Swimming to Antarctica_ Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer - Lynne Cox [139]
Once I was in Ushuaia, my goal was to swim for an hour a day at sprint pace. The first day I worked out in Ushuaia Harbor, the weather conditions were the worst I’d ever been in. The winds were gale force, gusting up to fifty knots, and the waves in the harbor were walls of four-feet-high rapidly breaking chop. I wasn’t sure about swimming alone in the water that day. It looked dangerous, and usually when conditions are bad, they get worse before they get better. I told myself I had to get in and swim; I needed to condition to the water temperature, and I needed to accept every challenge, because what I wanted to do would be far beyond what I did in any training swim. I decided to swim within twenty-five yards of shore so I could get out of the water quickly if I needed to. I searched for a place where I could enter the water and swim safely.
In that area, the harbor was filled with exposed rocks covered with sharp barnacles and mussels. I was afraid of swimming smack into them and slicing my hand or head open. And there was kelp, the kind that scratched like small rose thorns. I had to keep pushing myself mentally. I told myself to figure out a way to just get into the water and swim. I took off my sweats and shoes. Standing there in the wind in my bathing suit, I was freezing. At least, I told myself, the water won’t feel as cold now. I found a crack between two rocks and squeezed my sweats into the crack and piled my shoes on top so they wouldn’t be blown into the sea by the gale. Then I climbed down the rocky embankment, sat down on a rock, and pressed myself into the water.
It was a shock when I slipped into the forty-degree water; I turned my arms over rapidly and swam with my head up, over cresting waves, as crystal water droplets flew off my fingertips. I swam about a quarter of a mile, to an area where the Argentine navy anchored their fleet. The weather was so bad it looked as though all the ships were tied to the wharf in the harbor. Turning around to begin my second lap, I caught a faceful of water, then battled the waves the entire way back to the starting point. I did six laps, and when I turned around after the last one, an enormous and brilliant rainbow stretched from the Argentine ships. I took it as a good sign.
For the next six days, I worked out in the harbor. I had to push myself every day to get into the water, but with each day that passed, I found that I was able to stay warmer for a longer time period. After my swim, I walked back to the Albatross Hotel, where I was staying, climbed the four floors to the top of the building, where the hotel was the warmest, and walked back and forth quickly until my feet thawed, then jogged back and forth in the hallway to warm up. It felt good to work so hard, to know I had the chance to do something that had never been done before. Still it was hard being there on my own. I stayed in touch with friends and family by e-mail every day and their words and encouragement made me realize that even though I was alone physically they were with me in spirit.
At the end of my last solo workout, the day before my crew arrived in Ushuaia, I glanced up at the city, with its small bright red, yellow, turquoise, green, blue, and white houses built on steep hills, encircled by the end of the Andes Mountain chain, still glistening with snow. Looking up into the sky, I saw the wind tearing thin clouds apart, and encircling the sun was a huge and brilliant rainbow, formed by the sun shining through ice crystals. I thought, This is another good sign; it’s the circle of completion.
On the Sunday morning my crew would arrive in Ushuaia, I woke up at four a.m. I tried to talk myself into going back to sleep, but I kept rolling around in bed. Finally, at five-thirty, I decided to go for an early-morning workout. It seemed like a good idea; there would be a lot of people walking around the harbor area later in the day, and I wanted to maintain a low profile, not wanting