I told him the shark unit hadn’t been working for the last hour as the battery had run out, and I had been bleeding from cutting my leg on a rock. He said, ‘Dude, you were really lucky.’
There was nothing about that day that made me feel I was lucky, but I took his point.
We made our way back to the Equus hotel and I was greeted with such a warm reception by the manager, René. They even made me a plaque to congratulate me, which was very sweet.
My stomach was still on fire and I was desperate to try and ease the pain. I didn’t at the time know what it was that had stung me, although the assumption was still a Portuguese man o’ war. I didn’t have the energy to look up on the internet how to treat such wounds, but I thought a warm shower might help. I was right – it did seem to ease the pain. My stomach was lacerated with scars where I had been stung and you could see them around my side and back. I had two long scars at the front where I had pulled the tentacles off and a twelve-inch scar inside my leg, which fortunately missed my vitals! I was a mess. It looked as bad as it felt.
I was excited to tell my parents the news. With all the issues in the last few hours, they hadn’t been updated and I wasn’t sure if they knew I had completed it. I sat down in the shower on the phone with the warm water pounding down on me and told my parents. My mum was very relieved to hear from me. She worries a lot and was convinced I was going to die on one of these swims. She didn’t really care either way if I made it; she just wanted to know that I was OK. She said, ‘Let this be the last, now.’
I laughed and said, ‘I have seven swims to complete, Mum – I have four more to go.’
My dad’s reaction, as always, was very excited for me as I had completed yet another one.
Although I was in a lot of pain, I was so happy. I’m sure the pain would have felt a lot worse if I hadn’t made it – well, that’s what I told myself. After a while I stepped out of the shower and as soon as I did my stomach started to burn again, without the warm water to soothe it. I tried ice and vinegar but nothing relieved it, so I had no choice but to go back and have another shower. All night I did this, back and forth; I must have had six or seven showers. I was desperate to sleep or at least just sit still, but due to the pain it became impossible to do so. In the early hours of the night, I wrapped up a towel full of ice and lay it on my stomach, which eased the pain slightly and I slept for about an hour and a half.
In the morning, reception told me the TV news had come to the hotel at around 9 a.m. but had been sent away so that I could rest; they had been told to come back at midday. I was very grateful for this, to have time to get some breakfast and not focus on anything for a while. At midday I was interviewed by KITV news reporter Andrew Pereira at the hotel, and then I relaxed for the rest of the day.
The station wanted me to come into the studio the following morning for a live interview, after which my crew and I headed out to the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center and the battleship USS Missouri. I still had my Equus Hotel T-shirt on from the morning show and a young girl passed me on the way to the entrance and congratulated me. She must have recognised me from the TV interview that morning. Our guide on the battleship tour looked at my shirt and said, ‘I’ve seen a shirt like that before. A mad guy – think he was Australian – swam the Molokai Strait. Can you believe it he swam this!’ he exclaimed, pointing out to the ocean.
‘That was me,’ I said.
‘That was you? Wow! Didn’t you get stung? Can I see it?’
I showed him the sting and he was beside himself with excitement and told the other tourists. The tour itself involved climbing up and down steps on the boat and was wasted on me. I visited each room and just sat down like a zombie in a chair. I wasn’t in the mood for tourist trips, but it was nice for the others to see it. We stayed there most of the afternoon and then made our way back to the hotel.
For the next few days it was really hard to eat due to the ulcers. I was hungry after burning over 19,000 calories but it hurt a lot to eat so I was reduced to sucking on ice cubes, though I did move on to ice cream after a day or so.
