitude, wore me down, making me tired for the Donner swim, and by that time all the fire I had stoked for big swims had died out.

I settled into the unsettled comfort of Lake Natoma, where I've been since. Out of the water, I read facebook accounts from swimmers around the world, their big plans for the new year. Ten miles here, 20 there, an English Channel crossing, a Catalina crossing, colder and colder water, much colder than ours. Amazing wild seascapes. More and bigger.

Now I'm thinking outside the pond. A 10k race doesn't appeal, but those iconic bridges still beckon. As does Alcatraz; I'd like to swim it again. To get a leaner, to get stronger. To think less and use what swim buddy Doug calls my "reptile brain." To swim outside my comfort zone.

Where to now?

annus mirabilis

One year ago, I first fell headlong into the murky, unremitting, unforgiving, frigid embrace of the open water, and never got out.

Except for a really good reason — backpacking most of a spring week with my son — I have swum open water at least four days every week since February 20, 2011. I have managed to find a lake or two even while camping on vacation, not to mention a few points along the California coastline, and wondered when I would get back in a pool.

(In fact, I finally canceled my gym membership after a long absence from the pool. Not my best move, it turns out; more on that later.)

The milestone felt like a millstone as the months crept up to the anniversary. A feat I feared I'd never reach actually passed two weeks ago, and I've wrestled with getting around to writing about it, almost — almost! — letting it pass without notice.

But to have done so would have eventually burned a hole in my gut. So much has happened that I hadn't expected ever to happen, that I need to let it out. I've swum from Alcatraz Island, an event for which I planned even as I doubted I really would or could; I've swum, however briefly, in chilled 39-degree chop in crystal clear Lake Tahoe; I've swum well past the length of a pier at Avila Beach, a pier from which long ago as a teenager I looked out and wondered idly if anyone had swum that far out — and wondered why anyone would.

It turns out that one would swim that far just for the delight of waving to people standing high on the end of the pier, wondering why anyone would swim that far.

That's the real, selfish fun for me. I have managed all that time to swim without a wetsuit. Only a few people I know do likewise in the open water in these parts. It's amazing to me to be able to do it; though I don't wave my arms and make a big show when I emerge from the water, I enjoy when onlookers ask every question but, "Are you nuts?"

(Last February, a man walking his dog asked us, "Why?" with such fervor that he leapt into a mild rage, his hands shaking and balling up as he asked, "Really: Why?!" He wanted a rational answer other than, "Because it's fun." I think he felt responsible in case we turned to frozen fish sticks and he had to alert the authorities.) 

At once practical and medicinal, open water swimming has also served as catharsis, as most hobbies do in their ideal, creating a restorative outlet for much of my free time. As one prone to funks, I have found in the open water a forum in which to deal frankly with myself, and renew hope and set goals and reexamine what may be redeeming about me.

In so doing, I have come to know and befriend interesting people who share the love of open water swimming, but have introduced me to many different ways of regarding the world — whether as ridiculous spectacle to laugh about, or as a constant challenge to we human inhabitants, in mind and body. Besides, a grey cold day and choppy green water is best faced with at least one other fool.

They have encouraged me with words, and shown and shone by example.

Through facebook I have met more swimmers from around the country and all over the world, who have revealed that open water swimming is a joy shared globally. I remember being a kid and visiting my parents' longtime friends. Mr. Benjamin would show off his ham radio, and after patiently fussing with the controls, occasionally a voice would squeak and squall through the box, a voice from Norway or Nova Scotia, say. It was fun, but it was hit or miss.

Say what you will, good or bad, about social media, but one wonder it provides is the chance to correspond instantaneously with a swimmer in New South Wales who has just sent a photo of a neon blue and yellow Eastern fiddler ray he swam near, or with a world renowned open water swimmer who must train in a net in the ocean to save herself from lethal jellyfish and sharks.

I have also come to know a place. Two places. I swim at either end of the the long, snake-shaped Lake Natoma, that is really a section of river dammed above and below. Each day that I swim, I take in the usually still water and the dark forests, and note the changes that each day brings, subtle though they are. Early blossoms, say, or the ring of bright water signaling the presence of a river otter, or the sudden coke-bottle clarity of shoals of riprap.

I have watched the arc of the sun dip and rise and now dip again; I have noticed the work of the earth lost to me from inside my car and room and constraints of time. I catalog these passages in my head — a swim buddy and I have even begun gathering daily data — and have seen what a year does to these places. I'm looking forward to getting to know these quiet places better.

