Leme to Pontal

AnthonyMcCarleyAnthonyMcCarley Berwyn, PACharter Member
edited November 2019 in Swim Reports

This write-up is a little late. Actually, I don’t think I have ever done a swim write-up, so it is hard to say it is late. But it certainly isn’t timely. The swim, Leme ao Pontal, happened on November 5.

(I don't blog. But I am hoping this write-up is helpful to others.)

The most dramatic thing about Rio de Janeiro isn’t the beautiful beaches or even the beautiful people. The most dramatic thing about Rio is the giant rocks. They aren’t your traditional rocks. They shoot up 1000’s of feet right up from sea level. They aren’t part of cliffs like Dover or northern California. They are stand alone. They look as if God decided to create big, giant rocks that would forever dwarf anything man could ever make and then plopped them down randomly along an otherwise normal coast of beautiful, sandy beaches.

The swim starts at a good-sized, but not giant, rock named Leme, then follows the 36k of Rio beaches, then rounds the point of Pontal, another rock, and finishes on a near white sandy beach.

Because the swim follows the coast, providing visual stimulation every time you breath to the right, I mistakenly figured the swim would be an emotionally easy swim. The main reason I believe Gibraltar is such an easy swim isn’t that it is so brief – it is because when you get half way across you get an awesome view of the mountains of Africa. There is a lot to look at - keeping your mind entertained.

I wanted to do the swim as soon I landed, but the weather didn’t cooperate – the wind kept us waiting and the association kept saying to listen to the wind. Which, I admit, frustrated me until I met Adherbal, the head of the association. Such a nice, warm, and competent person. Impossible not to trust his judgement. He is so thoughtful that he even came to our Airbnb to fully explain the situation. (It helps his credibility that he is a badass swimmer and has great stories. He even showed us where a cookie cutter shark took a chunk of his leg (gruesome) when he was swimming Molokai and he is so badass that he laughed about it.)

When we finally got the call that we were going to get a chance to go, we were told that the window wasn’t big and it would be at least a week before we would get another shot – a storm was coming our way.

The swim was supposed to start at midnight. But between Uber troubles and other little odds and ends, we didn’t make it to the shipyard until just a little before midnight. Patiently waiting for us on the dock were the captain and Richardo Patrick, the Observer from the association. It took about three seconds to figure out that Ricardo knew his stuff and would be a positive influence on the day.

Everyone there spoke Spanish or Portuguese… except me. There were many times when long, passionate exchanges would take place when I thought they were fighting about something and I would sit quietly in my clueless ignorance – wondering what the subject was, but unwilling to interrupt with a request in English that would only accentuate my ignorance. Eventually, I would get a “everything is fine.” And I would smile and nod.

I am convinced that the universal standard for starting a marathon swim includes the motoring of a diesel fog creating boat. This swim was no different. I did my best to hold my breath when the thick diesel fog blew into my face and engulfed my head.

Zinc oxided up. Then Aquaphor in all the right places. Red light on goggle strap. Green light on suit. Slipped into the water when told to.

The swim started at 12:33am Rio time… about an hour and a half after my normal US east coast bed time…
Because we expected some tidal help out of the bay and along the coast at the beginning, we stuck with the plan of no feed until beyond Copacabana. The water was more rolly (yes, I know that is not a real word) than I expected, but not extraordinary. We cleared Copacabana and reached Ipanema in an hour twenty.

Feeling good and wanting to make as much progress as possible, I asked to feed on the hour instead of at 30 minutes.
Off to my left was the boat. I made the rookie mistake of not studying the lights before I started, so I had a hard time of orienting myself in the dark to the boat.

Off to right were the big, giant rocks God had plopped down and beaches. At the highest peak, above Rio, is the statue Redeemer. I had heard that you could see Redeemer from everywhere in Rio. Which is probably comforting in most situations… but when you swim for hours and you can still see the same incredibly well-lit statue, it doesn’t provide much sense of progress. Not sure how many times it happened, but I would see shore lights and Redeemer, then everything would be blocked by one of the God plopped giant rocks, then come around the rock, and there was Redeemer, seemingly no farther away. I laughed to myself about it until I decided to take peace in being watched over.

