‘For me, swimming is like diving into life’

Golden Hill resident Barbara Van Dyken likes to think she can reach another plateau in the ocean. Van Dyken, 29, says she finds inner peace through rough-water swimming. The City College telecommunications student was swimming in the sea by the time she was 5. Her military family lived in several regions but always near the water. When her family moved to San Diego in 1976, Van Dyken joined the swim team at Mira Mesa High and lettered in the 200-meter butterfly. Though she no longer swims competitively, last summer she and a few friends founded the Aquazons, a group of women fond of swimming the often turbulent ocean. The small group usually swims on weekends. Van Dyken, who does a weekly show for the college radio station and works with junior-high students, was interviewed by Times Staff Writer Terry Rather and photographed by Barbara Martin Pinhero.

The ocean is always different when you go swim there. The conditions are always different, never the same. Sometimes it’s calm, sometimes it’s very, very rough. It’s a totally different environment and very intense.

The sounds, the smells . . . and visually, at every level it’s stimulating, which is what I love. When you swim laps in a pool, you can look forward to it being the same thing every time.

We decided to start the group last June. We had gone swimming and it was fabulous. We got started, and we didn’t want to stop. And it’s not just serious swimming, we like to have fun. We’ll set a goal of where we want to swim to and back. When we swim, we all swim together. It’s really important that everyone has a partner. The stronger ones can swim ahead.

Coming back is the most difficult because the currents are against you. That’s really what rough-water swimming is. Swimming against the currents, working your muscles. You don’t necessarily fight the ocean, you work with it. You figure out how the water moves.

I’ve been swimming since I was 5 or 6, both lap and ocean swimming. My parents told me that they’d take us down to the beach, and I’d go up to the water and tell the waves to stop so that I could get in.

My family has always lived near the ocean. My parents used to take us to the Gulf of Mexico when we lived in Alabama. The gulf is very warm, beautiful and calm. We also spent some time on the Atlantic side.

The water in Okinawa is beautiful and clear. The coral reefs are all kinds of colors.

At times the ocean itself is like a mother or parent, while at the same time it may be dangerous. The lessons are there, and I’m here to learn. Part of my learning involves the ocean. Ultimately, swimming in the ocean is a way for me to get at the core of my humanity, finding out what it means to be human. I don’t think everyone should try swimming to get in touch with themselves. But I do think everyone should try to find something like that that can help them in the same way. Ocean swimming is not for everyone, but it is for me.

I suppose swimming in the ocean may seem to some really adventurous. Swimming in the ocean, you’re put face to face with your mortality because you’re in a situation that could be dangerous to your life.

When you’re in the water and paranoia overcomes you, and it does happen occasionally, you’re forced to work through it and keep going. No matter what feeling overcomes you, whether it’s paranoia or elation, you keep going. You also learn how to avoid potentially dangerous situations. You have to have an eye for that. It’s not so dangerous if you know what to look for.

I’m also a wimp. If it’s really turbulent, lots of riptides, I won’t get in. It’s like, I don’t want to be whipped, but I’ll take a mild beating. But, by the same boat, I don’t want to get hit lightly. It’s nice to have a little resistance, to pull yourself through the water and have it resist you a bit. It makes you feel like you’re working, really doing something. When I finish, I feel refreshed and like I really accomplished something.

That’s what is so nice about swimming in the ocean. You can concentrate and swim at any intensity you want. I think with swimming, the competition is within yourself. It begins with that and ends with that.

For me, swimming is like diving into life. And that’s how I want to live my life, diving in and looking forward to that swim, no matter what happens, and dealing with it when it happens.

It’s very applicable to my daily life, whether it’s into my studies, or into work, or into personal problems. I just dive right in and look forward to the growth that happens as a result of that.