(Just an aside, but I'm upset at the mild winter. Last February, first fighting with the cold water, my skin turned bright pink and spongy, and the sting of the cold felt like knife points to my face. Now I'm used to it, and as the temperature dropped degree by degree over the fall and winter, I spent at least one swim in slight pain getting used to the new low level of cold. My arms and hands stung, and I visualized fins of blue flame shooting up my arms, pretending their heat was what really stung; my lips numbed and I couldn't close them to speak; a day later, I was used to the cold, and I was looking forward to facing the water at 46 degrees, the lowest the lake fell last year in the snow and rain. A feeble winter means less snow to melt into Folsom Lake, then to drain from the lake bottom into Lake Natoma, which means the water won't get that cold again this year. I'm so disappointed.) 

It has been, as I said, annus mirabilis, a wonderful year. Or maybe in a more nuanced translation, a year of wonders. Or maybe even as the poet John Dryden intended when he wrote under this title in 1667 after beplagued London burned: It could have been worse.

Now a new year of the open water stretches before me.

Um.

I wonder what the new wonder will be. Right now, I can barely see it for all the numbers. Like cutoff times for a 10k swim. Or consistent times for 100-yard sets. Or negative splits. Or hypoxic breathing. Numbers are not my friends.

This year I want to do the same, only moreso. I might join in fewer races, staying in some favorites just to see how I'll do compared to this year. Maybe I'll swim Alcatraz again, though that can be expensive.

Foremost is swimming at least one 10k race. One is scheduled for early June. I have done diddly about signing up. I have nudged the whole idea with a tentative toe, paralyzed by the idea of swimming that distance in the 3 1/2-hour limit.

I'm hung up on the idea of getting faster. I don't know how to do it, and stay true to the sometimes maligned Total Immersion technique that has gotten me this far, literally, without tearing up my body.

One way, according to conventional wisdom, is to use a swimming pool. So, having just canceled my membership, I now show up from time to time, pay a drop-in fee, and swim. I have proven to myself I can swim the 10k (6.2-mile) distance. I just can't do so within the time limit.

So I'm stuck, mentally anyway. I need to go back to the Total Immersion resources and find the refinements that will help me go faster. I need to research sets that will speed me up and make me stronger. I need to do more than swim, like strengthen my core through other exercise.

And I'll get to it. I will. Whatever keeps me in the open water.

But you know what? The open water is enough for me. I can't say it's freedom, because for me it's a struggle, enduring what are for me long distances. Some people call it wild swimming, and I love that term. It's an honest engagement, an endeavor of mitigated danger, mastery of which lay juuuuuust beyond my grasp.

On the far shore, where I'll always be headed.

… like eating potato chips …

What a photographer my son Liam is: catching me
between jiggles so that the flapping skin resembled
musculature.

Challenging endeavors I overcame this month:

1. Drew caricatures of sleepy teenagers at a high school grad night. One or two caricatures were passable; the rest were simply atrocious, but the grads were too tired or too kind to tell me.

2. Served as emcee at a weeklong early evening camp for boys 7-11 and their adult leaders. This turned out to be an easy gig, because my job was to ramp up the kids' energy level, and I had almost forgotten they don't need much encouragement.

3. Swam from Alcatraz Island to San Francisco's Aquatic Park for Sharkfest 2011.

No. 3 was easiest, easier even than leading a bunch of kids in "Boom Chicka Boom." Or more accurately, steady planning and work toward overcoming obstacles made this endeavor manageable enough to seem easy. Most important, I guess: It was a goal I strongly desired to achieve.

Neurotic about arriving early, I had plenty of time before the swim, so Nancy and
I strolled along the breakwater of Aquatic Park to get a better view of the goal.

My sister Tara, daughter Mo, son Liam and wife Nancy, once all was said and done.
I won this paper cup …

I knew the moment I hit the water around Alcatraz Island, so warm compared to the snow runoff of Lake Natoma, that I had prepared well for the Alcatraz crossing. My next goal  is to draw lessons from the moment, and from the moments leading to the moment. You know, all those corny lessons about setting goals for something worthwhile, goals just out of reach, then making the steps to reach them. Cleaning my office, for example; but for that I'd have to decide it's worthwhile.

I take so many memories to heart: Walking barefoot and bare-chested with the stream of swimmers over to Pier 41 and the ferries … riding atop the ferry, getting as cold as I could stand … cutting my toe on the sandpapery texture of the ferry deck, and truly wondering at that moment about the absence/presence of man-eating sharks … hearing a volunteer tell me, "I used to be as crazy as you" before he helped me out of the ferry with a firm hand … seeing San Francisco from the swells of the Bay, watching it flatten and obscure the landmarks I was hoping desperately to distinguish … clonking another swimmer on the head with my forward stroke, and hoping I hadn't ruined his swim … getting Nancy's help with big and little things throughout the morning … wondering at times whether the shore would ever really appear, whether I had sighted on the proper landmark, whether I had turned in toward the breakwater at the right time … watching a throng of people at the finish line cheering all the swimmers, and seeing my family waving for my attention, happy for my feat … seeing a gigantic tanker chug through the channel between Alcatraz and the shore, just as kayakers corralled the last of the swimmers toward Aquatic Park … not shivering, not even using my towel, on the shore.

