Lynne Cox on the 50th anniversary of her Cook Strait swim, swimming to Antarctica, and building global connections

Lynne Cox is an American open water swimmer who has set records, and brought people together, around the world.

• In 1972 at the age of 15 she broke the men's and women's world records when she swam across the English Channel – and she did it again the following year.
• In 1975 she was the first woman, and fourth person, to swim across New Zealand's Cook Strait (in extremely rough conditions!).
• In 1987 she swam across the Bering Strait between Alaska and Siberia during the Cold War – a swim that Reagan and Gorbachev both acknowledged as helping to bridge the divide between the two nations.
• She was the first person to swim across the Strait of Magellan at the bottom of South America, and also to swim around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.
• She swam the first 'ice mile' in Antarctica in 2002.

Lynne chronicles all of these magnificent swims and many others in her memoir 'Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long Distance Swimmer' (2004). She has written a number of other books too, including the children's books 'Yoshi, Sea Turtle Genius' and 'Elizabeth, Queen of the Seas', a true story about an elephant seal that lived in Christchurch's Avon River.

Visit Lynne's website to learn more about her swims, her books, and guest speaking appearances.

The photo of Lynne with Saki the seal is courtesy of Lynne Cox.

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Episode Transcript

(00:09):
Kyodo and welcome to Swim Chats,a podcast about swimming.
I'm Shona Riddell, a writer, former journalist and swimmer
from Wellington, Altedo, New Zealand.
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(00:29):
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(00:52):
Lynn, welcome so much to Swim Chats.
It's a real honour to talk to you today.
It's great talking with you, Shawna.
Thanks for having me on your program.
And well, congratulations on the50th anniversary of your Cook
Straight swim, which was in 1975.

(01:13):
It was such a long time ago, butit's still so vivid in my mind
because it was such a huge swim.It was a very eventful swim.
I've just been reading the chapter in your book about about
the swim, and it seems really appropriate that I'm talking to
you today in Wellington, which was the starting point as you

(01:34):
swam north to South. So not only did you have the
phenomenal accomplishment of being the first woman and the
fourth person to swim across thecook Straight, but you did it in
very turbulent weather. Would you like to describe the
conditions that you're swimming in?
Well, actually it was so different back then because we

(01:55):
didn't have the weather availability prediction that we
have now. So when we set off, it was very
calm to begin with, but we didn't realize there were two
storms going on, one in the one in the Cook Islands heading
South toward New Zealand and theother one in Antarctica moving

(02:17):
north and they were going to be converging on Cook Straits.
So when I set up for the swim the water looked OK, but after 4
hours 5 hours I had been pushed S along the North Island and it
was further from the South Island than ever before.
And at that point, a lot of people would have just probably

(02:40):
given up. But you are a very tenacious
swimmer and a very determined person and you, you managed to
keep swimming, which is incredible to me.
And as a swimmer myself, I wanted to ask what do you do
with your, your body? What do you do physically to
move through waves that you describe as being 8 or 9 feet

(03:03):
high at times, which is, you know, 2 to 3 meters?
How do you do you do you swim sort of try and swim under the
waves so you're not going up above them?
So much of it depends on the direction of the wave.
So when I was swimming, cook straight, a lot of the times the
waves are coming to me head on. So I would basically do exactly

(03:27):
what you said. I would dive through them and
then continue swimming. And then if they came off to the
side, you would sort of lean into the wave and let it wash
over you. And that way you could try to
maintain a straight, straighter line.
But Cook St. It sort of gave me everything it
had that day. I mean, not as bad as one of

(03:51):
those days where a fairy sank, but it's, it felt really
tremendously difficult to make that swim.
And I love the way you describe the support you received from
the public that day. You mentioned that the inter
island ferry came alongside you and the passengers were cheering

(04:11):
and people were radioing the support boat to pass on messages
of goodwill. I can imagine that that would
have really buoyed your spirits.Well, actually Captain Brown was
the captain of the ertiga and the Cross Channel ferry, and he
was the one that raised the American flag and had everyone
come out on board and cheer me on.

(04:33):
So that gave me a burst of energy.
But Radio Windy was what it called, was called back then,
Wellington Radio, and they woundup basically talking about the
swim initially every hour and then it became a live broadcast.
So they started reaching people all over New Zealand who then

(04:54):
called the radio station and then they would radio to the
boat and the boat would write. The people on the boat would
write down the message and then they would convey whatever was
happening to me or what people'swishes were.
So I heard from people all over New Zealand that were saying you
would believe in you keep going.And it was such an incredible

(05:15):
thing to realize that, you know,I was just one person out there
and it didn't matter where I wasfrom, just that I was swimming
Eurocook straight and that people wanted to see me succeed.
And it was so inspiring. I mean, especially since, you
know, there were like little kids in Dunedin or the mountain
climbing club in Mount Cook or just people from all over the

(05:36):
the country of New Zealand that were calling and saying keep
going. And I would have felt very
guilty had I stopped. I love, I love the way you
describe in your book how swimming brings people together
and there's this real sort of community spirit around swimming
at something positive in the world.

