Guest Post by Nery Castillo-McIntyre: "My Open Water Swimming Odyssey"
"My wife thinks I look like a camel in this pic, but was appeased once she learned it earned me some swag, which she normally keeps - no questions asked..."
Article by Nery Castillo-McIntyre
Walking by my daughter’s side as she rode her adaptive trike on the trail by the Bay at Point Isabel, I looked at the windswept waves that sunny Saturday afternoon and fished around in my head for a way out of the next morning: I had signed up to try open water swimming in the East Bay and had all the requisite equipment to do so safely, but had not yet mustered the nerve to just do it.
Since I had already invested in the gear, I figured Sunday morning I might as well go through with the exercise; unlike the previous afternoon, the morning was overcast—ominously so, thought I—but, nonetheless, I put on the new wetsuit I’d bought on sale, picked up the swim backpack I had readied the night before, and drove to the rendezvous which, unbeknownst to me at the time, was the harder of the two starting points Odyssey Open Water Swimming uses, depending on the tide’s ebb and flow. Had I known, this might have given me the excuse I had so desperately been looking for just over twelve hours before—sometimes, ignorance truly is bliss.
After parking, I approached one of the coaches in charge that day, Conny, someone I later learned is a former Olympian and a marine monster of a swimmer in the open water: she once swam an individual medley (butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle) back and forth between Alcatraz and San Francisco, and has swum the 20-plus-mile channel overnight from Catalina Island to Rancho Palos Verdes in Southern California, as well as one relay leg to cross the English Channel, among many other feats. Conny was reassuring and welcoming and, very gently, asked whether I planned to wear the swim shorts I had over my wetsuit: I assured her that, ridiculous and scared as I looked, I still had enough wits about me to leave the trunks behind before jumping in.
Even though I had swim socks on, I could not stand how slimy the ground felt under my feet when walking in shallow water as I entered the Bay, making me almost look forward to finally treading water. Almost. My fear of what might be lurking underneath was greater than the disgust at the slime I could not actually feel with my fully covered feet. Once deep enough to tread water, the dark-gray, windswept waves looked like a tidal surge from my semi-submerged perspective; and, although I regularly take cold showers at home and was wearing a full-body wetsuit, the water felt like it had extra frost bite that early summer, further preventing me from fully committing, finally, and putting my face in already.
As part of a couple of triathlons, I had attempted open water swimming in the ocean more than two decades before; I completed the full quarter mile the first time, not without swallowing so much water in the process that I had to hold the side of my stomach through the entire bike and run portions of the race; a month later, I was not even able to get past the breakers and had to be picked up by a safety crew member riding a jet ski. After clearly having overestimated how well pool swimming would translate to the open water back then, this time my goal was modest—reach the first of two buoys a quarter mile away and make it back in one piece, no matter how long it takes to complete the half mile.
In spite of all the fear throughout that almost hour-long swim, once I finally came out of the water I swaggered through the rest of the day: because I am not a strong swimmer, the swim required such relentlessness on my part that I felt as if I could confidently face anything the world might throw at me—“Come at me, World!” became my motto for the next six to nine hours. The whole cycle repeated itself every Sunday morning for the next several months: draw a deep, long, anxious breath before getting in the water, struggle through the swim, and come out with a swagger. I had the joy of sharing that feeling with some of my Albany Armada Aquatics Masters swim teammates, including Coach Carol, who, faced with yet another Albany Aquatic Center closure—pandemic-related or otherwise—got an invitation from Coach Conny to join Odyssey for an open water swim. Just as in the pool, I lagged far behind my peers, only more so in the open water. After I caught up with them at the first buoy and we took pictures, I respectfully declined their kind invitation to head toward the second buoy, a humbling reminder that I had plenty of leagues to grow.
There are some facets of my life in which I tend to be exacting and methodical, and open water swimming is one of them. Since I started swimming in the Bay in early summer, I chose early autumn as the time for me to try the full mile swim; because I was upping the ante for myself, the pre-swim breath I drew was double deep, extra-long, and above anxious, but also the post-swim swagger was so great, I was practically dragging my knuckles on the floor. Yet, some months after I became a regular miler, I noticed with a mix of nostalgia and something else—not sure what—that the post-swim swagger had faded until it almost disappeared altogether.
The change was imperceptible as it was happening, but I fully realized how habituated I had become to the open water during a swim on an overcast, windy Sunday early this Spring, when the waves kept tossing me like laundry in a cold wash cycle and the thought came to me with a smile, “The waves are playful today;” I wish to emphasize this point—I do not believe I had this thought, for I felt with wonder that it came to me just like the waves were coming at me: “The waves are playful today.”
No Escape from Alcatraz
Now that I was well conditioned to open water swimming, I began thinking in earnest about the next challenge on my bucket list: swimming from Alcatraz Island to San Francisco; fortunately, I did not have to go far to start planning the swim, since in addition to the weekly training in the East Bay, Odyssey Open Water Swimming also organizes group and private swims from Alcatraz. Before committing, I approached another one of the swim coaches, Christina, who was part of the relay team that recently crossed the English Channel, and asked her honest opinion about whether I was ready for Alcatraz. Rather than giving a simplistic answer, she wisely suggested I try doing 1.5 loops—approximately 1.5 miles—without stopping during one of the training swims to see how I felt, and that would be a fairly good way to gauge whether I was ready.
