A Novel Experience : Lynne Cox Hopes Things Go Swimmingly As She Undertakes An Around-the-World Adventure

In the spirit of author Jules Verne, Lynne Cox will embark on a trip Aug. 1 that will take her “Around the World in Eighty Days.”

But unlike the character Phileas Fogg, who, in Verne’s novel, traversed the globe using hot-air balloons, trains, boats and horses, Cox, of Los Alamitos, will employ a different form of transportation.

She’ll swim.

Not completely around the world. Cox plans to perform certain swims in eight countries on a trip that will take her from Long Beach, around the world and back to New York, where she hopes the trek will end with a swim around the Statue of Liberty on Oct. 19.

Cox planned for the trip to last 80 days, hoping to play off the novel that was made into a film, but she also hopes she won’t end up like the title of another Jules Verne novel: “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.”

“This will be the hardest thing I’ve attempted in my whole life,” said Cox, 28. Her trip across many of American’s lakes and riovers last summer was a first. “But I think I’ll make it. It’s something I’ve worked on for 10 years.”

Her latest venture will begin with a swim from the Queen Mary in Long Beach to Seal Beach. Cox will then fly to Washington D.C. for a swim down the Potomac River and then over to Iceland, where Cox will cross Lake Myvatn, which has never been swum because its water temperature averages in the low 40s.

Cox will then cross the Straits of Gibraltar in Spain, the Straits of Messina in Italy and swim around Delos Island in Greece. Next stop is Turkey, where Cox will cross the Bosporus Waterway, the opening of the Black Sea, and then to China to swim three seas.

She’ll travel next to Japan to swim Lake Yamanaka at the base of Mt. Fuji, to Alaska to swim the Gastineau Straits, and to San Francisco Bay to swim along the route of the Golden Gate Bridge, from San Francisco to Marin. Following that, she’ll head to New York to conclude the trip.

Cox will be the first to attempt such a journey. In the past 13 years, she became the first woman to swim across the Bering Sea, the Cape of Good Hope, the Skagerrak (waterway between Norway and Sweden), the Kattegat (between Denmark and Sweden), and Cook Strait (which separates the North and South islands of New Zealand).

Being the first to accomplish such feats has been a big motivator for Cox, who wanted to be an Olympic swimmer until she realized she had more endurance than speed in water.

She couldn’t be the fastest, so she made sure she was first. To Cox, this meant she would be remembered, she hopes, the way Charles Lindbergh is for being the first to complete a trans-Atlantic flight, and the way John Glenn is for being the first American to orbit the earth.

But there is a deeper, more philosophical motivation for such feats. It is one that transcends the glory of being the first to accomplish something.

“I want to make a positive difference in this world,” she said. “I want to show that people can go out and achieve goals that have never been achieved before, and, in doing that, I’d like to inspire other people to achieve their own goals. That is the seed for all the things I do.”

Cox constantly reminds herself of this during her swims, especially under difficult conditions, when, for every eight strokes she takes, the tide is actually taking her 16 strokes backward; when, instead of going toward a point, the tide is taking her sideways; when she sees her life flashing before her eyes and she’s wondering why she is out there.

“Sometimes it’s like running a marathon and almost getting to the finish line, maybe a mile away, and having the finish line moved back five miles,” Cox said.

The problems with currents seem minor when compared to other obstacles Cox has faced, such as sharks, poisonous sea snakes, sting rays and jellyfish. And then there is the fog, the wind and the freezing waters, which could cause hypothermia, a subnormal body temperature.

“You just have to do a lot of research before your trips and talk to a lot of local people when you get there,” Cox said. “And you hope you have people on your escort boat with good eyes to see possible dangers.”

Cox, who twice set records for swimming the English Channel during the 1970s, recalled her swim around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope in 1977 when, just 400 yards from the finish, a 10-foot bronze whaler shark was heading toward her. Fortunately, a companion in the water with a spear gun shot the shark.

There are emotional problems involved with long-distance swimming, too. It’s difficult to maintain interest when you’re in the water for 8, 9 or 10 straight hours. Cox’s longest swim was 12 1/2 hours across the Catalina Channel in 1971.

“A lot of it is just boredom or sudden lack of confidence, or an outright fear,” Cox said. “There are different things I do to overcome it.

“One, is I try to ignore it. Two, is sometimes I’ll take a timeout, tread water and try to re-center my energies, or I could stop and eat something because it might be a problem with low blood sugar. But when it’s fear, I try to find out if it’s really a shark down there or just a dolphin.”

For Cox, though, the benefits of her travels have far outweighed the possible dangers and costs, which are estimated at $20,000. She’s been exposed to cultures, ideas and philosophies that she never would have encountered had she stayed in the United States.

“I have a better understanding of the problems in South Africa and Egypt and South America,” she said. “I know politically, socially and economically what’s going on in those places, so when I read a newspaper, I know it’s a generalization of what’s happening and that there are 15 other sides to the story. It’s written from a biased point of view.”

Cox has done a little writing herself--she recently completed a book called “Against the Tide,” which chronicles her many experiences while swimming the waterways of the world--but getting her work published has proven to be a lot more difficult than many of her long-distance swims.

“I went to New Zealand to see if I could get it published, and they said they’d love it--as soon as I had it published in the U.S.,” Cox said.

Meanwhile, Cox has done some free-lance writing for several outdoor magazines, she has given private swimming lessons, and she has been trying to secure sponsors for her upcoming excursion. But her ultimate goal is to become a novelist.

“Writing is what I want to do when I grow up,” she said. “I want to be a great writer.”

Maybe as good as Jules Verne, she hopes.