(05:58):
And also during your swim, you mentioned that you had support
from some marine life as well, just dozens of dolphins, which
sounds phenomenal. It was amazing because there
were periods throughout the swimwhere I was really down where I
wasn't sure I was going to be able to make it and I had
doubts. And it seemed to be that the

(06:20):
dolphins would appear right around that time where suddenly
I'd look down and I would see them swimming underneath me and
hear them clicking and squeakingand shattering.
And it was just incredible. And then there was one point
where there were about 60 dolphins that were swimming
around our flotilla and everyonewas, you know, so happy because

(06:43):
it was a break from just that struggle of moving forward.
And toward the end of the swim, there were about 8 dolphins that
stayed very close to me and the two paddlers on the board and
the small skiff. And I found out afterwards that
when you get to the South Island, the bottom of the ocean

(07:03):
drops out and there's a lot of current there.
But because of that, there's a lot of upwelling and a lot of
food and a lot of fish. So there are a lot of sharks
that hang out in that area. So the dolphins were really
moving in, protecting us as we came into shore.
I love that so much. And you mentioned that after the

(07:23):
swim, which you completed in just over 12 hours, which is
phenomenal because after five hours you were behind your
starting point. So to complete the whole thing
in 12 hours in those conditions,I think is just amazing.
And you talk about on the way back, you, you fell asleep on
the boat because naturally you were exhausted and you didn't

(07:43):
realize that the boat almost sank on the way back.
That's how rough the weather was.
Yes, yeah, I had no idea. And actually, most of the crew
during that crossing get tremendously seasick and and
they were just so relieved to make it back to the North
Island. And yeah, the swim was one of my

(08:05):
toughest ever. It took so much out of me.
But it was a realization, as yousaid, of, of a point where you
bring people together, where, you know, you just felt this
connection with people all over.And, and the other part was that
when I got home and went back tohigh school, the newspaper, the
Los Angeles Times, covered the swim.

(08:27):
And suddenly there was all sortsof interest in New Zealand.
And I heard from the American ambassador to New Zealand after
the swim, who said that it had helped to further relations
between the US and and New Zealand at a time when things
had been, I'm not great because there were concerns about

(08:48):
nuclear submarines and all that.And the swim sort of diluted
that. Was that the first time you
realized that swimming could be sort of an act of diplomacy
between two countries? Exactly that.
I realized that maybe a swim could be more than just an
athletic challenge. Maybe it could be something that

(09:11):
helped to mend differences or create ways to bridge borders.
And so actually you, you know, the following year was when my
dad suggested that I swim acrossthe Bering Strait because the US
and Soviet Union are only 2.7 miles from 11 island to the
other. And so for the next 11 years I

(09:33):
worked on trying to get permission wrote to Brezhnev and
Dropov Chenyanko. And finally it was President
Gorbachev that gave permission for it.
And it the swim did open the border between the United States
and Soviet Union. It promoted peace and goodwill,
and it also allowed for all sorts of exchanges to occur

(09:53):
afterwards from everything from cultural exchanges.
But also there was an opening with the US and Soviets creating
a land bridge park between the two countries.
And fishing rights changed and families were able to see each
other without passports. Inuit families who lived on the

(10:14):
Alaskan side and on the Siberianside of the Bering Strait.
That's incredible. And I know your Bering Strait
swim was between Alaska and Russia, Soviet Union during the
Cold War, and the water temperature was about two or
three degrees Celsius. Is that right?
That's right, It was it started out just a little bit warmer,

(10:37):
but quickly dropped and the swimI was doing was just in a
swimsuit, bathing cap and goggles.
The idea was about the human reach, not about technology.
It was about trying to connect the two countries and, and it
was physically incredibly difficult because I, I had
trained for swimming in cold water, but I've never trained in

(10:58):
water that cold before. And so, you know, I was
monitoring my body as I was swimming and looking at my
fingers and they were turning white.
And I had swallowed a thermal pill, which was mentoring my
core temperature. And there was a world's expert,
Doctor William Keating, on boardthe Omiac, the Waller skin boat,
who was watching me and along with Doctor Nybor from the

(11:20):
University of Alaska to make sure that I wasn't going into
hypothermia. And every once in a while they
would have me roll over and holda receiver near my stomach to
try to get a good core temperature and internal
temperature. Unfortunately, they were moving
up and down in the boat because the water was moving around and
they couldn't get a very good reading.
So I think after the 4th or 5th time, I finally just said it's

(11:43):
more important to make the swim than it is to monitor my
temperature. So they realized that that
really was the case and let me swim as fast as I could toward
the Soviet Union. That's just incredible.
And I should mention that all your swims are very vividly
described in your book, which I have here, Swimming to

(12:04):
Antarctica, which was published just over 20 years ago.
And I'll just backtrack a littlebit.
So you mentioned that after the cook straight swim you returned
to high school because you're you're only 17 at that time,
right? Right.
Yeah, and and so even before that, you'd already swung the
cook that, sorry, the English Channel twice at the ages of 15

(12:28):
and 16, I think. Is that right?
And that's. Right in the early 70s and both
times you'd broken world records, The men's and women's
fastest. Yeah, phenomenal.
I loved the detail of when you first arrive, when you first

(12:48):
reach France, after your first channel crossing.
And it was your first time in France.
So what a way to arrive by swimming across the Channel.
It was so exciting. You know, I had taken French in
in high school, and so I had been practicing.
What will I say to anyone who's on the French shore?

(13:10):
And, you know, it was so funny because when you land on France,
the French shore, and you look up and you can see these white
cliffs. And I could just hear three
people yelling to me, you know, 2 Naj Lamarche, Did you swim the
Channel? And I wrote, I said Ouija and
Oslomosch and they could, you could hear them clapping on, on.

(13:33):
But the, I think the thing too, though, was that to be able to
hear French spoken made me really realize that I had
arrived in France. I had dreamed of doing this
swim. I mentally rehearsed it.
I had trained for it. And when you finally reach door
and you hear somebody speaking the language of the country, you
just go, oh, we arrived. We made it, you know, and it was

(13:54):
really exciting to be there. I can imagine.
And one of the things I love about your book is you describe
each of your swims so vividly. I feel like I'm swimming
alongside you on each of the swims.
And there are just so many little details that you
describe. You know, you're crossing the
English Channel. It's dark.
It's I think it's still night time.

(14:15):
And you come across these, you don't, you don't know what they
are, but they're these sort of spherical things that you
describe as being like disembodied heads.
Do you want to talk about that for a moment?
Yes, it was really weird because, you know, you go
through stuff in the middle of the night and you can't see any
of it and you don't know what's moving around you.

