A day and a night in the deep

Setting out from the marina at Mana

On Thursday 25 March, Rebecca and I set out on an excursion from the north to the south island, across Te Moana-a-Raukawa / Cook Strait. The plan to do this swim was formulated in June 2020, when we were just out of lockdown, and we thought a tandem Strait crossing in the summer would be an exciting challenge. Our initial date for the swim was 7 February, but the weather didn't cooperate then, or for the tide windows since.

 Because the Strait is extremely tidal, being a narrow channel between several large and dramatic seas/oceans (the Tasman Sea, and the Pacific and Southern Oceans) you can only attempt a crossing in quite limited tide windows during the slacker tides that correspond roughly with the first and third quarters of the moon. During this 2020-2021 season, the weather has also been very uncooperative, and after one swimmer made a successful, albeit very cold crossing at the end of November; after that, there had only been two swimmable days in 2021. One of them was Tuesday 23 March.

So, jumping about between five different weather/wind apps, we had more or less given up any hope that we'd swim before April, or even in April. However, just after I emerged from Freyberg Pool on the afternoon of Wednesday 24 March, I found a text from our intrepid and expert pilot, Philip Rush, saying we should probably prepare to swim on Thursday, subject to weather. I rushed into preparation mode, getting food and drink and other necessities ready ( I forgot to take a picture of these preparations). Anyway, by about 7.30pm we knew that we were likely to swim, so Rebecca made arrangements with our crew about transport, and getting to the Mana marina for 9am. At this point, we were still not sure whether we’d actually get to swim. I was surprised to find that I was excited, but not at all nervous. Naturally, the reality that this is a notoriously difficult bit of sea to swim across was always in my mind, and I had several general worries about the whole thing, but not actual nervousness or fear. This surprised me because leading up to our February date I had been deeply terrified.

 We assembled at the marina at 9am on Thursday, met the boat skipper, Chris, and navigator, Ray, and Cory, who’d be assisting Phil in the IRB. After loading our gear onto the boat, we were off. A stunningly beautiful day with fairly light winds, the couple of dolphins that leapt about in the boat’s wake as we sailed around to Makara provided more joy. After applying further layers of sunblock and zinc, and then being covered in grease, we got into the IRB, moved towards the large rock that would be our starting point, slithered into the water, and struck out for the rock. I’d been concerned that the water would be freezing, but it was quite pleasant. The strength of the current took my breath away though and getting to the rock required true effort. Underwater, the seaweed, rocks, and a few tiny fish were a pleasing sight, almost distracting, but we had business to attend to, namely touching the rock, and then GO TIME.

Our instructions were to spend about five minutes warming up/getting used to the water, then 55 minutes of strong swimming until the first feed. I think that the strength of the current around the rocks had startled me, so I set off at a fair clip, and was worried that Rebecca and I weren’t together. I called out to the IRB and asked if it was OK to be ahead, and got an OK.  Later we spent much more time side-by-side, which was pleasant and companionable. Compared with the cloudy water in Wellington Habour, the clear water in the Strait made it easier to see each other under the water than over it: the difficulty was that sometimes we were separated by waves and it was hard to get close by again. 

Being coated in grease

Swimming out from Makara

 One of my concerns in preparation for the swim had been what I’d think about during the swim. Some people sing songs in their heads, others have chants or mantras. I’d discovered that going through my multiplication tables, from 1-19 used up plenty of time, and required concentration. However, in the initial stages of Thursday’s swim, distraction wasn’t what I needed. The excitement of being in the Strait seemed to propel me forwards. As we found out though, it wasn’t really the excitement, but a screamingly strong tide that provided all the propulsion: at our first feed stop, we learned we’d covered 7km in an hour. Encouraging! The message was to keep doing the same thing.

 We enjoyed a gentle swell, nothing splashy. In time, the swell became significantly larger, and sometime after that, it disappeared, replaced by something sploshier and determined to go down my throat. At some stage we swapped from having the IRB on our left to on our right. Feeding was definitely more challenging than it had been in the Hauraki Gulf during the 2019 Chopper Swim:  stronger currents meant we started drifting as soon as we stopped swimming. Cramming down food, sipping drinks, treading water, and taking on instructions all at once felt frantic, and on at least two of these early stops I struggled to swallow enough food. The Pure gels went down well, as did the jelly dinosaurs, but the sandwiches and snack balls provided challenging. In Auckland the heat of the sun softened the snack balls, so I could just squash them in my mouth: on Thursday they were much harder and required chewing. Waves hit me on the head, and knocked the food right out of my mouth. Conscious that every stop could push us backwards, I didn’t want to take up any extra time. I’ll return to this issue later.

