We Need More Kayaks

 I recently accomplished a feat once thought impossible. I swam from Alcatraz Island to San Francisco.

It was a high-point in my life, a great personal accomplishment. And I got a hero’s welcome by family and friends, along with a medal, at the conclusion.

But the lens must be widened to see what really happened that September Sunday morning. My achievement was far less individual than it can appear. I had an army of assistance. Or rather an armada. And it strikes me this lesson from “my” swim applies to America today. We would benefit from recognizing the way public support bolsters our private courage, and from giving ourselves a greater measure of security.

***

This was my first Alcatraz swim. And even though I’d trained for months in a pool and in a protected part of the San Francisco Bay called Aquatic Park, I was nervous as some 650 swimmers and I took ferry boats out to “The Rock” at dawn on September 13.

I had the great fortune of getting coaching prior to the swim from my pal Chris Jones, a veteran of some 12 Alcatraz swims and a past winner of a race from the Bay Bridge to the Golden Gate Bridge. And as Chris and I and another friend found seats on the Ferry, we discovered we were surrounded by even more impressive swimmers. Two former Cal State San Luis Obispo Poly swimmers were at our table. One of them had won the Alcatraz race a couple of years ago and was now a professional triathlete.

Sitting among such strong swimmers was at once inspiring and scary. I – never a comfortable swimmer as a kid and only recently more confident in the water as an adult – was clearly out of my league. Was I crazy to think I could complete this challenging swim?

Well, maybe not crazy. But so tense that my body almost betrayed me as soon as I jumped from the boat into the bay.

When I bobbed up to the surface, I discovered that I could not open my mouth more than half an inch.

I’ve had occasional bouts of jaw problems dating to a basketball injury a decade ago. And I can usually reset my jaw and regain full mouth opening movements with a little effort. But as I took a few front crawl strokes away from the ferry, I couldn’t get my jaw to cooperate—probably a function of all the anxiety that had accumulated on the way out to Alcatraz.

Unable to open my mouth much more than a centimeter, I began to panic I would not be able to breath. And I considered doing what the race organizers had said to do if you feel overwhelmed: raise your hand, and a kayak or jet ski will fish you out of the water. I could see these vessels nearby. They were starting to form a channel to San Francisco, and I had deliberately jumped off the Western-most door of our ferry to be able to hug the line of water craft as I swam back to the city.

About 30 yards away, I could see a police jet ski. In fact, I could smell its gasoline exhaust. So I knew I could get the policeman’s help. But then a thought occurred to me. I might go down in history as having the most ridiculous reason someone was yanked out of the Alcatraz swim. I imagined the police officer joking with colleagues later: “Hey guys, I had did-not-finish on account of lockjaw. How about that?!”

So I tried to make do—to twist my body a bit more on each stroke to get my head turned up better for air. And it worked! Within a few strokes, I realized I was Ok. Phew! (A constricted “Phew!”)

But it wasn’t smooth sailing yet. In fact, I immediately confronted another watery hurdle.  

Or better said, watery hurdles. That is, waves of 2-3 feet, coming from all different directions. The choppiness was disconcerting. I felt like I was being tossed around, unable to make progress toward the city. And the wavy setbacks were amplified by a giant container ship that had crossed our path just prior to the start of the race. Several minutes into the swim, the ship’s wake hit me—a 5 or 6 foot mound of water that I slid up and over.

All the ups and downs of the waves were a downer in large part because I’d been hoping for and even expecting much calmer conditions. In the days leading to the swim, I’d heard from Chris and others that there as a better than 50 percent chance the Bay would be smooth, even glassy. I could tell on our way out on the boats that my glassy hopes were shattered. Still, I didn’t anticipate this much resistance from the Bay. It was more than I’d experienced during practice swims in Aquatic Park. More than I’d felt during a warm-up open-water race in a lake several weeks early. The level of aquatic anarchy in the Bay this morning had me battling feelings of powerlessness, helplessness.

But I wan’t alone in that battle. Because I wasn’t lacking help. The kayaks and the jet skis were out there with me. And they steeled my will when the water seemed to have its way with me. In fact, I welcomed the exhaust fumes from the jet ski I’d first noticed, which I smelled for much of the race. The comfort of knowing that rescue vehicle was nearby far outweighed any sense of revulsion at the scent or environmental concern.

Kayaks guiding swimmers from Alcatraz

And those jet skis and kayaks kept other fears of the bay at bay. I knew there could be great white sharks underneath me, and that tides eventually could pull me out to sea. Adding to the potential horrors were the bay’s murky waters: I couldn’t see more than a foot in front of me. But the presence of the little boats encouraged me, and the channel they created focused me on the swimming task at hand.