For the first few hours, the water was cool. Not cold. Ricardo had said it was exactly 80F at the start, but I could tell it had dropped quite a bit in the open ocean.

I knew we would see the first hints of light between 4 and 430. And as we did, I enjoyed seeing the morning details of the world. We were still feeding on the hour. By the fourth feed, 4 hours and twenty minutes into the swim, I had taken on two GU’s, Nunn electrolytes and water. Feeling good, cool and fresh. Almost all the time, I hate swimming. The pain. The fears. The anguish. But stopping for this feed was one of those rare exceptions when swimming felt perfect. The rising sun. The beautiful coast. The people on the boat. The crispness of the air. The feel of the water. Perfect. I even paused for half a second to take in the moment. Then took a GU and it triggered in a bad way. And I threw up so violently that I thought my intestines were going to come up out of my mouth and land in the water in front of me.

Unfortunately, my stomach stayed unsettled for the rest of the swim. Attempts at consuming GUs triggered the same intestine twisting reaction and sometimes I enjoyed the same intestine twisting without even trying to consume something.

In my training and in my swims, I try to keep at two miles per hour. I wasn’t worried about it for this swim, in fact I kept telling myself to slow down – to treat it like a walk, not a run or even a jog – because I was going to swim the 40k of Rio de La Plata the next week and I needed as much as possible in the tank at the end of this swim. (I did Manhattan and Catalina three weeks apart and had employed the same tactic with success.) I was pleasantly surprised that we hit the half way mark at five and half hours. Which meant I was holding two miles per hour.

Even without complete feeds, I was feeling good. And thought, wow, maybe I will get this done in 11 or 12 hours. That would be alright.

I had told my kids (aged 7 & 10) that I would be finished by their lunch time… figuring that 2pm Rio time would mean 14 hours in the water… so, a two hour buffer, I thought, Even though I lost thirty minutes off the start, I’m in good shape.

I used to think that I wasn’t any good at marathon swimming because I went through “dark periods.” Periods when the demons of doubt ate at me. But, years ago, through the dialogues on the MSForum, I learned that even the best of the best went through dark periods. Through experience, I’ve learned that my dark periods attack me at either just before the half way mark or at about three-quarters.

My feeding on the hour was a little mind trick that got me to the half way point before I realized it… thus blowing past the first dark period threat. So, all in all, I was pretty pleased with the situation. Not cocky, but pleased.

Just beyond the half way point the water changed. At the surface the water was hot. Above 80F hot. But only for about three inches. Then the water dropped at least 20 degrees F. Weirdest thing. So my head was suffering in heat and the rest of my body was covered in goose bumps.

Then after a few more miles, it happened. The currents became unfriendly. Suddenly, I was swimming head first into a flume. The beautiful scenery to my right was not changing as quickly as it had. The team told me later that there were times when I was actually swimming forwards and moving backwards.

For hours, the boat kept exploring and probing – unsuccessfully trying to find a break in the flow. And the dark period came up from the deep. The demons surprised me with their timing and took full advantage of the non-changing scenery. I have to admit a little pride in the fact that my emotional demons did not get a firm grasp on me. I have a phrase that I use with them, “Hello Friend”. These emotional demons don’t like to be recognized. And I have found that they really don’t like being called a friend. I had to only say “Hello Friend” once and the demons quickly scattered back to the deep water.

After a few more hours of little progress, and only fluids, my arms started to go. I have no idea what time it was or how far I was into the swim, but my arms wouldn’t function the way they were supposed to. I could see Pontal, but knew it was still a long way off. Deep down inside, when my friends on the boat, led by Lucas, told me it was only an hour away, I didn’t believe them. But I really wanted to. Focused on finishing, I suggested feeds on the 15-minute mark.

At the third feed on the 15-minute cycle, I could see that 45 minutes of swimming brought us no closer to the little giant rock of Pontal and I knew that I could no longer deny that my friends had lied to me.

Somewhere in here I lost everything but the focus of finishing. Pride. Ego. Form. The kids’ lunchtime. All sense of time. Everything. I told myself only one thing, I could only think of one thing, Just make any progress.

