On 8/9/10 at 11 pm, I canon-balled into the Catalina Channel, and my goggles flipped off. Great way to start, eh? That’s what I get for showing off, I guess.

On my boat, the Bottom Scratcher, I had a stellar crew: my husband, Morgan Mead, crewing his very first marathon swim, Will Simmons, a fellow channel swimmer and a pro kayaker/crew member, and the CCSFs finest Lynn Kubasek and Roman K as my observers, and last but not least the bagpipe-playing Greg Elliot and his crew of pilots.

The Bottom Scratcher was much bigger than I had expected, at least twice as big as the P40 Samallen that I hired two years ago for my English Channel Swim. After eating a large lunch at Olive Garden we boarded the boat for a prompt departure at 8:30pm from Long Beach. After filling out some paperwork and holding a rules-reading and safety meeting, I was told to go below to the bunks and try and get some sleep on the boat ride out to Catalina. Although I spent most of the 2 hours texting and thinking, I did finally get a 45 minute powernap in. Soon I was up and getting in a last minute snack and hydrating (I drank 2.5 bottles of water on the way out!) and I was greasing up for a long swim.

Was I nervous? Yes and no. I wasn’t ever really that nervous until the day of the swim, and I had a 2 minute nervous crying breakdown in the hotel room before we boarded the boat. After that I was significantly better, and Roman even commented that he couldn’t believe how calm I was. Mostly it wasn’t sinking in what I was about to do, and it didn’t start sinking in until the pain set in.

So I jumped off the boat, adjusted my goggles, and swam into Catalina Island. How was Catalina Island, you ask? As much as I would love to boast about how Catalina Island is one of the most beautiful places in the world, really it was 11pm and pitch black (the boat shined a spotlight where I was landing so that I could see it) and I didn’t see much except a rope designating a swimming area. There was kelp that I couldn’t see as well, and it was slightly disconcerting to be swimming along and suddenly tangled in a large mass of plant matter. The beach came sooner than expected, and I stood up and cleared the water. I gave myself about 30 seconds to get myself together. Finally I decided that no amount of standing there was going to make me feel any more prepared for what I was about to do, so I entered the water, shouted “Swimming!” to start my time and shoved off. It still hadn’t sunk in yet what I was about to do.

I took off, feeling great. I met up with Will in the kayak, and shortly thereafter we had caught up with the Bottom Scratcher. The water was pretty rough at the start, and mostly I was concerned about Will. He looked like he would get thrown from the kayak at any moment, and he also was having a hard time keeping up with me. My first feeding went smoothly on my end, and when I asked for my stroke count, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I was holding 77 strokes per minute, two strokes more than my target of 75. During my six hour swim it was pushing it to hold 74. I gulped my warm apple juice and water down, threw the bottle back, and put my head back down and continued on.

Things continued like this for awhile, and for the first 4 or 5 feeds or so (every 20 minutes) I was still holding 77. Every hour I took a gel pack, and we decided that I would start feeding from my boat because it was difficult for the kayaker to get the feed from the boat and then get back to me with it. Luckily, Will had made this awesome feeding stick out of a paint roller and a water bottle holder for a bike, and while it was still difficult to reach up and grab the bottle, it worked. Finally after awhile I decided that the water temp was not affecting me and that it wouldn’t be necessary to take warmed feeds, so the crew mixed some bottles and threw them to the kayaker to pass off to me. This made feeding a whole lot easier.

After awhile my stroke rate fell to 76 strokes per minute, and later to 75. Up until the final hour I was a solid 75-76 strokes per minute.

As I said I had a stellar crew. My kayakers, Will and Morgan, did an awesome job leading me the right direction and fighting the waves with me. Will did so while suffering from motion sickness, and after the swim he told me that right after I had handed him a bottle after a feed and started swimming, he proceeded to yack over the other side of the kayak. After a few strokes I noticed him falling behind and stopped to look back. He managed to get the words “keep going” out before he started to yack again. He did a great job hiding his condition from me, I had no idea. Morgan, however, had a different problem. The patch he had on for the motion sickness caused the eye on that side to dilate and his vision to blur! Lynn asked him about it, thinking it was some sort of birth defect, and when he realized what was happening he promptly removed the patch. Apparently this is a common side effect! In addition to these challenges, the guys had to deal with a kayak with no seat (and no back support!) and some pretty hairy kayak changes that left us all surprised that neither one of them fell in. Morgan had a 10-inch survival knife on his boat the entire time, as he was convinced I was going to be attacked by a shark, and he also brought his night vision goggles with him (don’t ask) that ended up being a cool way to watch me from the boat.