 Because of the swell and chop, bright sunshine, and splash, I found that I had no need for multiplication, square roots, singing, or any other form of distraction. Counting my strokes, sticking with Rebecca, and not being bumped against the IRB required full concentration. Later we learned that while waiting for the tide to change we'd swum for an hour without moving. I suddenly found that I was simply enjoying swimming for its own sake, and didn’t require anything else. A visit from some dolphins that swam under us a few times provided moments of pure joy and a sense of disbelief. At around this stage – I’d lost all sense of time – we had a feed stop and Rebecca said ‘Corrina! We’re in the middle of the Cook Strait!’ and these words were pretty much what I’d been thinking for ages, alongside reflecting that it was a year to the day since NZ had gone into Level 4 Lockdown, and it would be hard to find anything less like Lockdown than being in the middle of this water.

Encountering some chop and swell

At some point – I tried to keep track of feeds but it was tricky – we heard that we were past halfway, and this made me very happy. We were sticking together, the sun was shining, the north island had receded into the distance (you never look forwards or backwards during these swims, but I caught a couple of accidental glimpses) and the water was warm. What I didn’t know at that time that the tide, after it turned, proved itself to be somewhat extreme – as you can see from the screenshot of the tracker, and while we were at times being moved rapidly by the tide, it wasn't always in an ideal direction. It’s somewhat unusual to go as far north as we did. However, it was so good to be swimming alongside a friend, nothing else really mattered …and besides, we knew nothing of what the tide was doing. The only instructions were to keep going, and put some power into it.

Out in the middle

Eventually, the sun was going down, and it started to became clear to Phil in the IRB that I was becoming a little ....erratic. My arms were slowing down and although I could listen and respond to instructions, I wasn't really executing them. When asked how cold I was on a scale of 1-10 I confidently said '4!' and couldn't work out for the life of me why I was being told to move my arms faster: they seemed to be going flat out. I heard ‘Swim PARALLEL to the IRB!’ and thought this was exactly what I was doing. I kept going, believing myself to be powering along. Then I heard ‘Swim PARALLEL to the IRB or I WILL PULL YOU OUT.’ This made me absolutely livid but I didn’t say anything, just kept going, still thinking, ‘I’m fine, I’m fine, we’re nearly there ….’ However, I found the chaos disorientating, I know. And then, at some point, something in my head said 'STOP' so I went to the IRB and said, 'I need to get out.' And, I really can't remember what happened after that. I assumed I was pulled into the IRB, but apparently went straight to the big boat, and was hauled aboard. The enormous bruises on my hips and stomach and my scraped, bruised knees suggest this operation didn’t go smoothly! I also have bruises on my upper left arm from being gripped. Somebody must have taken off my goggles and cap and then I realised I was lying on/under a huge heap of blankets, in my big dry robe and felt very cold. My throat was too sore to speak.

 At this point, I need to thank our support crew, Tracey and John, who looked after me so well. They had instructions to keep me awake, so kept asking me very complex aesthetic questions about whether I preferred Puccini or Verdi (‘Verdi’), Magic Flute or Così fan tutte (‘Così’). Speaking felt unnecessarily painful, so I was disinclined to enter into more robust discourse, despite John’s prompts, and instead just asked for ‘more water please.’  After a while, I moved into shivering mode (this hurt a lot too) but was still quite dozy. I heard that Rebecca had reached the South Island, and then seemed dimly aware that the IRB had arrived. I wanted to get up to greet her but couldn’t move. Then I became aware we were both tucked up under blankets next door to each other.

 After a bit more lying down, I suddenly felt much better (although apparently I still looked and moved like a zombie…) folded up all the blankets, and sat out on the deck of the boat looking at the stars for the trip back to Mana. We were back sometime after 1am.