At one point, I looked up and saw a guy in a kayak holding his paddle up, lance-like, in the direction of San Francisco. He seemed to take pride in serving as a guide, as if he were George Washington leading troops across the Delaware. I was buoyed by him.

And in this environment where I knew others were concerned for me, I gradually got into the flow. By the time I’d swum a mile or so, I felt great. I’d reached the breakwall surrounding Aquatic Park, and had swum into the current enough that I’d overshot the opening of the Park. I could float for a bit, letting the flood tide carry me into the mouth. I looked up and saw a squadron of pelicans flying directly overhead. My heart leapt. Pelicans have long been a spirit animal of sorts for me. I’m drawn to their tight formations—they’re the blue angels of the animal world. I wonder if they soar so effortlessly in part because it feels cool to be part of a bigger whole. They may dive individually for fish. But they are a thick posse passing through the sky.

After the pelican reverie, I swam the final ¼ mile to the shore on the other side of Aquatic Park. And I finished that swim feeling stronger, faster in the water than I have ever felt. I was flying.

Soon after running up the sand and across the finish line about 30 feet away, someone put a gold medal around my neck. My son Julius found me and led me to my wife Rowena, my daughter Skyla and two other friends who came to cheer me and another swimmer on. The welcoming committee all hugged and praised me, and Rowena snapped a picture of me in my post-Alcatraz glory. I promptly put the photo on Facebook, where I got plenty more kudos for bravery and athleticism. In fact, that photo earned me 109 Likes—the most I think I’ve ever had for a Facebook post. “WOW! That is kick-ass, Ed!” wrote one friend. “Dude you are my hero,” said another. And this from a third: “Ed... Who knew you were such a jock! That's a crazy swim! Congratulations!”

***

On one level, all the acclaim made sense. Alcatraz was made a prison because it was thought impossible to escape by swimming to shore. For me, making it from Alcatraz to San Francisco also represented breaking out of a mental confinement of sorts. I had harbored anxiety about swimming long distances since I was a kid, and that fear, combined with worry about great white sharks, had made Alcatraz seem a personal impossibility for nearly all the 20 years I’ve lived in San Francisco. I envied friends who’d made the swim, and I often eyed the island from Bay Area bridges with a longing to join the ranks of those daring souls. But until the past year or two, when I grew comfortable swimming a mile and a half or more at a time, I never thought I would take the Alcatraz plunge.

So overcoming my doubts, freeing myself from a personal prison, felt great. But my individual effort cannot be separated from the way I was aided along the way.

And not only by the kayaks and jet skis. The support started with my family making time for me to spend hours doing laps in a local public pool. It included Chris Jones and the hours he spent counseling and encouraging me. And by the race organizers, who timed the swim start to minimize the pull of tides and arranged for shipping traffic to cease during our crossing. 

It even included the people who invented wet suits and Sports Basement, the store that rented me the wet suit I wore for the swim. Because while Chris Jones and many other swimmers just wore bathing suits, I doubted I could make it across the 60-degree waters of the Bay without a layer of neoprene keeping me warm.

In short, I never would have made that personal journey from the prison island were it not for the help of so many people. The close-up picture of my achievement—the one I posted to Facebook-- must expand to a wide-angle shot to do the swim justice.

Not long after the race, I began to do this lens widening. The cheers from family and friends fed my ego, but it felt unfair to be treated as a solo hero getting all the credit. And I soon saw a bigger picture still: that swimming from Alcatraz is a lot like trying to make it in America today. It’s a challenge to succeed in our economy. And it feels great as an individual to achieve a version of the American Dream. But we don't really win without support, as Malcom Gladwell and others have noted. And we tend to ignore the social scaffolding that enables monumental personal accomplishments—even though doing so makes us unhappy.

We Americans lionize the rugged, risk-taking individual. But research suggests that deep down we dislike significant amounts of uncertainty. That our happiness increases when our relationships with others are strong. That the security provided by the group frees us to take our biggest gambles as individuals.

Throughout this year, I plan to write a series of blogs exploring our American failure to see the connection between social backing on the one hand and personal breakthroughs and, ultimately, national well-being on the other. I’ve dubbed the problem Schizecurity, because I think our inability to recognize the debilitating effects of instability amounts to a kind of madness.

For now, suffice it to say I’m very glad my Alcaltraz swim had kayaks.

We need more of them.