Point Judith to Block Island
July, 2005
It is funny how the minds work. I hadn’t thought about some of my quotes for quite a long time. Everyone had said that this would be easy, but not to sabotage my swim by doing something stupid I prepared for this swim as I had for so many others, swimming with friends in either Long Island Sound: Compo Beach or Sherwood Island in Westport, Hammonassett in Madison or Lakes Zoar or Lillinonah. As I was getting ready to leave the hotel room for the swim, two of my favorite quotes from Shakespeare popped into my head:
Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt
Much Ado About Nothing
All things are ready if our minds be so.
Henry V
I was not worried about the swim. If the weather was good and our plans were sound, we would have a fun swim. Instead, we had a perfect plan and a perfect day.
We left Point Judith at around 6:00 AM and headed towards the beach on what looked to be a glorious Saturday morning at 6:30. I jumped off the boat into a few feet of water as this was as close to land as the boat could get. I swam, crawled or walked towards the beach about 600 yards from the boat. The beach at which we started was about 1.5 miles west of Point Judith towards my goal of being the first person to complete the swim between Rhode Island and Block Island, approximately 10.25 statute miles away in honor of my daughter Kate who struggles with the brain disorder epilepsy. (It turns out that after we were in the news, a number of people remembered a contest of swimmers swimming from Rhode Island to Block Island whereby two people made it, so I was not the first, or even the second to make this swim. Undoubtedly, I would be the oldest at age 53.)
While the distance was not the longest I had ever swum, it was still going to be a fun an interesting swim because there was no way to swim in a straight line. The tides between Point Judith and Block Island can move fairly quickly, faster than I can swim against the tide, so we had to carefully plan my entry point, where I wanted to be when the tides turned and where we thought we would land. All in all, we had the perfect day: water temperature of 64 degrees for most of the swim, a small breeze coming from the north and west, a very high sky, with low humidity, and almost flat seas.
Low tide was at 3:40 AM, so by leaving at 6:30 AM, we would have 3 to 3.5 hours of tide pushing me slightly west. At around 10 AM, the tide would be slack but would begin to pick up and bring us east. Please note that the once tides turn, they are fastest at the beginning of each tide and lessen as the tide progresses. I had been told by the harbor masters of Point Judith and Block Island that it would be almost impossible to land at the very tip of the island because of the rip currents and instead should aim at least 1/2 mile south of the point near the North Light House for a safe landing.
All went according to plan. We aimed for a spot approximately 2.5 miles west of Block Island. Our goal was to be almost due west of the island and the lighthouse when the tide started to turn so we would not miss the island when the tides started to take me east. We made great progress, swimming faster than 2 miles per hour. When the tide turned I was where I wanted to be. Because of the current we moved my kayaker, Mike Krein good friend and swimming coach these last 5 years, to the left of me and the support boat to the right of me so I could judge where I needed to aim no matter which side I breathed. When the tide turned I was still aiming almost due south and looking to land several miles south of the lighthouse. For the last hour I felt as if I was swimming perpendicular to the main support boat and the kayak trying to keep on the main heading. Eventually, as we got inside a small curve of the island the tide slackened a bit and I could swim directly towards the lighthouse.
The plan was to swim for 1 hour, take a break and break each 1/2 hour thereafter. We did basically that. I did my breathing pattern so Mike Krein, my open water coach, could measure how well I was swimming. My pattern is 100 strokes, breathing to the right, and then 5 to the left. I would then count until I reached 100 again and then 10 strokes, count again up to 100 and then 15 to the left. Each cycle is 105 strokes, and I would progressively swim more and more breathing to my left. Often, when I started breathing to the left, I would yell out the number of the cycle. Yelling out “8” means I had completed my eighth cycle, that I have breathed to the left for 40 strokes.
A series of up to 10 breathing patterns is about 18 minutes, give or take, and me counting correctly. Therefore, doing 3 cycles of 10 breathing patterns would be a little less than an hour, and time for a break. I did the first two cycles this way and then on the third, I only did 10 strokes to the left. I still kept the 105 stroke cycle; I just did less breathing on the left. At that point I really settled down into a good swim. After the first feeding, I would do 2 series and take a break.
The seas were perfect. I only swallowed seawater twice, and then it wasn’t all that much. I did forget the maxim, so I was mildly upset at that. We did have GU and I could have had a power bar, but didn’t need it or want it.
I landed directly below the lighthouse at 11:34 AM, exactly 5 hours 4 minutes and 0 seconds from when we started. I felt elated. The swim went off almost perfectly from start to finish. I felt fast and not very tired. As it turned out, for the most part the waves were traveling in our direction; so that there were times when I felt as if I were a body surfer. Although the distance between Rhode Island and Block Island is 10.25 miles, we covered 13.25 miles to get to the island.
Justin Mott, a photographer from the Block Island Times was there to take pictures, and he took several great ones. The best was of me swimming in with the boat in the background, Trina and Jen on the bow, Mike in the blue kayak and me with my right arm out of the water while taking a breath. If you do a blow up of the picture, one can see the banner is on the boat.
It was a fun swim and I feel extremely fortunate to be able to continue to swim to support this most worthy cause of the Epilepsy Foundation. It was not hard, but logistically it was intriguing. We will continue to look for interesting swims to spread the word about epilepsy, and, hopefully raise money for research in the process.
You can view pictures from this swim in the pictures section of the website under Point Judith to Block Island Swim.