Our unusual route, propelled by the tides

For reference, a more conventional route, 

taken by two swimmers in the subsequent tide window

I gather that I made it, more or less, to the most northern part of our swim (the last thing I was aware of was seeing two rounded islands and thinking 'those look like the Brothers, but there's NO WAY we're that far north....'  I was quite glad to learn that we *were* that far north and I wasn't hallucinating. For those readers not familiar with this piece of water, the islands known as the 'Brothers' are actually called Ngaawhatu-kai-ponu, the eyes of the giant octopus, Te Wheke O Muturangi, that Kupe battled and defeated. The islands are described as 'isolated and desolate.' It wasn't really part of our plan to go all the way up there, but ... 

Digression over. In any case, it was such a fulfilling experience to train and then swim alongside Rebecca, and I am in awe of her strength to keep going for over 12 hours, with a lot of time swimming in the dark. More about that later. Huge thanks to Tracey and John for looking after me with such good humour and diligence. A great debt of gratitude to Phil Rush, not only for the opportunity to swim in these hallowed waters, but especially for his expertise and encouragement on the day. Thanks to Cory for the all-important task of handing me food and drink every half hour. And of course, thanks to our skipper and navigator, Chris and Ray.

John dropped me at my house, and received a dozen newly-laid eggs from my grateful mother's hens. I went to bed, after a shower, but couldn't sleep. Luckily Vicky, another hero of the watery realm who had just done the Chopper Swim, was awake and we could enjoy a brief chat on Messanger about the day. I went to sleep at 5am, woke up and 7am, and went to Freyberg to lie in the spa, and subsequently went to work (where I walked into a wall).  Physically, apart from aching lungs and a very sore mouth, I was fine. Very little muscle pain, just some stiffness. I had little appetite, and on Friday ate some scrambled eggs and some icecream, and a cup of tea. After a 10 hour sleep on Friday night I was slightly more normal and could socialise on Saturday. This morning, Sunday, I felt twitchy, so went to Freyberg for a swim, then to enjoy a milkshake and debrief with Rebecca.  While scratchy food is still out of the question, I felt hungry for the first time.

 All in all, leaving aside the hypothermia (which I don't recommend, btw), Thursday was a unique and wonderful experience. I'm amazed and moved by the number of messages I've received from people in the open-water swim community in Wellington and throughout the country, even people I've never met. Some of them are people who’ve attempted the crossing and not made it, others have made multiple attempts before getting to that rock/beach on the other side; others are swimmers whose maximum distance in the sea has been 3.8km or less, but they had lovely things to say. Reading the encouraging comments on the beautiful photos and videos that Tracey posted on Facebook has also been extraordinary; it feels almost bizarre that so many people were watching the tracker, looking at the pictures and videos, and willing us to keep going. I don’t think I’ve ever been part of any community in which there’s such strong support and kinship.  On visiting the pool this morning I had three enormous hugs from people from regular swimmers whom I've seen in and around the sea every week for a couple of years, but by no means thought I knew well. To me, what we were doing was perfectly normal, the culmination of a long process of training, but since I’ve had time to squint at the tracker and study the videos, I’ve realised that ‘normal’ is the last thing it was.

 Of course, in this whole thing, ‘failure’ is the elephant in the room, but one I won’t ignore. Ultimately, I failed to get to the beach/rock on the other side of the Strait, and getting to the other side is, ultimately, the objective in these enterprises. No freedom of the ferries if you don’t make it. With rational thought – and I don’t think I’m just trying to justify things – I didn’t ‘fail’ in the sense of preparing poorly, not being motivated, not caring, wanting to give up. I recall at one point, just after we thought we were halfway, I thought ‘it would be nice to be on the boat right now, with a raspberry bun and some coffee, gosh, wish I could do that.’ But then a wave hit me on the head and knocked away the defeatism. I failed, really, because something happened to my body as the result of prolonged exertion, and I swam until that little involuntary/subconscious warning yelled ‘STOP!’ in my head, and I obeyed.

 Subsequently, while queuing at Maranui Café with Rebecca this morning (Sunday 28 March), I have learned that it wasn’t just after I grabbed the IRB that my memory gave out: there was at least one whole hour, and possibly two hours, with feeds and conversations that I can’t remember, while it became increasingly obvious that I’d lost the plot. I’m grateful that I wasn’t pulled out then, that I had the chance to keep on going until there wasn’t anything left. As I’m somebody who really quite likes to be in control – not just of myself, but of other things around me – having no recollection of what I was doing, said, or what was being said to me is …. quite scary. But that lack of memory, and the subsequent crazy shivering, also suggests that I gave this swim every unit of energy that I could.