My arms were completely gone. When I work out in a short course pool, I do sets of 100’s. So, forget the 15-minute feed cycles. I started counting to a 100 – 100 strokes and take a break. Take 100 strokes and take a break. 100, break. 100, break. I have no idea how long I did this.

At some point, I think my good friends on the boat figured out that I was no longer listening to their encouragements. I think they figured out that I would not stop. We might all be out there a long, long time, but I would not stop.
The breaks were mini-breaks. Sometimes only a second or two. I would look for two points on shore – a tree and building or a building and a mountain – to tell if the current was pushing me backwards. If it was, the break would be really short. If it wasn’t, the break would stretch a little longer.

Somewhere in one of these mini-breaks, I noticed the clouds over the mountains had grown darker. Threateningly dark. They made me dig deeper than I thought I could. Dig to a place I didn’t know. Dig to a place I didn’t know I had. I was taking too long. My swim window was closing. I could not go through all this and have the swim ended by lightening. I had to speed up. And I started swimming beyond 100 strokes at a time.

And that is how I made it.

I have no idea how long it took. But I could finally start to see details of Pontal. Then finally got to it. Then finally started to round it.

As you round the rock of Pontal, with about 500 meters to go, a small boat comes from shore to get your friends off the boat and take them to shore. With the waves pounding against Pontal, it is too dangerous for the big boat to stay with the swimmer and it leaves.

And I was alone in the ocean. Even with the burning drive to finish, I was instantly at peace. My years of abalone diving alone in northern California gave me great comfort being alone in the ocean. Big days. Little days. Glassy days. Killer days. Deep days. Shallow days. Murky days. Crystal days. I have gone abalone diving on all of them. With no distractions from anything human, with the threatening clouds morphed into white puffs, I became immersed in nature and formed my abalone diving bond with the ocean.

I inched along in the waves crashing against Pontal. Actually, enjoying the aloneness, the beauty of my surroundings, and my bonding with the powerful ocean. Swimming heads-up breaststroke part of the way to drink in the sites and the air.
Took some work to figure out where I was supposed to go on the crowded beach. But I kept heading in the direction that I had seen the small boat go.

When I got to the surfers, I tried to body surf the waves. But my arms and kick refused to go fast enough to catch them. So, 15 hours and 33 minutes after starting, I tumbled ashore instead. Having my friends at the finish, instead of on the boat behind me, was wonderful. I avoided being touched by Santi until I knew I was completely clear of the water. Then Ricardo, the Observer, reached out to shake my hand and I figured I was safe. Gave Santi a hug and stumbled up to the flags the association had planted - thinking they might be the official finish. I crossed the imaged line; my body fell to the sand and, in the security of being surrounded by new and old friends, I took a nap.

evmoKate_AlexanderPaigeKiedingJSwimowenswims93Solotimsroot

Comments

  • owenswims93owenswims93 Fermoy, IrelandSenior Member

    Hi Anthony,

    Congratulations on your swim! I attempted it in December 2017 and, as far as I know, had the honour of being the first person not to complete it (hopefully I am mistaken on that score!)... Unfortunately, a southwesterly gale arrived 12 hours earlier than forecast so it wasn't too be, but I still had the most fantastic experience.

    I could not agree with you more about what a fabulous swim Leme to Pontal is and how welcoming Adherbal and all involved are. I would highly recommend this swim to anyone! Do Leme ao Pontal, não há nada igual!!!

    Congratulations again,
    Owen

    AnthonyMcCarley

    http://fermoyfish.com – Owen O'Keefe (Fermoy, Ireland)

  • AnthonyMcCarleyAnthonyMcCarley Berwyn, PACharter Member

    Owen, Thank you very much! I don't know if you were the first not to complete the swim, but you are certainly not the only one. Someone didn't complete the swim just a couple of weeks before my attempt.

    I agree that Adherbal and his team are amazing - professional and nice. The trophy they awarded me is amazing. Are you going to try it again?

  • owenswims93owenswims93 Fermoy, IrelandSenior Member

    I will certainly try it again at some point. I pass through Rio once or twice a year so should have plenty of opportunities. I also have cousins in Buenos Aires, so my next goal is the River Plate!

    AnthonyMcCarley

    http://fermoyfish.com – Owen O'Keefe (Fermoy, Ireland)

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