Before finally passing the California State Bar exam, I had learned the hard way the old adage that, “failing to prepare is preparing to fail;” with that in mind, I took Coach Christina’s advice, and then some—the next time my schedule allowed, I swam the 1.5 loops she suggested and it felt OK; however, I wanted to sign up for Alcatraz without any shadow of a doubt, so soon I began swimming two full loops (or about two miles) regularly. Aside from the mandatory chafing and its discomforts, I felt good during and after those swims, so I started doing 2.5 loops on the regular and then signed up for the mid-July Alcatraz swim. One week before the event, I swam three loops, or about three miles. Physically, I was well-prepared.
Mentally, too, I was dialed in: even before attending the pre-event briefing two nights prior to the event, I had already watched and studied numerous times an Odyssey Open Water Swimming video in which Founder and CEO Warren Wallace explained the currents from Alcatraz to St. Francis Yacht Club; with that, I showed up to the swim with a clear strategy:
Swim toward the SS Jeremiah O'Brien for the first 15 minutes or so (thinking of it simply as "The Battleship" so as to avoid trying to recall a mouthful during the actual swim)
Swim toward the Fontana Towers by Aquatic Park the second 15 minutes or so
Swim toward Fort Mason the third 15 minutes or so
Swim toward St Francis Yacht Club the fourth 15 minutes or so
Hope to land somewhere on Crissy Field
My goal was straightforward: first and foremost, swim smart and follow the outlined strategy; second, by following the strategy, avoid having to be repositioned by boat and/or kayak, unless it was to safely move me away from a large moving vessel; third and final, finish within the allotted time, even if it was the full hour and thirty minutes. And so it was, as soon as I jumped off the boat, I started heading toward "The Battleship"; it dawned on me within minutes that, prepared as I was physically and mentally, I had failed to account for potential fog, and considering we were swimming toward San Francisco, that was like failing to account for snow in Antarctica just because of summer—it’s still Antarctica. And this was still San Francisco. With a thick, low fog weighing on us that dawn, it was quite challenging keeping an eye on the ol’, gray battleship.
I kept at it for some time until a kayaker approached me and told me I was too far away from the other swimmers and instructed me to follow them; at the briefing earlier that week, Warren made a point of reminding participants to follow directions from the kayakers, all of whom were there to keep us safe. Still, since it looked like most other swimmers were headed directly toward St Francis Yacht Club, I asked for confirmation, adding whether I shouldn't at least head toward Fort Mason (which already would have meant "skipping" the Fontana Towers) and was given confirmation to just follow the group, and so I did.
Later, another kayaker kindly stayed with me for a good length of time as I swam in place as if in an infinity pool or treadmill toward the Palace of Fine Arts, already farther west than the St Francis Yacht Club. Eventually, one of the boats picked me up along with others who were getting much too close to the Golden Gate Bridge. Days later, we learned that, while the waves were average, the current was unusually strong; that played to the strong swimmers’ advantage, since they were able to “ride the current” and complete the course in under thirty minutes; on the other hand, I am not a strong swimmer, so I am not sure whether I would have completed the swim even if I had followed my plan to a T, given how very strong the current was (not to mention the poor visibility due to the fog).
While I certainly did come up short on my goal to complete the swim, I did not feel like I had failed: for the first time since I can remember, I felt in my heart what I believe in my head and try teaching my children—I would rather they get a poor grade after preparing smart and working hard than get an excellent grade without any preparation—the latter bolsters the ego, whereas the former builds character. Since I was well prepared both physically and mentally, I took from the experience that a large group Alcatraz swim is not for me, as there are too many participants for the safety crew to keep a watchful eye on; instead, my next Alcatraz attempt should be a private swim, in which the support crew and I are fully aligned on strategy before the swim and singularly focused while executing it.
With a Little Help from My Family & Friends
No doubt, I would have been elated had I managed to complete the swim, but perhaps that would have blinded me to something less transient: first, as I picked up my gear at the front door of my house hours before dawn that morning, I found a card from my wife, June, wishing me success and commending me for facing my fears—since we are a tiny family, any time one of us is out doing something, the other is “flying solo” with the kids, so an indulgence like jumping off a perfectly working boat to escape from a has-been prison-island-turned-tourist-attraction where I have never been an inmate is a luxury. And, yet, if ever I had any doubt that she supported the endeavor, here was tangible proof of it, including a picture of a yellow boat just off Alcatraz, not unlike one of the boats I would be jumping off within a couple of hours.
Then, at the end of the swim, one of my Masters swimming teammates and lane neighbors, Sarah Pritchard, Executive Director of Rosie the Riveter Trust, greeted me at the beach with a warm towel, a pair of soft sandals, and a hot sandwich; she was there with Coach Carol Nip, one of the most cheerful, positive, and encouraging people I have ever met. Neither one of them had to be there at 6:30am after a 30-plus-minute drive and an even earlier wake up time, yet they chose to be, proving that, oftentimes, kindness and service is not just what some choose to do for a living, but who they are day in and day out, every day of the week, twice on Saturday, and thrice on Sunday.
As for Alcatraz, that is unfinished business until the time feels right, to be sure; but for now, I am already signed up for a two-mile “Swim for Kids’ Sake” at Keller Cove beach… and a night swim at the Berkeley Marina….