Around Manhattan Island Swim 26 Miles

September 20, 1999

Start at the Columbia C, end at the Columbia C

Every year I hope my swims will be easy and uneventful.  Of my five previous swims, only two were easy, my pool marathon and the Alcatraz swim.  This year, like the other three difficult swims, I had challenges to overcome.  The strange thing about swimming around Manhattan is that the Harlem River flows opposite to the Hudson and East Rivers.  When the Hudson is flowing south, the Harlem River is sucked north.  Conversely, when the Hudson is flowing north, the Harlem River is compressed towards Hells Gate.  To compound the difficulties of swimming around Manhattan, the day I chose to swim was the day Hurricane Floyd hit town.  Instead I delayed the little trip to the next Monday.

Instead of starting at the Battery, I decided to start in Harlem due to the tides.  This was a mistake, as I found out by swimming in the Harlem River for 5 hours against the tide, but more on that later.

Columbia University painted a “C” on a rock outcropping on The Bronx side of the Harlem River, across from their boat basin and athletic fields.  I swam to the “C” and then towards Spyuten Duyvil and the Hudson River.  The Spyuten Duyvil rail road bridge was closed.  I was able to swim under it while my boat, The Riverwind, captained by ldkjfl, could not go through until the bridge opened up.  What is interesting about the bridge is that it opens sideways rather than up similar to a draw bridge.

In the Hudson, I experienced 10 - 15-MPH headwinds.  I tried to stay close to Manhattan.  I passed by the water filtration plan as well as the sanitation plant where trash is taken by barge some where we do not want to know about.  The first major landmarks were The Cloisters, The George Washington B ridge and the Little Red Lighthouse.  These I had passed before when I swam down from the Tappan Zee.  The Upper West Side is a beautiful place to swim.  There are the trees of Fort Tryon Park and the Cloisters.  As with swimming down from the Tappan Zee Bridge, I swam backstroke under the Bridge, so I can see the underside, and gain a bit of rest.  Continuing down the west side of Manhattan, I swam through the 79th Street Boat Basin, dodging boats and mooring buoys.  Even with a good tide, I was an hour delayed in reaching downtown Manhattan because of the headwinds 

It was fun swimming next to the Battery.  I saw and waved to a lot of people, including friends from Chase.  Friends who saw me swimming next to the Battery ran over to the east side to wave from the Pier 17.

Going up the East River was easy as it was with the tide.  In fact, at one point, they asked me to slow down as they knew I was going to have an issue with the tides in the Harlem River.  I said “Slow down?!?  I cannot, watch this, throw me a bagel.  At that point, as I rested on my back with my toes facing north and out of the water, I ate a bagel while floating north at 5-MPH.  

Unlike my Greenwich to Downtown swim, I swam around Hells Gate and not though it.  However, I knew that I was going to have a problem with the Harlem River, as it would be flowing against me for the remainder of the swim.  While I thought I was making progress trying to enter the Harlem River, but it took over an hour to go less than a mile.

Unfortunately, I struggled against a 1.5-knot current for the four hours.  Before dusk, we passed what seemed to be a grave yard for old pleasure boats.  Going under the bridges, where I continued to swim backstroke to look at the superstructure became a bit more difficult.  The bridges in the Harlem have its foundation piers situated in the water thus constricting the flow.  Because of the tide and flow of the Harlem River, I was unable to swim backstroke under one of the bridges but instead had to sprint freestyle to make it through.

In time, the sun went down, the moon rose and the stars and planets came out.  Having swum a lot at night and the pre-dawn hours of early morning, I was again amazed how peaceful it is to swim in darkness.  Other advantages to swimming at night in the Harlem River are that the darkness masks some of the poorer sections of northern Manhattan and The Bronx.  At the 138th Street Bridge, I had to dodge some bottles that were thrown at the boat and me.  The light from Yankee Stadium lit up the sky above The Bronx.  I ran into a large, dead fish, but no other animals, living or dead.  When I swam backstroke, I used one of the planets, probably Jupiter, as a guide so I could swim straight.

Twelve-and-one-half hours after the start, I touched the Columbia “C”, climbed out of the water and felt quite elated.  When I was eight years old, I first thought about swimming around

Manhattan. Thirty-nine years later I checked that goal off, with the added benefit that I was raising money for Juvenile Diabetes Foundation.