More corny stuff: I have so many to thank. My wife and family for supporting me, not only from the time I started swimming but coming out to see this happen over the weekend. My sister even drove up from the Southland to be part of the scene. My parents would have loved this, and it's appropriate that my sister and I were together (too rare an occurrence) on our parents' 50th anniversary.

(Shortly before she died, my mom told tales of her life as we recorded them, and described what a strong open-water swimmer my dad was. Amazing what a mom or dad or anyone you know and love might neglect to tell you! I think of the conversations I could have had with my dad; I remember him encouraging me to keep a steady pace on a really long swim — no more than 100 or 200 yards, I'm sure — that I was supposed to complete for swim lessons when I was 8 or 9; maybe he mentioned he was a strong swimmer, but I chose not to hear.) 

More thanks: My somewhat scary experience trying to swim as a Boy Scout leader, which spurred me to become a swimmer. In the spirit of kaizen (Japanese for "continuous improvement," which reminds me: Thanks Terry Laughlin and your Total Immersion swimming technique which helped me swim without wear and tear on my aging bones), maybe I should say, continue to become a swimmer. I have so much to learn about swimming.

Interesting facts: 1. Only 73 male "skin" swimmers (I like that
better than "non-wetsuit" swimmers, because it's vaguely naughty)
with 27 female "skin" swimmers out of some 900 total;
2. I was not last, though a fellow Cal Poly graduate, same age
from the same year (whom I've never met), finished first among
male "skin" swimmers, third overall, 19 minutes ahead of me;
3. I'm intrigued by Paul and Mark Machin, finishing 43rd and 44th,
respectively; they're the same age with the same unusual
last name, and they finished three tenths of a second apart.
Are they twins? Did they resolve to swim together? Were they
tethered, mechanically or biologically? Is it the same person,
registered twice with two different sets of vitals? I really wanna
know! (Looking at the overall results, posted online, I notice
many more incidents of people with the same last name, finishing
just tenths of a second apart from one another; is this a thing,
I wonder? Do siblings/couples/parents and children make pacts
to swim together on this? Some of these pairings came in very
fast. Hmm, gotta talk my family into joining me in the future.)

More thanks: Leslie Thomas and the people at swim-art.com, for advice and opportunities to swim in the Bay. My swimming friends with Sacramento Swim Enthusiasts, which boasts many eponymous enthusiasts who share my growing love for cold water and are willing to go out very early in the morning, sometimes twice a day (even if it's not the same group each time), to swim.

I joined Team Hydro (on the web site team photo, I'm the only one wearing the pink cap, in the center) on the swim, to raise money for a disease called hydrocephalus. Two brothers started Team Hydro in honor of their sister, who suffered from the disease and who died last November. What started as two brothers, their sister, and two friends four years ago, has grown to 126 swimmers this year (including the youngest in the race, a 10-year-old boy who has hydrocephalus), raising $110,000 to fund two research grants into the disease, for which no cure is yet known. I didn't know what I was getting into when I joined Team Hydro, and wasn't sure if I could do the right thing by raising money. But friends came through big, and it was one last good vibe to carry me into the swim.

It turns out Team Hydro, which got to wear pink swim caps while other swimmers wore yellow, comprises mostly Stanford and Cal alumni, and not being part of either or a college rah-rah type in general, I didn't hang around too much in the Team Hydro section at Aquatic Park. I was grateful for their hot tea at race's end, though.

Alcatraz to me is like scarfing potato chips: One isn't enough, and I've got to have more. I want to swim longer distances, and figure out how to swim faster within the framework of the techniques I learned. Like Team Hydro professes, I'll take it one stroke at a time.

Alcatraz awaits …

Though I don't look anything close to the überswimmer on the right, I don't look like the dude on the left anymore, either.

Swimming longer distances more frequently, nearing the end of my quest to swim from Alcatraz Island to terra not so firma in San Francisco, has changed my shape to something in between.

Saturday, I reach the goal I set some seven years ago, swimming in Sharkfest 2011, weather willing (a friend planned to swim last year's event, which was canceled as the swimmers were ferried out to the starting line at Alcatraz).

Even four months ago, this seemed like a really stupid idea. I was swimming a bit more than a mile most days, but my open water experiences were exasperating tragi-comedies as I sputtered and thrashed in the cold water, and beat myself up over not being able to transfer my pool practice into the chill of lakes Folsom and Natoma near Sacramento.

But steady open water opportunities with the Sacramento Swim Enthusiasts, and encouragement from my newfound friends in that group, has closed the gap. I swim longer distances and practice against all those open water obstacles (no lines, no walls, no clear water) that can throw pool swimmers.  I decided back in February to figure out how to swim in the cold water without a wetsuit, and now I'm accustomed to it and plan to swim Alcatraz that way, in the tradition of the South End Rowing and Dolphin clubs at Aquatic Park in San Francisco, the finish line.