(14:36):
So they came to this patch wherethey were.
They felt like heads rolling around.
And finally I yelled up at Reg Brickell senior the the pilot
and said, what is in the water with me?
He said, oh, it's lettuce heads.The barge went by and they were
rotting, so they just dumped them in the channel.
And so I told this to a friend when I get back to California
and he started laughing. He said, you know, when I was

(14:59):
swimming, a barge had dumped a bunch of croissants into the to
the to the channel. And I knew I was pretty close to
the front shore when I saw the croissants.
All these funny things. Unexpected things.
And I love how you know, you're sort of curious about it, but
you stay very calm. You know, you, you ask the
support, but you know, what is this that I'm swimming through?

(15:20):
Whereas a lot of people would just be absolutely freaking out.
Well, the thing about that is that if you freak out, that's
using all sorts of energy that could be used to get you moving
forward. And so, so much.
My training was, you know, my dad and mom when I was a young
kid. Must get 14 had me training at

(15:41):
night so I could get used to swimming through darkness.
But also I found out more recently there was a swimmer who
came from Australia here to Catalina channel area and he got
very seasick during a channel swim.
And it was probably because he had not swim at night and he
wasn't used to trying to focus on the boat lights and then on

(16:04):
the paddle board lights and alsoon the Starlight.
So it really messed up his equilibrium and he felt really
sick and he wasn't able to complete the swim.
So now I tell people, you know, if you're going to do night
swim, it's really important to have trained that way ahead of
time. I know that training and
planning and preparation are huge for you and all of your big

(16:26):
swims, obviously, because especially because some of them,
no one had done them before. So for example, you're the first
person in the world to swim the Straight of Magellan at the
bottom of South America, and youwere the first person to swim
around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa where you were
pursued by a large shark. Being the first person in the

(16:49):
world to do a swim means there'sno precedent and obviously you
can plan a lot, but I imagine you have to remain very open
minded at the same time for whatever you may come across.
You do need to be open minded and I think the other thing is
that you sort of need to triangulate the information.
I would go to three or four or five different sources, local

(17:13):
sources too. I mean, primarily because local
people know more about the conditions there than anywhere
else. But I would try to do a lot of
background beforehand. But many of these swims existed,
or when I was trying to do them,it was way before the Internet,
so I'd have to reach out throughembassies or through telex, you

(17:35):
know, there wasn't even e-mail connections or even letters.
And all of that would take time.But as things progressed, like
when I swam across the stretch of Gibraltar, things had changed
and I was able to more easily get in touch with people and
find support locally for that swim.
Yeah, that point about needing local knowledge is is so

(17:58):
important. And actually that brings me back
to your Cook Straight swim. I was curious to ask if you did
any training in Wellington Harbor before your because
that's where I swim. Oh, OK.
I, I trained right in Island Bay.
I love swimming right there. It was so great.
And it's been really interestingbecause, you know, they're the

(18:18):
Cataldo family were so much partof my swim.
John Cataldo was my pilot and itturns out that his daughter
lives in that area still. So through the years we've
stayed in touch. And I just found out that
Captain Brown still lives a lot locally.
So I was hoping this year I could get back to New Zealand to
be there to see him again. And a number of the contacts

(18:41):
that they've made, but unfortunately hasn't worked out.
But maybe at some point I'll be back in New Zealand because I
just love the attitude and the environment and the swimming
conditions. It's just such a remarkable
place in the world. And there's also a marine
reserve in Island Bay, which I, I don't know if you've heard
about it, it's about 16 or 17 years old.

(19:03):
So it wasn't there when you did your swim.
But now, now that Island Bay Area is even more beautiful.
There's so much marine life there.
So is it underwater like an underwater National Park?
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's a no fishing area and
so it's really rich and giant kelp and and marine life.
Yeah, it's. Really.
Are there Penguins there? Penguins there still.

(19:27):
Good question. We do have the little blue
Penguins around the coast, yeah.Did you see any of?
Yes, actually during, after one training session, I got out of
the water and there was 1 standing on the beach.
And I, I wound up going over to it and the American ambassador
had come down to the beach to wish me well.

(19:47):
And so I was encouraged to pick up the Penguin and hold it.
And of course it nipped me and Iput it back down pretty quickly.
So like so dumb. It was a wild animal.
I shouldn't have done that. But they are very cute.
I can completely understand the temptation.
Yeah, they are amazing. Let's talk about your Antarctica
swim, because your swims over the years got progressively

(20:09):
colder and I know you've been studied by medical researchers
to sort of understand how your body is able to withstand some
of these colder temperatures. I know you do a lot of cold
water acclimatisation before your swims as well.
But your swim, you were the first person to swim and I smile

(20:30):
and Antarctica and I think your swim was just over 1.2 miles,
which is about two kilometers. Just absolutely phenomenal.
Congratulations on that swim as well.
Thank you. I love in your book the way you,
you have a lot of sort of paragraphs and italics and they

(20:51):
represent your internal monologue.
It's like the way you talk to yourself before and during a
swim. And I learned a lot from that
because, see, stepping, steppingoff the boat into that 0°C water
took a lot of mental fortitude. Yeah.
I'd love to hear your your description of just even that

(21:12):
moment and how it felt getting into the water.
Well, actually, back to what youbrought up before, the idea of
preparation. So I wound up going into the
ship's cabin and wound up meditating and calming myself
down and letting the crew set upbecause I knew they knew what
they were doing. And it's time for me to have a

(21:32):
few moments to be able to reflect on what I was going to
be doing. And in that time, just the
reflection, I increased my body temperature about 4° C And so I
think my body was realizing or my mind was telling my body, you
got to turn on the heater. So I left the cabin, walked down

(21:55):
the steps to this platform and then slid into the water.
The idea was to have the cold first absorbed by my feet and my
legs because I thought that, youknow, if I dive into the water I
can cause a cardiac arrest, the shock of hitting the water face
first. You have vagus nerve in your