I still wasn’t 100 per cent clear on whether it had been a Portuguese man o’ war or a box jellyfish that stung me. I looked on the internet and the stings seem to replicate those of a man o’ war. When I later checked with a jellyfish specialist in Hawaii, she believed it was a man o’ war rather than a box jellyfish. Both can kill you. A man o’ war, which is actually made up of many organisms, has tentacles that can grow up to 100 feet in length. It feeds by paralysing its prey. It was clear I had been very lucky – the outcome could have been much worse. If you are stung by one you are supposed to go immediately to hospital. You shouldn’t pull the tentacles off, which of course is what I had done in the water, not realising what was going on in the pitch-black. My stomach had swollen up significantly and it was as if I was fat on my left side, where the scars from the tentacles were highly visible.
On a positive note, by doing the swim just twenty-four hours after arriving, I at least now had twelve days left in Hawaii. The pressure was off and I could enjoy the rest of the trip. We travelled across the North Shore and explored the area. Honolulu is so beautiful, with its huge cliff faces, stunning beaches and friendly people. It is easy to see why so many people fall in love with the place.
When I was interviewed the next day by KITV about my next swim, I told them, ‘Don’t ask me about Catalina Channel now, as I’ll say no chance.’ I meant it at the time. Catalina Channel is 21 miles across, from an island in the Pacific to mainland Los Angeles. It was the next swim on my Ocean’s Seven list and my plan was to do it the following year.
The plan didn’t last long: when I was flying back from Hawaii I made the decision to try and swim it just a few months later. I didn’t want to waste any unnecessary time and I had good fitness built up, so I thought, ‘Why not?’
17
SWIM #4 CATALINA CHANNEL – TIME FOR A NIGHT SWIM
Catalina has a strict rule about booking sixty days in advance, so within a few weeks of arriving home I was booked in for the end of October. I knew it was a push for my shoulder to do two swims in one year, but having had a three-year gap due to the injury after the English Channel, I didn’t want to waste any more time.
My wife and Chris weren’t coming with me this time so I had to sort out a new crew. My friends Sue and Hugh, both open water swimmers, agreed to support me. Sue lives with her husband Con in LA and they offered to put me up, which was great. I managed to convince my boss to let me use what was left of my holiday and off I went on the plane again – only fourteen weeks after the last swim.
I felt confident, having successfully completed the toughest swim of my life in Hawaii, and I convinced myself this would be straightforward. The great thing about Catalina is that the weather is more often than not consistent, and you can normally go on your allocated day. This meant that I only had to book one week off work. The challenge is that you swim at midnight in complete darkness, so that you finish before the wind gets up in the afternoon. Like the Molokai Strait, Catalina is in the Pacific Ocean, but alongside the potential marine-life dangers I had experienced there, it has its own challenges – swimming it in the dark adds additional risks again.
I had three days before I was due to swim to acclimatise and get used to the time zone. Sue had very kindly checked out Catalina Island the week before so we knew where we were going. Each day I would train a little in the harbour, doing forty-five minutes to an hour, staying loose and keeping my head on the task in hand. I was very fortunate as Sue’s house in LA was two minutes from the ocean, so I was spoilt and had easy access for training.
It was a little different from back in the UK, where I would have to travel three and a half hours to Dover or Windermere to get six hours’ open-water training. I did train on and off at Colwick Park, Nottingham, which is a kilometre-long lake, but it was always a challenge if the ranger spotted me in there – he would usually ask me to leave because the fisherman complain
ed. One time I was training there with Chris and after two hours we were told to get out. We managed to convince the ranger that we would swim at our own risk, that we were very experienced open-water swimmers, and that the risk to us both was very limited due to the fact that we had done several six-hour swims. Two hours later another ranger took over from the previous guy’s shift and also tried to throw us out, but I managed to convince him to let us carry on by assuring him it would be my last ever six-hour swim in the lake. Shortly afterwards they set up an organised club and people can now swim for a couple of hours a few times a week.
