Ocean Event Turns a Familiar Sport Into Matter of Survival : Swimming in the icy sea is a far cry from a casual pool dip. It’s not for whiners, or those with low body fat or under-utilized lungs.

Many people view the ocean solely as a place for Jacques Cousteau specials and luxury cruises. To them, if man had been meant to swim in the ocean, he wouldn’t have invented boats.

An intrepid minority, however, feels differently. Those are the hardy souls who engage in serious ocean swimming, striking out for some distant point and arriving there, after an interminable time, looking like an overcooked prune. It is not a sport for whiners.

For some reason, you find the idea of ocean swimming intriguing. So when the city of Santa Barbara holds a six-mile ocean swim, you sign on, ignoring the line “For Experienced Rough-Water Swimmers Only” on the entry form. How else to gain experience but through experience? Besides, hadn’t you spent large parts of your life in and around pools, once even receiving dubious recognition from your peers for leaving underpants, with your name boldly printed across the back, on the pool deck at a major swimming meet?

Pool swimming should not be confused with ocean swimming.

Ask a pool swimmer about a race, and he or she will bore you into the cement with a meticulous, stroke-by-stroke account. An ocean swimmer will explain a successful journey by saying something like, “Well, I never lost it, or went into a coma, or started vomiting.” Perhaps because their events are far longer, ocean swimmers don’t waste much breath.

Long ocean swims require forethought. The night before the Santa Barbara swim, you fill a knapsack with an eclectic assemblage: bananas, duct tape, Vaseline, bikini briefs. The Santa Barbara swim also requires an entrant to have an accompanying paddler in a--gasp--boat.

A friend volunteers, for practical reasons. “I guess I won’t have to paddle very fast,” she says.

Finally, there is the matter of temperature: Pools are warm and the ocean is not. For this reason, ocean swimmers tend to be larger than life. This is no figure of speech. Body fat insulates, and insulation is a handy thing to have when you’re immersed in icy water wearing nothing but a nylon thong.

Unfortunately, you have the body fat of ceramic tile. This is pointed out to you just before the start by a fellow who looks like the Michelin Man.

“You’re a skinny one,” he says, slopping petroleum jelly on his shoulder and eyeballing you like a gourmand appraising the buffet table. “Good thing the water’s warm.”

Warm to this man, maybe. You make the mistake of hopping into the water a few minutes before the start for what’s supposed to be a warm-up. But the cold envelopes you with shocking intimacy, squashing air from your lungs.

Michelin Man is standing by the water’s edge when you emerge a minute later.

“Nice, isn’t it?” he says.

Sixteen people have signed on to do this year’s swim. They huddle about the race director while he doles out a final few particulars. The race director is also an ocean swimmer and so, by nature, brief.

“Not much tide today,” he says, gazing out at the slate-gray water. “Water’s 65. Plus, there’s a slight swell that’ll be pushing you from behind. Conditions are perfect.” You gaze south. Through the early morning haze, you can see the vague outline of the promontory where the swim will finish. It looks farther off than a Clinton-Hussein summit.

“The finish looks a lot closer than it is,” says the race director, offering a last word of advice. “Don’t keep looking for it. It’ll just bum you out.”

The swim begins and you strike off at a cautious pace. Not so your blubbery comrades, who swim toward the end of the Goleta Pier as if pursued by Capt. Ahab. Their speed unnerves you--though it is not as disconcerting as the thought of expiring at sea--so you let them go. Your plan is simple: Hold a steady pace, stop every 20 minutes to eat and drink, and hope the race expires before you do.

The first 20 minutes ooze past like sap. Finally, your paddler signals for you to stop. You’re not particularly hungry, less so when confronted with a bag of melted energy bars.

“May I have a banana, please?”

Your paddler gives you a puzzled look.

“You don’t have to be so polite,” she says.

Not politeness, but common sense. You are half a mile out to sea. Your paddler is guide, food mart and lifeline. She hands you half a banana that looks like it just emerged from under the wheel of a truck. You stuff it down, thanking her profusely while banana bits cascade from the sides of your mouth. You wash the mess clean by sticking your face in the water and plowing on.

The water, gray-green and murky, closes in around you like an unrelenting fist. Turning to breathe, you catch occasional glimpses of the steep cliffs along the shore. Distracting ruminations are interspersed with one overriding thought, flashing every few seconds like a blinking marquee: How much farther?

After an eternity, your paddler signals for another stop.

Bobbing in the water, squashing down another saline banana, you mention that the 20-minute swim period seems to be lasting forever.

“I decided to wait half an hour,” your handler chirps.

Fine. Right. And you’ll decide if she gets a ride home. Perhaps sensing your foul mood, your paddler offers encouragement.

“You’re looking great,” she says. “You even passed somebody back there.”

As time passes, the swim becomes almost pleasant. There is a rhythmic, almost hypnotic pulse to swimming in open water. Your mind shuts down, lulled by the regular sounds of your breathing and by water sliding past. Freed of confines, you feel as if you’re drifting through space.

Only space is warmer. You think a more practical thought: You may freeze to death.

Before that can happen, however, you notice your paddler making wild gestures. After a time, you realize that she is pointing toward shore. Surprised, you lift your head. She addresses you as the dolt you’ve become.

“The finish,” she says.

Below, you see the bottom rising up through the green water.

Afterward, the Michelin Man approaches you on the beach. He eyeballs you again, then claps you on the back.

“Well done,” he grunts. “Times were fast, though. Course must’ve been short.”

You feel like telling him how tough it really was. But ocean swimmers don’t whine.

* ABOUT THE AUTHOR: This week’s Reluctant Novice is free-lance writer Ken McAlpine