Bracing, Briny: This Is a Swim

When my 63-year-old aunt invited family members to join her in the La Jolla Rough Water Swim in early September, I immediately dismissed the idea as lunatic. She and her husband--who founded the Ironman Triathlon in 1978--are bionic adventurers who spend their free time sailing the world, biking in exotic places and running inhuman distances.

I, on the other hand, had let my fitness regimen slip and hadn’t swum regularly all summer. But the invitation was a gauntlet thrown down, so I decided to go for it. After initially trying to dissuade me, my husband, who has probably never swum more than half a mile in a pool, decided he would try it too. (To go all the way to La Jolla and not swim would be pretty lame, he said.)

So on a recent Sunday we found ourselves on the edge of a cliff at La Jolla Cove, clutching our goggles, staring out at a distant collection of buoys and balloons that marked our course and wondering if we were out of our minds.

Known affectionately as “The Big Wet One,” the La Jolla Rough Water Swim is one of the oldest open-water swimming events in the country. The first La Jolla ocean race was held in 1916, as part of the World’s Fair in San Diego. Seven men swam 1.7 miles from the Scripps Institute’s Biological Pier south to La Jolla Cove that cold summer day. Over the next 86 years, the event’s sponsorship changed, the course altered and the number of participants grew.

Today the La Jolla Rough Water Swim is one of 19 events sponsored by Southern California Aquatics, the largest adult swimming club in the United States. With race distances ranging from a half-mile to 10 miles, the events, known as the 2002 Southern California Open Water Swim Series, take place over four summer months. Swims are held from as far north as Avila Beach, above Santa Barbara, to as far south as Coronado. The final swim of the series, the Catalina Clearwater Classic, will take place Sept. 22.

Organizers estimate that more than 2,000 people participated in this year’s La Jolla races, including 550 men and 305 women in the respective one-mile masters’ races and 419 people in the three-mile Gator Man.

At the registration booth, my husband and I stripped to our suits, and volunteers scrawled numbers on our shoulders with black markers. I strapped on my heart-rate monitor but later found it didn’t function in salt water.

A bystander at the railing above the beach showed us the course. Our event, the one-mile, was a triangle. From the small cove, competitors would swim east to a buoy half a mile out, head one-quarter mile west to the second buoy, then back to the beach, where a strobe light flashed from the cliff to guide us home.

Hearing that we were first-timers, the man offered tips. Get your bearings, he advised. You won’t be able to see the buoys from the water, so aim for the red roof across the bay. Don’t be frightened if you get tangled in the kelp; just keep your arms close to your body and float above it. Grab it and pull if you have to. And ride the waves in at the end, he said. They look small from up here, but they are actually so strong that when you are tired, they can pull you backward. Finally, he said, don’t stop swimming until your fingers hit the sandy bottom. Then, and only then, should you run for the finish.

Several minutes before 11 a.m., they called the women’s masters (in this race, anyone over 19). I was in the first heat, with all women younger than 39.

We lined up on the stairs leading down to the cove until the loudspeaker called us onto the beach. We scampered across the sand and lined up in the surf. The real competitors pushed to the front. I tried to stay near the back.

The waves were bigger down here. They looked as if they would take out the table of Gatorade cups and knock down the front-line swimmers. At sea level, the first buoy was a lot harder to see.

I had butterflies in my stomach.

A La Jolla councilman raised the starting gun into the air. Bang! And we were off.

Hundreds of women surged into the waves. We dived into the surf and onto one another like seals. The land world receded as I submerged into a sea of white bubbles. All I could hear was the thrashing of a thousand limbs. I focused on not getting kicked in the head.

We headed out to sea like a drunken school of fish. I could feel us careening off course to the right, but with swimmers on every side, resistance was futile. I lifted my head to try to see the buoy, the red roof. Nothing. I put down my head and went with the flow.

I tried to get into a rhythm, to not think about how far I had to go. I could see the swirl of seaweed below in the blue-green depths, and blurry patches of sand and rock.

By the time I rounded the first buoy, we were spread out. I flipped onto my back and did a few strokes to catch my breath. The swells got bigger, obscuring the column of balloons that was meant to be our marker. Lifeguards floated nearby on paddleboards, nudging us back on course if we went too far astray. I swallowed a few gulps of salt water and zigzagged erratically. I was beginning to understand why an ocean mile is almost always more than a pool mile. This was not like following the black stripe on the bottom of the Y pool.

As we rounded the second buoy, I got tangled in a bed of kelp. Trying not to panic as it wrapped its cords around my legs, I remembered the words of our friend on the cliff and managed to glide over the top of it like a fish.

I was in the home stretch. I swam and swam for the arch of balloons. I swam until my fingers scraped the bottom. Then, like an amphibious creature that has forgotten how to use its legs, I stumbled out of the water to the finish.

I’d done it!

My skin tingled and I felt great. I’d finished in 34 minutes, but the time didn’t matter. My aunt, who took off in a later heat, came in right behind me.

Sue Osborn, spokeswoman for the Southern California Series and an experienced open-water swimmer, said that for many people, the transfer from pool to ocean can be exhilarating.

“A lot of people freak out about the ocean,” she said, “about seeing fish, getting tangled in the kelp. But turn that around and it’s an adventure. You have currents to work around ... it’s a challenge. It’s almost like creating a whole new sport.”

She said some master swimmers like the ocean water swims because they feel less competitive than a swim meet. “In the open water, no one is watching,” she said. “You can slow down, do breaststroke, pop over on your back. People see you come in at the finish, but they have no idea what happened out there.”

I had barely ascended the stairs when my husband was called down to the beach. If he was nervous, he didn’t show it. He stood in the pack--goggles on, cap pulled down--as if he had done this a million times. I watched until his head was just a bobbing red speck on the horizon. Later he told me he just prayed he wouldn’t have to climb on a lifeguard’s paddleboard and be brought back to shore with thousands of people watching.

Finally I saw him head into the cove and ride a wave into shore. He had swum farther than he ever had in his life and was almost as thrilled with himself as I was.

It felt like the ultimate Southern California experience, to swim like that in the sea. It reminded me of how rich and alive the world can look when you get out of your car, taking in smells, sounds and textures that you miss when the world flows by like a movie outside your air-conditioned vehicle.

With the chill of salt water against my skin, the drag of seaweed on my wrists and ankles, and cormorants staring down from the rocks as I glided by--how different it is, I thought, to get off the land and swim like a sea creature.

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Hilary E. MacGregor can be reached at Hilary.MacGregor@latimes.com.