The big day for my Catalina Channel swim came on 16 October 2012. Sue, Hugh and I had to get a ferry across to the island and the plan was to check into a hotel and relax before the swim. On the ferry ride across, Sue started speaking to a man about what I was doing. He was very interested and knew the strait very well. He understood where the swim would be leaving from, but pointed out that the ferry we were on didn’t go there. It seemed we were in fact on the wrong ferry and heading to the wrong place! The location Sue had checked out the previous week wasn’t the right part of the island after all. It was actually quite funny, although we did start to panic a little, worrying about how to get across to the right part as the swim was taking place in nine hours’ time. Sue felt really bad about it, but it was just one of those things.
We looked at our options: hiring a car or getting another ferry. The ferry was a definite no as there were none going for the rest of the day, so we would have to try to get a car. The trouble was, we didn’t know who to phone. Fortunately for us, some other people overheard the conversation and one lady said she would be driving that way and could drop us off. It was a huge relief. We had a further issue in that the truck was only big enough to fit two of us inside, but Hugh agreed to ride in the open back so it was all fine in the end.
The journey was a funny one and it helped me to relax, not thinking too much about the swim. The family were really nice, talking about the area, and they acted as tour guides. We took a real scenic route that was only open to locals with a specific permit.
After two hours we arrived at the hotel we had originally booked. By this time it was around 6.30 p.m. and so we walked to the nearest restaurant and had dinner. It felt like the Last Supper for me, but although there were some nerves I was as relaxed as I’ve been on any of the swims. I managed to get about two and a half hours’ sleep back in the hotel room. Sue and Hugh were both happy to sleep on a sofa in the hotel lounge as they didn’t want to disturb me.
I woke up around 10.30 p.m. and packed my things. It was only a five-minute walk to the harbour where the boat would pick us up and take us out to the starting point. Our meeting time was 11 p.m. and we would look to start around midnight. Just after 11 we could see the boat arriving in the distance – it was very eerie, like pirates coming out of the mist. It was so quiet and very dark.
The boat was huge – much bigger than any of the other boats on my previous three swims. I met the crew, who were really nice and made me feel at ease straight away. It took twenty-five minutes to get to the start and when we arrived I couldn’t even see land.
I changed into my swim gear and Hugh greased my underarms and neck with Vaseline. I attached a couple of light sticks to my hat and swim trunks and as I slipped in I had to be pointed in the right direction. I may as well have closed my eyes, it was that dark. As I started swimming to shore, I was still struggling to make out where I needed to exit the water in accordance with the rules. After around 20 metres I started to make out where the land was and where to clear it. I reached the shore, shouted ‘OK’, and off I went.
It was still very eerie – I could hardly see my hand going into the water and it was hard not to wonder if something was underneath me or heading in my direction, as I wouldn’t have been able to see it. These thoughts didn’t last long, however; I reminded myself that, despite what I had gone through in the Molokai Strait, I had still been really confident that I would make it. I was certain that this swim couldn’t possibly be as bad as that. I saw the dark as just another mental challenge to embrace – and I had experienced it before, so it wasn’t going into the unknown. I had so far answered all the questions the ocean had to throw at me. This was just another swim.
As I swam, I kept seeing dark shadows. It was probably my mind playing tricks on me, or it could have been seaweed, which I swam into a couple of times and instantly thought it was a jellyfish. Although I couldn’t see my hands, once they were in the water there was a strange type of luminosity that at the time seemed to make no sense in the darkness. I have since found out that this was down to a natural phenomenon called bioluminescence. This is the production and emission of light by a living organism, which occurs in marine vertebrates and invertebrates as well as in some fungi and microorganisms.
I initially started breathing to the left, towards the kayak and the boat. I felt uneasy doing this as I’ve always preferred breathing to the right, and so I asked after a little while if the kayak would move to the right of me so that I was in the middle. The kayaker, also called Adam, had green light sticks attached to the kayak and his head so I could clearly see him. The glare was quite strong and it took a while for my eyes to adapt to it. After forty-five minutes I started to feel sick; perhaps I was a little disorientated. I then swallowed some water and immediately started retching. As soon as this happens it always seems to trigger vomiting shortly afterwards.
