Thursday 13 September 2018

Marilyn's detailed story of the Santa Barbara channel swim

  After the first attempt, where I got more than halfway in 8 hours until a probable Great White shark was demonstrating predatory behaviour towards me, I decided to put on my war paint. The Massachusetts Open Water Swimming Association recommended that I paint my arms and legs in black and white circles of Zinc Oxide to make me look like a snake, when I swam Cape Cod Bay. Evidently sharks are afraid of snakes. The link below describes the science of shark mitigation and the wetsuits they have designed for scuba divers (elude sharks) and swimmers (divert sharks) http://sharkmitigation.com/sams-products.html. I don't know if it worked to scare off any sharks because we didn't see any, but it did scare off a large bird. We also decorated the kayak with black tape lines for the same reason.
  The waves were 1-2 meters on the way out to Santa Cruz Island in our beautiful 34 foot Hunter sailboat, "Emmanuel", so it took us over 4 hours to get there. Fortunately, they settled down, as the wind driven by the hot air mass during the day often does, near midnight.
  I swam 400-500 metres to the rock cliff face of San Pedro point of Santa Cruz Island. There was a bit of wave action and I got a couple of small scrapes touching the wall. The first 2 hours were fairly calm with only gentle rollers due to the protection from the wind of the island. When we hit the wind, which was blowing a bit broadside and creating waves, I started to get chilly. I wasn't able to put lanolin on my upper arms and legs because of the zinc oxide and the only suit I could find in Ontario or California that was white was kind of skimpy and didn't keep me as warm as my suits usually do. The water temperature hovered between 66 to 70 deg F. For 2 hours, I tried to swim strong because I knew the conditions would get worse. The conditions certainly weren't as perfect as they had been the first time, but it was my only chance in the 3 days Captain Dawn had reserved for me.The last 2 hours before sunrise were very choppy, with waves up to a metre, when the wind switched to the west. This really hurt my shoulders and wrists. The paddlers were working hard and had to change more often than the 3 hours they had planned.
  Sunrise was not very pretty as is was cloudy and a bit foggy. The winds got even worse with up to 1 metre "confused" waves coming from all directions. Evidently, there was also a current pushing me. On the tracker, the current appears to be pushing against the tide. The track is supposed to make a gentle reverse S curve with the tidal currents. From about 10-12 noon, it was a beautiful warm morning and the sun came out and the water was almost flat. The dolphins also came out to play. Five different groups went by during the swim. We were most excited by a group of about 100 that "stampeded" right through our flotilla. About 30 of them swam right under me! But then the sun heated the land and the onshore wind started and grew to a steady 14 knots with gusts up to 21 knots. Fortunately, even though the waves were up to 2 metres, they were large rollers and pushing me exactly in the direction we wanted to be heading. Between seeing the kayaker riding a wave 3 feet above my head and the stripes on my arms, I was getting flashbacks of Cape Cod. The last 11 kilometres were a challenge in swim-surfing and kayaking, but I knew all I had to do was keep surfing and the waves would eventually bring me to land. I also knew that the wind was helping increase my speed. I was a bit worried because Captain Dawn said it would get a lot worse. The pain in my wrists and shoulders came and went. When the going got tough, I kept repeating to myself, "nothing great is easy".
  Captain Dawn knew a spot that was partially behind a break wall so I wouldn't have to swim through monster surf that could roll me. Of greater concern to me was knowing I'd have to swim through it to get back to the boat. Unfortunately, getting to that spot involved a bit of fighting the waves and this was really painful, especially for my left shoulder, so I wasn't able to keep up the pace they had been expecting. But I eventually got to the spot and surfed in through the 2 metre breaking waves to finish at Silver Strand Beach in Oxnard in a time of 18 hours 45 minutes. My son surprised me by swimming in from the boat with the camera in a waterproof case to get the finishing photos. Then I succeeded in swimming through the surf and over 4 sandbars for about 300 metres back to the boat. Official distance 30.6 kms.
  Although the water temperatures were lovely, the stiff breeze most of the night and day chilled me. There were periods where I felt fairly warm but the deep body chill from the pre-dawn hours never went away. The air also cooled as the sun set, making the finish cool. If I had to, I could have swum faster to keep warm, as I did on Lake Superior. However, the salt water was upsetting my stomach every time I tried to swim faster, so I figured keeping my feeds down was more crucial to success.
  The President of Santa Barbara Channel Swimming Association sent me this note:
"This swim has a few notable distinctions.
- First Canadian to swim Santa Barbara channel from Santa Cruz Island"
- Oldest woman to swim SB Channel from SC Island.
- First Canadian to complete California Triple Crown
- Oldest to complete California Triple Crown
- Longest duration swim from SC Island to mainland
- Longest duration combined California Triple Crown time (29 hours 12 minutes)"

I would like to thank Captain Dawn Brooks, who is the most cheerful captain I have ever met. She is also extremely competent and knows these waters and winds inside out. She can make detailed predictions about what the water will be like for the swimmer from only a few lines of weather report. I felt very safe with Assistant Captain Alicia always on the lookout for sharks. My "sister" Jodi DiLascio, was assistant observer and always on the deck with binoculars cheering wildly. The chief observer, Jim Cherry did a great job and he is easy going, too. My paddlers, Paula, my son and husband were brave in the face of huge waves. Thank you to everyone who made this swim a success.  I think they had a lot of fun together, even though it was such a long haul.
  Thank you to everyone who donated to Sashbear to reduce suicide and help families. It's not too late to donate if you haven't already. http://sashbear.org/en/events-main/events-2/making-waves-4-sashbear-lake-superior

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