(22:16):
face and you can over stimulate it and cause your heart to stop.
So I figured I better go in feetfirst.
And so I did. And then I came up and I decided
before I even started to swim that I would swim that up for
the first part of the swim so that I could get enough air.
Because when you hit water that cold, it's extremely difficult
to breathe. And also you tend to want to

(22:37):
swim really fast because that's something as a kid you learn
that if you swim faster, you arewarmer.
Well, it doesn't really work that way when you're in 0°, you
see, But so I swam for a period of time with my head up and
eventually I was able to put my face in the water and by doing
that, get myself more into a swimming position and move much

(22:57):
quicker. I, I had asked the crew to make
sure that I was a mile offshore.Turns out the captain of the
ship didn't think I was going tobe making a mile, wouldn't be
able to make it. So he wound up bringing the ship
7/10 of a mile from shore. But my crew knew that that had

(23:18):
happened. So what they did is they did a
zigzag course to make sure that at the very least I swim a mile
because I wanted to do the firstAntarctic mile.
I wasn't thinking about ice swimming.
That didn't even exist then. The idea was to try to do a mile
in Antarctica. And because of the currents, I
swam 1.22 miles. I'm not sure how that translates

(23:38):
to kilometers, but and actually as I was coming into shore, I
noticed that there was a beach alittle bit to my left, maybe a
half a mile. And I thought, you know, maybe
maybe 404 hundred or 500 meters.And I thought, you know, maybe I
could swim further and make it more difficult for anyone else

(23:58):
to ever do this. And then I thought, you know,
that's really stupid because you've cooled down and the
outside of your body is as cold as the water temperature.
And when you stop swimming, you're going to open up
everything and all the warm blood's going to go out to the,
to the extremities and all the cold blood's going to come in
and that's going to drop your temperature.

(24:19):
And you're not sure how far that's going to drop your
temperature. So you've already almost made it
to short finish the show, finishthe swim, succeed and realize
that you set the goal you you achieved the goal you set.
Don't try to push something further.
And I actually reflected on how a lot of mountain climbers do
that, where they get to a point where they think they can do

(24:40):
something more and they really can't.
And then they push it and the mistake is made and something
bad happens. So it was like just finish.
So I did and we celebrated the crew who were so important to
the swim on board the the ship and also in the smaller Zodiac
boats. I've seen footage of your

(25:02):
Antarctica swim, and because your head's out of the water for
a lot of it, you're you can see that you're smiling, which is
just just incredible. Yeah.
And like, like you say, after a swim, especially when at that
temperature, you need to think about the after drop, which is
how your body is going to continue to cool down after you
get out of the water. And I remember reading in your

(25:27):
book that you were literally surrounded by people who were
using their body heat to warm you up.
Is that the most effective way to warm up after a cold swim?
Actually, actually I am still working on that.
I think for me the best way to warm up after even a cold swim
in the winter time here in California, it gets down to 10°,

(25:47):
maybe 9 so centigrade. So I Celsius.
So I wound up doing light weights for 20 minutes to half
an hour. And I also do a lot of squats
because their large muscles are in your legs.
And I figured that if I can moveand use metabolically create
heat, that that will increase mycore temperature.

(26:11):
The idea of getting into a really warm shower, I don't
really like doing that right away because it just seems to
make me colder because what you're doing is taking the cold
blood on the outside of your body and throwing it into your
core. So I try to give myself more
time to warm up and then then move some more afterwards 'cause

(26:34):
I'm still chilled for about an hour.
Yeah, and in your in your book, you talk about drinking warm
apple juice during a lot of yourswims as well.
Was that, was that a way to sortof maintain a bit of warmth in
your core as you swim? Always.
That's something I drank on my English Channel swims and during

(26:56):
cook straights and, and all the really cold swims.
I realized that, you know, you, you're the salt water starts to
affect your throat and your mouth after a long time.
But the apple juice sort of tookthat salt away and sort of
soothed my throat. But it also was something that I
could enjoy drinking. There are so many things that

(27:18):
people have come out now with toeat or drink.
And I think that the simpler things are often the best
because when in the United States, when people have
children, they tend to give their child the first drink of a
fruit drink is apple juice because it's easy to digest.
So knowing that, I thought, OK, let me do this.

(27:38):
And it's worked for me really well.
I did try on my Antarctica Swim to heat up some Maple syrup with
water because I thought, OK, this is what Maple trees do in
the spring and it looks what it does.
It rejuvenates the whole plant and the leaves grow.
And so I thought I would try warm Maple syrup with water and

(27:58):
realize that it was not a good taste.
It was not a good thing. But I think the other thing is
the best thing that we can do asswimmers for people who want to
get into the sport is to try andfigure out what's works for you.
And just because something worksfor one person doesn't mean it's
going to work for you. Yeah, that's such a good point.

(28:19):
And in your book you talk about when you were quite young, you
were swimming in in a pool. I think you're about nine years
old. And you describe swimming for
quite a long time in the pool and quite wild weather when
everybody else has gotten out and how much you loved it.
And you talk about one of the adults at the poll telling you

(28:39):
that one day you would swim the English Channel and how that
sort of planted the seed in yourmind.
And I imagine over the years youhad people telling you you could
do things and but also people telling you you couldn't do
things, especially for your world first slums.
I imagine people would say, oh, no, that's impossible.
That can't be done. And so I'm curious to know, does

(29:03):
when people say no, does that make you more determined than
when people tell you you can do something, if that makes sense,
Like it the yes people or the people?
I think that the way I look at it is I don't know what I'm
capable of doing, but I will never know unless I try.
And so if I try and I don't succeed, then maybe there's

(29:26):
something I can alter to then make it possible.
And I often think that people think, OK, I don't think it's
possible because I don't think it's possible, then there's no
way you can do it. And I think about that thinking,
you know what? You don't know what I can do and
can't do. And so I don't really have to
take, I don't have to take what you've told me seriously.

