Cox - Swimming to Antarctica

It is August 7, 1987, and I am swimming across the Bering Sea. I am somewhere nearor acrossthe U.S.-Soviet border. The water stings. Its icy cold. My face feels as if it has been shot full of novocaine and its separating from my skull. Its as if Im swimming naked into a blizzard. My hands are numb, and they ache deep down through the bone. I cant tell if they are pulling any water. They feel as though they are becoming detached from my body. I look down at them through the ash-colored water: they are splotchy and bluish white; they are the hands of a dead person. I take a tight, nervous breath. Suddenly it occurs to me that my life is escaping through my hands.

This frigid and ominous sea is behaving like an enormous vampire slowly sucking the warmth, the life from my body, and I think, Oh my God, pick up your pace. Swim faster, faster. Youve got to go as fast as you can. Youve got to create more heat. Or you will die!

I try to lift my arms over more rapidly. They are sore and sluggish. I am tired. I have been sprinting, swimming as fast as I can go, for more than an hour. But I sense that I am fading, becoming less of myself. Is my blood sugar dropping? Is that why I feel so strange? Or is my body temperature plunging? Am I hypothermic? Systematically I check my body. My lips feel pickled; my throat is parched and raw from the briny water. I want to stop to drink some fresh water and catch my breath. But the water is too cold to allow me to pause for even a moment. If I do, more heat will be drained from my body, heat that I will never regain.

Through foggy goggles, I continue monitoring my body. Ive never pushed myself this far. The coldest water Ive ever swum in was thirty-eight degrees in Glacier Bay Alaska, and that was only for twenty-eight minutes. This swim is five times longer. I am afraid of going beyond the point of no return. The problem is that my brain could cool down without my being aware of it, which would cause a dangerous loss of judgment. I glance at my shoulders and arms: they are as red as lobsters. This is a very good sign. My body is fighting to protect itself from the cold by employing a defense mechanism called vasoconstriction. It is diverting blood flow away from my hands and feet, arms and legs to the core of my body; it is keeping my brain and vital organs warm so they will continue to function normally.

I reach out and pull faster and, through muscle movement, try to create heat more quickly than I am losing it. My breaths are short and rapid, and my chest is heaving. My heart is pounding. I am afraid.

The fog is growing heavier; the air is saturated and raw. It feels as though I am trying to breathe through a wet blanket. With each breath, the chill rolls deeper into my lungs. Now I am cooling down from the inside out. I cant help myself; I think of David Yudovin.

David was a seasoned long-distance swimmer who, during an attempt to swim from Anacapa Island to the California mainland, technically died from hypothermia. His body tried to fight the cold by shunting the blood flow to his brain and vital organs. For a period of time, his core was protected. But at some critical point the blood vessels in his extremities became paralyzed. Blood rushed from his core to his hands and feet, where it was cooled by the fifty-eight-degree water; when it flowed back into his torso, it caused his core temperature to drop. As a result, David became disoriented. His swimming speed dropped, and then his heart went into atrial fibrillation. As he continued to cool down, his heart became less functional, until it suddenly stopped beating altogether.

There had been warning signs: his lips were purple, he was shivering, and his shoulders had turned blue. But his crew didnt recognize the severity of the situation. When they spoke to David, he said he was doing okay, and the decrease in his body temperature was so gradual, they didnt notice his deteriorating condition. Neither did David. His brain had been cooled down so far that he wasnt able to recognize the warning signs. He had no idea he was dying.

At the hospital in Ventura doctors and nurses shot Adrenalin directly into his heart and repeatedly shocked his heart with a defibrillator. They warmed his blood and had him breathe warmed oxygen. An hour and fifty minutes after his initial cardiac arrest, the medical team revived David. He had been lucky.

Will I be that lucky? The water here is twenty degrees colder. Will I be able to recognize if Ive gone too far?

Yes. Yes. I will. I can do this. Ive broken the world records for the English Channel, Ive swum across the frigid waters of the Strait of Magellan, and Ive done swims in icy waters where no one else has ever survived.

I can do it.

Thank God (or Ben & Jerrys) for my body fat; its insulating me from the cold. Still, the cold is moving deep into the marrow of my bones. Chills are curling up my spine and spreading out across my shoulders. My teeth are clenched and my lips are quivering. My muscles are as tight as boards.

I am pushing myself to the limit. But Ive got to do this. This swim is not about me. Its about all of us.

Its about doing something thats going to make a positive difference in the world. For eleven years, I have hoped when there was no reason to hope. I have believed when there was little to believe. For the last forty-two years weve been engaged in a Cold War with the Soviets. Somehow it has to be stopped. I believe that this swim will create a thaw in the Cold War. I cannot fail. If I die doing this, the Soviets will regret giving me permission to make this swim. I cant let that happen. Swim faster! Dont focus on the cold or the pain. Dont give any energy to it. Focus on the finish. Swim faster.

I think of my parents, brother, and sisters, of friends and of the people who have gotten me this far. I conjure up their faces in my minds eye. This gives me energy, and I imagine how wonderful it will feel to embrace the people who are waiting for us on Big Diomede Island and to hold their warm hands. This is inspiring. I replay a sentence in my head: Hand to hand, heart to heart, we can change the world. This is what I have grown to believe.

With every part of my being I am reaching forward, racing against time and the pervasively cold sea.

I lift my head and look up.

Something is very wrong.

Out in front of me, to the left and to the right, are the two thirty-foot-long walrus-skin boats that are supposed to be guiding and protecting me. On board the one to the right is a group of physicians who are monitoring me during the swim. To the left is a boatful of journalists huddled against the chill. Inuit guidesEskimos who live on Little Diomede Islandare driving the walrus-skin boats. They are veering away from each other.