Just Try One More

My hands were sweating profusely as I tightened my grip on the rubber handles of the crutches. The cold wet sand tingled between my toes. Seventy other swimmers stood beside me, awaiting the start of the Santa Cruz one mile pier swim. It had been just a month since I lay in a hospital bed preparing for a knee operation. I still had not walked without crutches. For three days I had been able to swim, for therapy, the doctor said, but nothing strenuous. For five months, the longest layoff of my swimming career, I had been out of the water. At nineteen, I was considered over the hill. Should I quit swimming after this year? What was left for me? How could I make a comeback at nineteen? Would I fade out as so many other swimmers had at college? Or would I continue? I knew I had to continue. I had not completed my dream: to swim the English Channel. Until I did, I could not quit swimming. This dream emerged when I was ten years old. By my tenth birthday I had been swimming for over eight years, first on a country-club level in San Mateo, California, then on an AAU team in San Francisco coached by Olympic coach Charlie Sava. After three years, the daily commuting (about one and a half hours, depending on traffic) had taken its toll on me and my family. It was too difficult for my family so, therefore, I began training with Ray and Zada Taft of the San Mateo Marlins. This is where my dream of swimming the English Channel emerged. One day, Ray came to me and asked if I wanted to swim the length of the Golden Gate Bridge. I was ten years old at the time. If I completed the swim, I would be the youngest female to have done so. However, this was not the purpose of the swim. The point was that regardless of a person’s age she could learn to swim and that drowning was pointless. Another teammate, eight-year old Bruce Farley, would also make an attempt. Bruce was about fifty-two inches tall and weighed about eighty pounds. I, on the other hand, was fifty inches tall and weighed a mere fifty pounds. One afternoon we had the distinct honor to speak with Gertrude Ederle. She was the first woman to swim the English Channel, and did so in record time in 1926. She told us not to swim in cold water as we would go deaf, but if we wanted to do it, then good luck! If we began prior to the tide change, the swim was only a mile in distance and would take about twenty-five minutes. If the tide changed, instead of a calm swim, we would encounter water rushing back out to sea. This gradually picks up speed until it reaches a maximum of nine miles per hour. Another difficulty was the water temperature. The swim was planned for mid-September. During this month, the water temperature ranges from the high fifties to the low sixties--not the best temperatures for swimming. In order to become acclimatized to the cold water, the Tafts had us train in the San Francisco Bay once or twice, and in the 100 yard Fleishacher’s Salt Water Pool in San Francisco. After successfully completing the various stages of training, it was decided that we would swim on Saturday, September 18, 1965. What a day! I can vividly remember it. The air was filled with excitement and a sense of apprehension. Various newspaper reporters wanted interviews, and someone asked me to stand at the edge of the pier and gaze towards the bridge―the Golden Gate. It looked like a gigantic orange metallic monster with outstretched arms grasping the land for support, and at the same time it was beautiful. Later, Bruce and I watched an old fisherman as he struggled to pull in his line. His face strained with pain as he lifted the fish onto the dock. It was a shark. I had never been so close to a shark before. It was only a baby, maybe two feet in length, but it seemed as big as me. A reporter had us stand by the shark for pictures. I said with a smile, “He probably couldn’t bite off more than a finger or a toe.” Our coaches quickly ushered us from that end of the pier. Everyone was getting a little anxious because the eight o’clock starting time had come and gone. The swim had been delayed because the motor of the support vessel would not start. Almost an hour had passed by the time Bruce and I climbed into the boat to leave for the starting point off the rocks at Fort Point. We would be swimming from the San Francisco side to the Marin side. The delay created some problems that could not be overcome. The tide was changing under the bridge and at the later time there was more of a possibility of encountering merchant ships. As the boat approached the rocks, it was decided that no grease would be applied to our bodies. The swim could not be delayed further. However, the water temperature was in the high fifties. Quickly we entered the water to begin our ever-changing swim. The expected one-half hour swim was extended due to the vicious tides we encountered under the bridge. As we slowly approached the halfway point, we were abruptly stopped. A huge sugar ship was approaching. We were instructed to tread water until the ship had passed. If we had been too close, we would have been sucked under the ship. For fifteen minutes we floated motionless. I was very cold. All the while I kept thinking that maybe we should have applied the grease to our bodies so that we may have been warmer. Finally, we started swimming, only to be stopped less than fifteen minutes later. Again we had to tread water. I was miserable. I do not remember complaining, but within ten minutes after starting up again, Zada asked me if I wanted to get out. She asked me! I was cold and tired, so I gave up. I quit. As I climbed up onto the boat and watched Bruce complete the last four hundred yards, I cried. After Bruce finished, the boat rushed back to the dock. Everyone was very happy for him. As I climbed up the stairs to the dock, I looked for my mother. She had walked away. I had failed. Looking at the Golden Gate Bridge, I promised myself right then that I would never quit again, no matter what. Someday I would swim the English Channel and break the world record.