I fed at the first hour on my usual carbohydrate powder, but I threw it up so it provided no benefit. I carried on and had another drink at two hours, again to the same effect. I asked my team for flat Coke on the next feed, which would be on the half hour from now on. I was really frustrated as I had to keep stopping and starting so early into the swim, and tensing up physically always makes me tense up mentally. I had been here so many times, which perhaps was part of the problem: I was almost expecting to be sick and my subconscious had associated ocean-swimming with sickness. I was anxious not to show any sign of distress as the observer and crew had gone extensively through safety regulations before the swim and I felt they wouldn’t hesitate to get me out if they thought I was in trouble. I had been impressed with their thoroughness, although I didn’t want it at the expense of my swim.
Just before my third feed I was sick again and I shouted out, ‘Don’t worry – this is normal and a good weight-loss programme!’ in order to make light of the situation. From then on I made sure my team only gave me flat Coke. This seemed to do the trick: I stopped being sick and could get into a rhythm. Occasionally they would put a scoop of carbohydrate powder into the flat Coke without telling me, but it didn’t affect me. The problem with the flat Coke was that, due to the caffeine, I would get a twenty-five-minute burst and then feel very low and weak, which is why it isn’t a good idea to use it on a long-distance swim. But it always settled my stomach so I felt it was the best option at the time.
As I reached the four-hour mark, I was expecting to feel physically flat as I had in previous swims. On this occasion, however, I felt OK, but it hit me more as I reached five hours. I was told sunrise would be at around 6 a.m. so I used that as an incentive, telling myself, ‘Only one more hour before daylight, Adam – just get through this next hour.’
Sure enough light started to appear at 6 a.m., although the visibility was poor due to fog and I couldn’t see more than about 20 yards in front of me. I also heard a screeching sound coming from the boat, which sounded a bit like a cat in distress. I looked over and the pilot was playing the bagpipes! I had heard he did this at sunrise, but it had slipped my mind – and if I’m honest it wasn’t the greatest rendition of ‘Danny Boy’ in the world, so it came as a bit of a shock. It did, however, break the monotonous cycle so I was grateful for his not-so-sweet sound.
By now my left shoulder was really sore and I was struggling to pull properly with it. Something was badly wrong. It was serving little purpose and I was just allowing it to go through the motions and en
ter as comfortably as possible. I knew I had to switch off the pain and spend the remainder of the swim utilising the right arm to move forwards.
I was told around the five-hour mark that I had gone halfway, so in my mind it was all downhill from here; I started visualising the earth tilting and pushing me forward. The fog still wouldn’t let up though, and I kept looking at the sky, hoping the sun would break out and give me some nice warmth on my back. Sadly for me, it didn’t look like it would be doing that any time soon. I again reminded myself what I had been through in Hawaii; a shoulder packing in was a tiny obstacle in comparison. Prior to the swim I had convinced myself that this would be straightforward and I never doubted I would make it, but it was becoming much more difficult than I had anticipated. My speed had really slowed down due to the loss of power in my left arm, and as the hours passed by I couldn’t see any sign of land.
Around the nine-hour mark, the fire service boat appeared and turned around to guide me in. The guys on board started shouting, ‘Not far now – keep going, keep going!’ It was a real positive boost for me and drove me on.
Apart from a couple of interested seals, I hadn’t seen too much marine activity, but I knew that where there are seals there could potentially be sharks. When I experienced a sudden drop in temperature, it was a real shock to the system and I felt an instant shiver. I remembered hearing that three miles from shore the temperature can drop 2–3 degrees as you get closer to the mainland, so I knew land must be approaching. It had dropped to around 17 degrees, which is warmer than the English Channel, but when your body has become used to 19 degrees over a number of hours, those few degrees can make a big difference.
Man vs Ocean - One Man's Journey to Swim The World's Toughest Oceans Page 13