Speaking of marine life, here’s the running list of the things I saw and didn’t see. I saw lots of jellyfish, mostly down below, but really I was only stung by a lot of tiny jellyfish I couldn’t see. Their stings were mild and lasted for a minute or two, but they would come in patches where I was suddenly being stung in 5 different places. I managed to get one down my suit and it stung me continuously for most of the swim. I’m not really sure how it eventually got out, but it was gone by the time I finished. I got stung a few times by larger jellyfish, once on the cheek, which was the only sting that lasted all that long. The cheek sting lasted for about three hours, and after I got out I put some of the Chrispy Critter After Burn Gel on it and that subdued the pain until it disappeared. Out at Catalina, my crew reported seeing flying fish, and later there was a pod of dolphins, both of which I didn’t see. At the finish I did see a bright red starfish and a sea urchin. But thats it. I guess that’s what you get when you swim so fast you don’t get much daylight!

How did it feel? It felt great…..for the first half of the swim. At one point my shoulders really started to hurt, and I was getting worried about my ability to keep up the pace. However, my crew did an awesome job of motivating me (Roman was almost always there with his arms in the air cheering…..I wonder if he was sore the next day) and every time I wanted to drop off I told myself I was a champion and champions keep going. I even increased my stroke rate! Somehow, as I started to push harder the shoulders started feeling better. At about 7.5 hours or so it was catching up to me and I dropped off to my lowest, 72 strokes per minute. This is the part where I was most lucky to have Will. At the feeding, he told me my stroke count and asked me to give him 76 strokes per minute for a solid 20 minutes. I had no idea how I would do that but I just nodded and asked him if I would be there after 20 minutes. His answer “not quite, but you’ll be much closer.” I put my head down and pushed onward, and brought my stroke count back up to 76, just like he asked. Anyone else would not have asked me for more, seeing the pain I was in, and I knew that if he were in my place HE would press on. After that, I kept it up, and noticed that my heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest, but my crew was still going crazy motioning me to keep up the pace, so I did. This was my first marathon swim that I was actually working hard aerobically at the end of the swim, and of that, I am very proud. By the end of it I was in severe pain (best lie ever told goes to Will, who told me I was about ¾ mile away when I was actually 2 miles away) and all I could focus on was getting there so that I could stop swimming. About 40 minutes after sunrise Captain Greg fired up the old bagpipes for me, as previously promised, lifting my spirits some. I swam up to the rocky shore where Forrest Nelson was there waiting for me, directing me on how to navigate the waves and rocks. Once I had completely cleared the water he yelled “Time!” and Will blew the whistle, and my time stopped: 8 hours and 36 minutes. I sat down on the beach and the rest was a blur, but I remember Forrest telling me that I did great and telling me that I needed to swim back to the boat. I was about to cry, and I told him I didn’t want to swim to the boat. He told me that there was no dinghy, so I would have to. As I started to wade back out into the water, Will kayaked up and offered me his kayak. That’s all it took. I didn’t say anything, but the second he was out of the kayak I was in paddling back to the boat. I heard someone yell my name but I didn’t look back. I didn’t even think to offer Will my goggles! Later I realized how ridiculous it was that he swam back fully clothed because I didn’t want to swim 200 meters, but at that moment my only concern was to be done swimming. Will said later that it took him awhile to get back, and he showed me all the cuts and scrapes on his legs from the kelp. He also said that when I exited the kayak I spilled bottles all over and he had to clean up all of those as well (oops!)

By the time I got back to the boat I had started to slip into hypothermia, and I was whisked away to stand in the shower until it started to turn cold. Then I was put below where I got into some dry clothes and laid in a bunk with a pile of blankets covering me and hot water bottles tucked under my armpits and between my thighs. There I shivered while Morgan held me until I fell asleep a few minutes later. The next thing I knew we were pulling up in Long Beach and my crew was quite celebratory. I cannot stress enough how important a great crew is to a successful swim, and I have nothing but heartfelt thank-yous to Morgan, Will, Lynn, and Roman, who offered their time and in some cases money to make this possible for me.

Thanks also goes out to all of you for your support and well wishes. Right before I got into the water Morgan came to me with his phone and said “You won’t believe how many people are following your progress” and I told him “I believe it.” I witnessed it before with my English Channel Swim and it was no different this time around. Some of you sponsored me, bought t-shirts, donated to my fundraising initiative, followed my blog, and “liked” my facebook fanpage. Others gave me a ride, let me stay at their place, trained with me, awarded me a scholarship, or offered me moral support in the two years leading up to this swim. I am forever indebted to you all and want you to know how much I appreciate what you have done for me.

Here are some photos from the swim, more photos and video to come!

First, the GPS tracker from the swim…..straight as an arrow.  http://firepin.com/map/Catalina/18950a80-8673-012d-75fa-12313a00c1c5

Bottom Scratcher

Pre-Swim meeting.

My fabulous crew!

Leaving Long Beach.

Kayak is in…..ready to go!

One of the first feedings.

Stroking….

Mainland!

Next to last feeding.

Sunrise=Bagpipes

Almost there!

Fighting the waves.

Careful!

Made it!

The new face of pain.

Look at me, I jacked a kayak!

Next up………Molokai Channel in Hawaii and Straights of Gibraltar from Spain to Morocco in 2011!