 Energy is another issue here. In my preparation, I never suspected that it would be the cold that would get to me, especially after we heard that the water temperature was 17-18 degrees, no colder than Wellington Harbour. I had thought about what might stop me: cramp in my legs or feet, seasickness, shoulder pain (incidentally, my arms and shoulders never hurt at any point during the swim, a contrast with Chopper, when my shoulder hurt from the second hour), some freak change in the weather or tide that meant we couldn’t keep going, SHARKS. But not cold.

Furthermore, people around me had confidence that I would be fine in the cold. I’ve done some more reading, and now I’m wondering whether it was initially hunger that sparked the decline. What I’ve heard from others, and read about, is that while I was undoubtedly and obviously losing my mind, some of the behaviour wasn’t entirely consistent with what happens when people get cold, but perhaps more consistent with running out of energy and that lack of energy made me vulnerable to cold. The nourishment that had got me through a tidally assisted, five-and-a-half-hour 20km in Auckland in 2019 was insufficient for what Thursday’s swim demanded of me. In retrospect, I was hungry a lot of the time, and not every feed gave me the energy required: I needed serious carbs and calories, and for that I wasn’t prepared. I used up all my glycogen, and then in this weakened and demented state, the cold got me. So, in that regard, I have a sense of failure, insofar as I failed to prepare for those eventualities. But, on the other hand, I could have had much more caloric feeds, and – as other people have done – not been able to tolerate them. It’s difficult, but I think I have to believe the messages I’ve had that said I did everything I could.  

That’s a gloomy note to finish on, and I’ve received careful instructions to think and write about THE PROCESS and THE POSITIVES, the tremendous amount I’ve learnt this year. Prepare to be nauseated!

• learning that I can swim longer, harder, and faster than I imagined, even last year.

•  I can do a 50km training weeks. Admittedly I had a wobble during a long swim in the 50km week, when I bailed out of the second Days Bay-Point Howard lap. I had some intense pain in my right shoulder, radiating through my biceps and deltoids, and I was scared that another 6.5km would do some damage. In retrospect, it wouldn’t have, I just needed to get through it. But, again, I didn’t know at the time, and feared that an injury could compromise our Strait swim.

• A 40+km training week seems like a breeze compared with 50km.

• I can do 7km and 8km training sessions on my own, stick to the written programme, and do the intervals.

• Getting faster: this year I’ve done some interval tests and a 1km test. As an adult, I’ve never swum faster in the 100m interval test, or the 1km (with a negative split!) I knocked 1 minute off my best time for the 2km Splash and Dash swim. There have been many small milestones achieved during the last few months. 

• Those things I mentioned in the previous point didn’t just happen because I swam a lot. Obviously swimming a lot helped, but I had lots of help from two great coaches, Mssrs Wilkinson and Rush, as well as other coaches in the distant past.

• I’ve learnt how to swim in tandem with another swimmer, and with that other swimmer – Rebecca Hollingsworth, who is a true hero – wait through successive tide windows while not losing our motivation.

• New friends, and learning that surprising thing: people actually do care. When I started receiving messages from people I do and don’t know on Friday, my initial reaction was, ‘oh, they just feel sorry for me.’ But then I realised they were genuinely concerned and caring. That is a good feeling, and I hope I can help other people too, when times are tough.

• [update] I've just read a piece in Newsroom about the great NZ rower, Stephanie Foster. I'm obviously not in her league by any means, but this quotation seemed very appropriate for some of the things I've learnt in the last few days: 'I’ve never lost. Losing is when you turn your back and walk away and don’t learn lessons out of it. Sometimes to really know what it’s like to win, you have to have a few setbacks.'

Finally, I need to say a few things about Rebecca, who did get to the other side and touch the rock, after 11pm and more than 12 hours of swimming. As I’ve already mentioned, she is a hero, determined, committed, with the physical strength of about ten oxen, and a bizarre determination always to go a bit further. It’s been a pleasure and a privilege to swim alongside her, and above all, I am so happy that she just kept going through those 36km.

Photos courtesy of our crew: Tracey and John.