(29:50):
And, and yet if you say it's impossible because of 15
different reasons, I'll listen to the reasons and then think,
OK, is there some something thathas value there that I really
need to pay attention to? You know, people, when I want to
swim across the Bering Strait, it's just like, no, it's
impossible. The board has been closed for 48
years. There's no way politically you

(30:11):
can do it. The water's too cold, you're
going to die. You know, all these things
people kept saying, how are you going to get support boats?
There's no boats out there. So I had to address each of the
issues and and it took eleven years for me to train and get
permission and earn enough moneybecause nobody was sponsoring a
swim like that because they didn't believe it was possible.

(30:33):
So there were a few people that that helped support the swim
that came on their own dying. But for the most part, it was my
banking account that I'd saved money to do this because I
believed it was so important to be able to diminish tensions
between the US and Soviet Union.And that I really felt that as
an athlete, you can help to change things like that.

(30:56):
You can help make a positive difference in the world.
And when people see that, they think, well, maybe I can't do
that, but maybe there's something else I can do.
And that is so gratifying to realize people get very creative
and look at inside themselves and go, wait, all right, maybe I
can sing music and change thingswith the Inuit populations.

(31:20):
Maybe I can, you know, do a number of different things.
I love that. And I, yeah, you've inspired so
many people, including me. And I get the impression from
from reading your book that initially time and distance were
important, and I imagine they always were.
But over time almost the symbolism of the swim became the
most important thing like the location and what what it would

(31:44):
it symbolize to do this particular swim.
Well, for me, the most importantsymbolic swim was the Bering
Strait swim because it, you know, the United States and
Soviet Union are so close. The international dateline runs
between the two countries and when you swim from United States
to Russia now you swim from the present into the future.

(32:05):
So symbolically it was about changing things into the future
and, and seeing that happen. And actually it was so
incredible to land on the shoresof Big Dimeed and to have a
welcoming committee of people from all over the Soviet Union
and media from all over the Soviet Union that were there to
support and, and welcome us to shore.

(32:27):
And then they had some of ours full of tea and cookies and they
made it a huge celebration. And then the Inuit who were part
of our escort crew were able to talk to some Siberian doctors
who were family members and theywere able to find out what had
happened to their family over the last 48 years.

(32:47):
So it was a huge connection. I love the the positivity around
all your swarms, in particular that one.
I was going to ask, you know, after you completed each of your
big swims, was there sort of an adjustment period for you where
suddenly everything would feel quiet again?
Or would you immediately start planning the next swim and work

(33:09):
towards the next goal? You asked another great
question. You know, there's so many people
that now have a check off list and they'll do one swim after
the other, after the other, after the other.
And you know, back when I was doing it, it was you didn't have
the funding. You didn't have no it, there was
not. It was not possible to at that
point to do a whole checklist toswims.

(33:31):
But after my first English Channel swim, I sort of went
through a doldrum of now what doI do with the rest of my life?
I've reached my highest goal in life and so I was fortunate that
Davis Hart from Springfield, MA,swam and broke the men's record
and it gave me a goal that year to go back and break his time,
which I did. And then I realized I could

(33:52):
spend my life swimming in this channel.
That's when I shifted gears because I had met Sandy Blewett
from Auckland, New Zealand, who suggested cook straight to me.
So that's when I decided that's what I want to do.
But I learned after those experiences that it was really
important for me to have a swim like the Bering Strait, but to

(34:14):
have in the background a swim across Lake Baikal, to become
the first to swim across Lake Baikal in Soviet, in Siberia.
So I always learned to then use the momentum of what I'd just
done to plan for something more or if I wanted to, to take a
break. I mean, there was one point
where I took a break from swimming and I came to New

(34:35):
Zealand again and swam the southern lakes and, you know,
Oahu, Takapu and Pukeki. And it was at a time where
nobody had done them because again, they thought the water
was too cold and it was really, really, really cold.
And it was at altitude, which made it very challenging.
But the lakes were so beautiful and crystal clear.

(34:57):
They were glacial blue. And it was so amazing to go and
make those swims. And I bet that there are a lot
of people now that are starting to do those swims.
Yes, that's right. And I'm curious to know how do
you swim at a high altitude? Do you Do you have to
acclimatize to the altitude before the swim?
Yes. And actually I discovered that

(35:18):
when I swam like Titicaca, I wound up connecting with a
friend of mine who was a pulmonary specialist, Brownish
Shaney, an expert, a physician, but he also was in the first US
American group, U.S. group that climbed Everest.
So he knew all about acclimatingto altitude.

(35:38):
So he had me come to Colorado and I spent a week with him
training at at altitude, gradually going higher and
higher to I think well, 70, about 8000 feet, no meters, but
divided by three I guess. And so I trained at that
altitude and then went to Bolivia and trained along the

(36:02):
shores of Lake Titicaca. But I found out something that
was disconcerting that because the altitude was at 12,500 feet,
I guess 4000 meters, something like that.
Because it was that high, it wasdifficult to breathe.
So I couldn't move as fast as I normally moved.

(36:25):
And the water was 10° C, so I couldn't swim up my normal
speed. So when I was training I was
getting cold. And so there was this trade off
during during the training and also during the actual swim that
I did across Lake Titicaca whereI had to swim at a slower pace
and realized that I was just going to get colder.

(36:47):
And that I hoped that I could make the the swim 10 mile swim
across Titicaca from Bolivia to Peru before my temperature
dropped too low. And it turned out that I was
really OK that 5010° C was OK for me to swim in because in the
winter time, that's what the water temperature is here and I
pretty much had acclimated to it.

