Swimming to Antarctica_ Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer - Lynne Cox [154]
For the next five or six minutes, I continued swimming, telling myself that I was doing well, telling myself that this was what I had trained for. Then something clicked, as if my body had gained equilibrium. It had fully closed down the blood flow in my skin and fingers and toes. My arms and legs were as cold as the water, but I could feel the heat radiating deep within my torso and head, and this gave me confidence. I knew that my body was protecting my brain and vital organs. Staring through the clear, silver-blue water, I examined my fingers; they were red and swollen. They were different than when I’d been swimming in the Bering Strait, when they’d looked like the fingers of a dead person. They looked healthy, and I thought their swollenness would give me more surface area, more to pull with.
I smiled and looked up at the crew, who were in the Zodiacs on either side of me. Each of them was leaning forward, willing me ahead. Their faces were filled with tension. Gabriella, Barry, Dan, and Scott were leaning so far over the Zodiac’s pontoon I felt as if they were swimming right beside me. I was sprinting faster than I ever had before, moving faster than the Zodiac, and I was getting fatigued quickly. The water was thicker than on the test swim, and it took more force to pull through on each stroke. My arms ached. I didn’t feel right; I couldn’t seem to get into any kind of a rhythm. Then I sensed that something was wrong.
We were heading to the left, toward some glaciers. This didn’t make sense; we couldn’t land there. It was too dangerous. The glaciers could calve and kill us.
“Barry, where are we going?” I shouted, using air I needed for breathing.
He pointed out our direction—right toward the glaciers. I didn’t understand. I didn’t want to go that way. I wanted to aim for the beach. I was confused. I was moving my arms as fast as they would go, and it was taking all I had. From each moment to the next, I had to tell myself to keep going. The water felt so much colder than on the test swim. It had already worked its way deep into my muscles. My arms and legs were stiff. My strokes were short and choppy. But I kept going, telling myself to trust the crew and focus on the glaciers to watch the outcropping of rocks that was growing larger. I couldn’t get into any kind of pace.
Abruptly the Zodiacs zagged to the right. I looked up and thought, Wow, okay; we’re heading for the beach now. For a moment, I started to feel better. I was able to extend my reach farther, and I could see passengers from the Orlova walking along the snowbanks. In the distance, their clothes lost their color and they looked black, like giant penguins. I saw smaller black figures, too—real penguins nesting near the edge of the shore. For a few moments, I felt like I was going to be okay, like I was going to make it in to shore, but then the Zodiacs abruptly turned farther to the right, and we were headed past the beach for another range of glaciers.
Finally, it occurred to me that the Orlova had anchored too close to shore for me to swim a mile, so Barry was adding distance by altering the course. And the ship’s captain was on the bridge monitoring our course on his GPS and radioing our Zodiacs, updating them on the distance we had traveled. One of the passengers, Mrs. Stokie, who was on the bridge with him, told me later, “The captain was watching you and he was shaking his head. He was an older man, and he had experienced everything. And now he was seeing something new. It was good for him. Still, I think he couldn’t believe it.”
We continued on right past the beach, toward more glaciers.
“How long have I been swimming?” I asked.
“Fifteen minutes,” Barry said.
I had swum a little more than half a mile. I looked up at the shore. If I turned left, I could make it in. I could reach the shore. This struggle could be over. But I wouldn’t complete the mile. I had