I'm also swimming for Team Hydro, raising money to find cures and treatments for hydrocephalus, a debilitating and life-threatening disease that affects more than 1 million Americans. I'm helping raise money. Wanna donate? Go to teamhydro.org, or my own Team Hydro Web page just for that purpose.

Alcatraz awaits. I can't wait.

Proof of life

Delightedly goofy?

Seven years ago, I would not have emerged from any body of water looking so goofily delighted (or vice versa).

Whenever I resurfaced back then, the result resembled the pic from a previous post (below), indicating the throes of death or imminent hospitalization.

On land or at sea, not a good look.

It's the way I would have looked that spring, after the canoeing instructors had required all us scoutmasters and assistant scoutmasters to swim out a distance, maybe 50 yards, in a lake before the weekend clinic began, just to show we could. I flopped ashore as nonchalantly as a sea elephant, trying very hard to keep my death-rattle pant under radar, and to avoid, if at all possible, making the lead story on the evening news, about the tragic death of a scout leader who really should have known better. And it's certainly how I looked that summer, after the summer camp waterfront directors had given me another try to complete 16 lengths of a pool-sized swim area, as part of the requirements to become a Boy Scout lifeguard. I made it, barely; it's difficult as a lifeguard to convey a sense of confidence among swimmers when you can hardly save yourself.

After those embarrassments, I began swimming for my exercise, and it became my happy habit. Early on, I set a goal of swimming from Alcatraz Island to San Francisco, and eventually realized that my homegrown hurky-jerky swimming technique (or lack thereof) would never get me from Point A(lcatraz) to Point B. After stumbling upon a technique called Total Immersion, I have followed it faithfully, and I think it's finally going to get me across that ship channel. I swim amid the crowd for Sharkfest 2011 June 25. No wetsuit. Can't wait!

Looking back on another 1.3 mile swim on Folsom Lake …

{In addition to the personal challenge, I'm also swimming as part of Team Hydro, to raise money for research into hydrocephalus, a brain disease affecting more than a million Americans. The money raised from each Team Hydro member sponsors the Kate Finlayson Memorial Grant for Hydrocephalus Research. Kate passed away from complications linked to hydrocephalus; she underwent more than 100 brain operations to treat her condition, and lived in chronic pain. Her brother Peter started Team Hydro to honor his sister's brave spirit and and example. All donations toward the grant and all contributions are fully tax-deductible.

You can donate on my Team Hydro Website (and/or see what a terrible fundraiser I am to date, take pity on me and change matters for the better; you'll also see I'm raising the money in honor of my parents, Bonnie and Bill, who had their own life-threatening conditions and passed away from heart attacks, but would have been at once thrilled and horrified that I was swimming Alcatraz.)

Or mail donations to: 
Hydrocephalus Association
Team Hydro — Sharkfest
870 Market Street, Suite 705
San Francisco, CA 94102
(indicate Sharkfest 2011)}

Sure, to you it's Jack Lalanne's
"before" photo, but it's definitely
Shawn Turner's "after" photo
from seven years before.

Total Immersion is (my description) an  old-person's swim technique, designed for folks who never really swam before. It teaches that hips drive swimmers, not arms and legs, and since I've used it, my shoulders no longer burn with stress. Many really good swimmers come by this technique naturally, and I've had to relearn how to swim in order to achieve it. Total Immersion gets its share of eye-rolls and gentle derision from some other swimmers who have grown up with the sport, which I find funny. They're right: I'll never be the fastest, but I am faster than I was, and I don't ache at the end of the swim. And all I want to do is swim … and maybe not be last in any swim.

I'm either so lightning quick with my movements that my
photographer son could not catch them, or I swim armless
like an overturned tugboat. Probably that.

Even before my first Alcatraz crossing, I've set my sights on more. I hope within the year to swim the six miles or so (with the current!) from the Bay Bridge to the Golden Gate Bridge, and to swim four miles along the length of Lake Natoma this summer.

How my wife feels about my swimming.
No, she really likes it, but really wants me not to
drown. She probably also wishes I would post
a better picture.

Fun swimming postscript: My swimming friend Tom tells me about a Florida cancer surgeon, John "Lucky" Meisenheimer, who opens his spacious lake home to the world each morning, to join him in a 1-kilometer round trip in the crocodile-inhabited lake that edges his property. Swimmers come from all over the world, and each swimmer writes his/her name on a wall and gets a patch, and swimmers who reach certain accumulated distances earn more accolades. He's larger than life, and he also organizes for Special Olympics swimming events. A good guy. If I'm ever in Orlando, I'm heading there instead of Disneyworld.