(37:08):
But it was, it was very surprising to swim at altitude.
It's a whole different experience.
I can imagine. And actually Speaking of cold
water, reminds me of one of my other questions, which is do you
find it uncomfortable to swim inwarmer water?
For example, if you were on a Pacific island or I don't know
if you've completed a warmer swim, but does your body

(37:30):
struggle with that? You know, I did do a swim from
Egypt to Israel and Israel to Jordan as a celebration of the
process of peace back then. And it was in the late 80s and
the water temperature was 2025, was centigrade Celsius.
It was very, very, very warm. And also it was full of

(37:55):
jellyfish. So the swims were difficult
because I wasn't used to gettingstung a lot and the water wasn't
refreshing, so I didn't feel invigorated.
And that was so interesting because the, the swim was also
difficult because the air was sodry and hot that I had to
frequently drink. So I didn't become dehydrated.

(38:17):
I actually had to drink more often on those swims than I did
on any others because I was worried about becoming too
dehydrated. I think that, you know, I, it
was, it was, it was just a different swim. 2 swims Egypt to
Israel is or Jordan. I don't know that they were more
difficult or less difficult, butI know that it wasn't as

(38:41):
refreshing as a colder swim. And I think I enjoy swimming in
waters where you feel like you're waking up or you feel
invigorated by it. I don't think I feel really
comfortable when the water's really warm.
Yeah, I, I'm a Wellington swimmer.
I I completely relate to that. I like the cold water.
You totally relate, yes. Not you're not a yeah, you're

(39:03):
not an Auckland swimmer further north.
Exactly. Yeah, I like the the cold rush.
I know that you did a long swim in the Nile River as well, which
you describe in vivid detail in your book.
And that sounded incredibly challenging, to say the least.
So you you'd suffered from dysentery before you even got in
the water. And then the quality of the

(39:25):
water you describe, you know, there are dead rats, dogs.
Yeah. It just, it sounds pretty
horrific. And also you swam in the Spree
River in Berlin in 1990 just after reunification of the East
and West, which was also polluted.
And on top of that, you had razor wire and unexploded

(39:50):
landmines to contend with. So I guess my question is, have
you ever regretted a swim? Or do you feel like every swim
has something new to teach you? Oh, bye.
Exactly, exactly that. I know I've never regretted a
swim, but you're right, every swim teaches you something.
And with the Nile swim, I was really fortunate that I had a
mentor whose name was Famiya Tala, and he had grown up in

(40:13):
Egypt and he had swim in the Nile in the Mediterranean.
And he was connected to a really, he was connected to a
friend. And so he was a psychologist who
helped me prepare to swim acrossthe English Channel.
He tried four times and never made it, but he mentally set me
up for succeeding. And so when I wanted to decide,

(40:34):
when I was just trying to decideif I was going to go to Egypt to
swim, he was extremely encouraging because this is
where he had grown up And he said you'll have a wonderful
time. Channel swimmers are treated
incredibly well there. It'll be a memorable experience.
But he had left 16 years prior and the pollution in the Nile
was awful. And so I got extremely ill

(40:58):
before and then during, and theneven after I'm probably sick for
two weeks after that swim. And I realized, you know, I was
so upset because I almost passedout in water and I was pulled
out and I was upset about not finishing.
And then I realized, you know, no swim is worth this, that no
swim is worth almost dying over.And it was only when I get to

(41:21):
the emergency room where the doctor was pumping me full of
trying to get my hydration rate back and trying to get rid of my
stomach cramps and all that, I was crying because I had failed.
And he said, you don't understand, you survived.
And like, and it took me a whileto understand that, you know,
and with, with Esprit River, I knew the water there would be

(41:43):
dirty, but I knew that my swim wouldn't be that long.
And I really felt it was so important to swim from East to
West Berlin. Initially, the swim was supposed
to occur before the wall had come down, but things changed so
quickly that the wall had come down by the time that I was

(42:04):
going to go do it. So I figured, well, then
celebrate the opening then and do it as something that shows
success. The symbolic of of, you know,
sometimes your plans don't go exactly like they should, but
something much bigger happens. And, and let's celebrate.
It'd be a tiny part of that celebration.

(42:24):
So one of the things though, that I've done since then, as
I've become very much an act activist for people that are
swimming in the Olympic Games inthe open water races.
So Guanabara Bay was severely polluted and they were holding
Olympics there anyway, and number of people got really
sick. I've written an op-ed for the

(42:45):
New York Times talking about howit's really important to make
sure that swimmers do not encounter that kind of
experience. Turns out that Tokyo Bay was
overheated and polluted. And I spoke out on Facebook and
other places saying, you know, the Olympic Committee should
really consider the the health of the swimmers.

(43:07):
And then the same thing with thesin.
Apparently something like 16 swimmers were severely sick
after their open water race there.
And I think that that's absolutely wrong.
You know, swimming, the things that we do is about bringing
people together, bring swimmingstogether.
But it's also about being healthy.
And I think that exposing athletes to bad situations is

(43:27):
not is not right. It it should not be done.
So fortunately, the next Olympics is supposed to be in my
backyard. And hopefully the waters off
Long Beach, CA, will be clear for the swim.
So far, they seem to be really good.
But you never know. Yeah.

(43:48):
It's great. It's really great that you can
use your voice to affect change as well as somebody who's
experienced so many different levels of water quality as well
and has such an innate understanding of it.
Well, I think there are a lot ofpeople that really care about
what happens to the athletes andit's more than just a money
making event. And I think that that needs to

(44:08):
stay at the forefront of the organizers minds that it's
really important that the athletes are healthy and they
don't get harmed by competing. And I think that there are
people that are understanding that.
Are you these days? I know you don't swim quite as
far as you used to. Do you coach other swimmers?

(44:28):
No, I'd, well, I help other swimmers along.
I don't coach. There are people that come to me
right now. There's a woman who's a free
diver who's been diving very deep in the ocean and she hasn't
been comfortable swimming. So I've been helping her get
used to open water swimming. And another friend, another
person I met in the open water, I help people along.
I don't really coach. I did that early on and I went

(44:51):
on other people's swims and helped out on their swims.
But now I'm really more focused on doing corporate speaking or
speaking at schools and and writing books and staying in
shape by swimming and lifting weights.
And I, I know a lot of people listening to this podcast are
already competent swimmers, but there might be something holding

(45:12):
them back in terms of open waterconfidence or wanting to go a
bit further or a bit faster. Like what sort of advice, just
generally speaking, do you give people who want to develop their
swimming but something's holdingthem back?
Well, I think if they're going to get into the open water, the
first thing I think is importantto find an area that has a

(45:33):
lifeguard there all the time just for safety.
And then looking around and finding people that are really
competent open water swimmers. Because often they'll be 3 or 4
or 10 swimmers that will swim together in certain days.
And so the idea would be to go along with them and to be
mentored by them and to spend time, but also be open and also

(45:55):
be questioning. Because a lot of times there are
myths that are handed down from one person to the other that
sometimes they're not accurate. And so you want to really check
the information that you're getting, and you also want to do
it really slowly. And don't overdo it to start
with, like lifting weights. If you lift too much weights the
first day, you're back to lifting weights.

(46:16):
You're going to be sore now for two weeks maybe.
So do less than what you expect you can do, and then gradually
build up further so that you don't feel like you've gotten
over your head. Yeah, very good advice.
And I know you still like to do a lot of swimming in California,
which is where you're talking tome today.

(46:36):
I'm curious to know, are you part of a swim community there
or do you prefer to swim alone? Both I I like to swim alone in
the morning because I just get up, throw my swimsuit on, and if
it's 6:30 or quarter 7 or 7 or whatever time it is, I can go in
and just go. But what often happens now is

(46:57):
that I'll meet other swimmers inthe water who come from
different parts of the area. So I'll meet Ken further South,
I'll meet Eileen further north, be able to come an hour later,
and then we'll have other peoplethat join along the way that
there are two people that come actually earlier in the morning.
So it's our way of connecting. And you know, there's Fred the

(47:20):
Frenchman and Scotty the sailor.And, and we talked for a few
minutes and get going and we realized that, you know, you
don't do this in a pool. You don't stop and talk to each
other and catch up on stuff, even if it's like just for two
minutes or even for five, you know, you.
And often, you know, I'll do something where at the end of

(47:41):
the workout, I'll spend 15 or 20minutes dog paddling with
somebody just to say, So what are you doing today and what's
happening tomorrow? And it's a social time and a way
to reinforce the friendship. Whereas in a swimming pool, you
have maybe 10 seconds between hundreds or 20 seconds between 5
hundreds where you, you know, say, say a couple words and then

(48:03):
somebody's gone. I think that there's such a nice
way to be an open water swimmer to be able to just chat a little
bit and enjoy looking up at the sky or watching the water or
talking about whatever the conditions are or hey, did you
see the octopus today? I've never seen one before.
Or Oh my gosh, there's dolphin out there.
You know, that doesn't happen ina swimming pool.

(48:25):
So those people that are in the pools that are wanting to get
out into the open water, it'll open a whole new world to you.
It'll make a huge difference. You know, when you're when
you're ceiling is the sky and they're the the lane lines of
the land. It it makes everything
different. I love that so much.
I feel like you've just encapsulated everything I love
about open water swimming. You know, it's the, the people,

(48:46):
nature, the feeling of freedom. Yeah, it's.
We're so lucky, aren't we? My next my next question is, is
quite a big one. I was thinking about the way
that you've seen the world in a way that nobody else has, I
think. And so I, I imagine you see the

(49:07):
world in a, in a completely different way as well.
Do you, do you feel like that, that, yeah, I'm, I'm not sure
exactly what I'm asking, but have you met other people like
you who, who see the world in the same way?
Or do you feel like the, the, the swims you've done in such
different locations with different people, different
distances? Do you feel this?

(49:28):
It's given you a unique world view.
I think I initially saw myself as having a unique worldview.
And when I look at a map of the world, I'd look at the blue
spots or the blue dots to figureout, OK, where can I go next?
Because I've always been curiousabout the world.
I've always wanted to explore. I've always wanted to see
different cultures and art and music.

(49:48):
I've wanted to know, you know, Ithink that the differences in
our world enrich us and, and, and that's also, I think part of
the survival of the species. The more differentiation you can
have, the more likely people, plants, animals are going to
survive. And so, you know, what is it
that makes New Zealanders different than Canadians?

(50:10):
What makes them different than people from England?
What is what is important to them?
How do they live? And, you know, so that's always
intrigued me. But for me, you know, just going
as a traveler didn't really allow me to connect with people.
And so as an athlete, it always did.
You know, it's sort of like you're given the stamp of

(50:30):
approval even before you get there.
You know, you're not, you're notgoing to do something wrong
because you're an athlete. And I'm speaking very gently,
but I think it's very true. And so, you know, when I'd swim
from one country to the other and local people found out about
it, suddenly they were helping me.
But I just remember, for instance, swimming across the
Strait of Magellan and having the local people inviting me

(50:52):
into their home to have hot chocolate with them.
And then they'd play Spanish guitar and tell me about what
Punta Arenas is like and introduce me to people in town.
It was just so incredible to have that instant connection.
And that's, that's really what has been so inspiring and, and
what has often made me want to do more, you know, because

(51:14):
because of being able to connectwith people.
And I think there are a lot of swimmers now that are doing this
the same way. And one of my best friends was a
man named David Udivan who did swims in between the Azores,
Cape Verde places. Nobody has swum since nobody
even dreamed of doing. He swam between the islands of

(51:34):
Indonesia. He swam the Subaru Channel.
He was the first man to do that.In fact, we spent three seasons
trying to figure out how to get him through a typhoon so he
could do that swim and he made it and he saw the world the same
way as as I did, where the as anathlete, you can connect with
people and and have a really rich travel experience, but

(51:55):
something that stays with you forever.
And I still think about coming New Zealand and, and how amazing
the people were and having Pavlova for the first time and
having people say, would you like some tea?
And expecting, OK, you know, and, and expecting a cup of tea
and realizing, no, no, that's dinner.
Just we speak the same languages, but we're different

(52:17):
and and that makes things interesting.
You know, yeah, for sure. And these days, I know that you
connect with people through all the books you've written.
You've written a lot of books inthe last few decades,
particularly children's books about marine life.
And I was curious to know is, isthat because you want to get

(52:39):
children more interested and involved in marine conservation?
That's part of it. But I think that there are two
important skills in life and oneis swimming and one is reading.
And I think that if you can start children out loving to do
both at a very early age, you'veset them off to doing a great
job of, of living life. And so I wrote Elizabeth, Queen

(53:02):
of the Seas, the children's bookabout the elephant seal that was
in Christchurch, New Zealand, who chose to live on the Avon
River and, and she was a real being.
And actually, when I'd been in New Zealand and had swum the,
the three lakes around Mount Cook, I was walking around the
Avon River and the family told me, you know, are you looking
for Elizabeth? And I said, what are you talking

(53:23):
about 'cause I expecting some woman swimmer in the, in the
river. It's like, no, no, she's a
lovely elephant seal. And I thought lovely elephant
seal. Those words don't really go
together 'cause I've never thought of an elephant seal as
being really lovely. But anyway, then they told me
the story and I thought, you know, I really need to write
this story one day. And so I finally did.

(53:46):
And I was so fortunate because there's a illustrator named
Brian Falca who's won the Calicott Award, which is the
great award for children's illustrations.
And he was the one who illustrated Elizabeth, Queen of
the Seas. And and then after that book, I
wrote another book called Yoshi Sea Turtle Genius, and that's

(54:06):
about a sea turtle who was caught in a net off South Africa
and she was taken in by Japanesefishermen who held her and gave
her food and started to rehab her.
But she had a cut in her shell. So she would not have survived
if she hadn't been brought to Two Oceans Aquarium in South

(54:28):
Africa in Cape Town. So they took her in and they
were re able to rehab her and they kept her there for 20 years
and then realized that she needed to be released, released
into nature. And so part of what I love is
nature and and how we are part of it and how important it is to
highlight the animals. And one of the things that was

(54:48):
so important to me with Yoshi was that she swam over 2 years
back to northwest Australia, probably where she was born.
And the story is about her survival and flourishing and
winding up in a National Park innorthwest Australia.
So I've read these books as a way to hopefully encourage kids

(55:11):
to read but also realize how we are part of this really unique
environment, marine environmentsand and land environment too.
Yeah, I love that. And I know over the last 20
years you've done a lot of public speaking as well, a lot
of given a lot of motivational talks about your swoons.
And so I was interested to know,was that a different kind of

(55:34):
challenge, stepping onto the stage and talking in front of
hundreds or probably even thousands of people?
It was very different. In fact, I have a book agent,
Martha Kaplan, who's wonderful. And I was talking to her about,
you know, I'm going to speak to 2000 people.
I feel very nervous about this. And so then I thought, you know,

(55:55):
she knew a friend who was an actor who did stage plays, very
famous actor, and he lived in the same apartment complex.
So I asked her, would you introduce me to Jerry?
And we wound up meeting because Martha had dogs and Jerry had
dogs. And so I asked him, could you
coach me? Could you help me get over this
fear of public speaking? And so he gave me tips on what

(56:17):
to do and how to feel more comfortable.
And you know that the audience was there really just to hear
the story. But what I really wanted to do
when I, when I, when I, what I want to do or what I do when I
speak is try to really connect with the off with the audience
right from the start. And the idea is that why are
they there to hear me? What are they doing in their

(56:38):
lives? What's important to me?
To them, what's important to me,but no what's important to them?
How can my story, how can my story inspire them?
So I feel like I'm a coach up there and I have these these
repartee to be able to use to beable to explain different things
about overcoming fear or teamwork or how to keep going

(57:04):
when all the odds seem to be against you and and what you do
and how you rely on your crew. So, you know, I think that one
of the things with the English Channel swim is that the
currents are constantly changing.
And so I was at one point speaking to a financial
institution and, and I had to discuss, or I discussed how

(57:25):
you're constantly aware of what you're doing, but also which
direction you're going in and how you can invest in that
direction, just like you invest people's money.
And I would make parallels throughout the talk so that they
could understand that I understood what they were doing,
but also trying to use that information to inspire them to
find new ways to be able to process their English channels.

(57:47):
Right. That's a great way to put it.
Yeah. Well, Lynn, I know I need to let
you go soon. It's been such a privilege
talking to you today. Your book, Swimming to Antarctic
Care is honestly one of my favorite books of all time.
I became an ocean swimmer about five years ago.
And yeah, that's really, that's really helped me.

(58:07):
I've learned so much from it. So, yeah, it's a real honour to
to get to talk to you today. Thank you.
It's been really wonderful talking with you, Shawna.
You've asked such great questions and questions that you
know people that are very experienced open water swimmer
or just beginning. You've hit on so many of them
that are so important because I know there are people that are

(58:28):
doing small swims or big swims and at the end of them they go,
now what? Or Gee, I didn't make my goal,
now what happens? Or do I give up?
Do I continue? Do I still love it?
And I think the important thing in all of it is to remember that
as long as there's the joy in still doing it, keep doing it.
But when it becomes absolute work and you don't enjoy it
anymore, do something else and maybe you'll come back to it.

(58:51):
But there's a big joy in in swimming in the open water.
So much joy. Thank you so much for your time
today Lynn. It's been a real pleasure and an
honour. Thank you very much, Hannah.
Really, really wonderful. Thanks for listening to this
episode of Swim Chats. Please remember to follow or
subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss an episode.

(59:14):
And if you enjoyed it, you can leave a five star rating and
review which helps other people find it too.
Enjoy the water and we'll see you next time.