Swimming in the Dark

While many of us “pool” swimmers can transition to the open water, albeit with trepidation, and “open water” professionals enjoy the natural, boundless and unpredictable nature of open water swimming, swimming in the deep blue at night is a whole different ball game and introduces a whole new set of elements to consider and fears to overcome. Imagine swimming in pitch blackness with only the haze of the city lights surrounding you or a small light coming from the glow stick attached to your head or from a flash light from your escort boat…regardless of your background, all your fears of the open water become even more escalated…it is not for the faint of heart! Alan, an open water competitor for many years, shares with us his unique experience swimming the open water at night for the first time in preparation for swimming the English Channel. He proved to be stronger than his fears and what better reward after a daring swim to watch the sunrise over the horizon! We wish him all the best in his quest to swim the English Channel!

Editor Ngozi M

“Another Monday Morning.”

By Alan M

To better prepare myself for future channel swims that typically begin around midnight (to take advantage of calmer seas at that time), I had the pleasure of doing my very first night swim the morning of July 26^th. I did it with my friend and training partner Jim Meier, who will be heading to Dover later in August to attempt the English Channel.  It was his first night swim too.

For the swim, we hired a local boat captain with experience in escorting swimmers. We swam in Jamaica Bay from around 1:00 am to after 5:00 am, covering about 8 miles in the process. We chose Jamaica Bay since our captain is familiar with it, thus making the swim safer. Jim’s son Jake and our swimming friend Jen were our crew in charge of feedings and general safety. The water was much warmer than we would have preferred – around 80 degrees, but not too warm. The air was perfectly clear, so we enjoyed the stars and a full moon the whole time. It was a beautiful sky.

We had a few goals in mind when planning the swim, and accomplished them all. The first goal was simply to learn what it’s actually like to swim in the dark, without seeing any recognizable objects other than the escort boat. Many swimmers don’t like it at all. Others are ok with it. Either way, we didn’t want to wait until a channel swim to find out which type of swimmers we are (turns out – we like it). The second goal was to practice feedings (water, energy gel, bananas, etc.) and reading safety and feeding signals (certain flashing boat lights, etc) in the dark. That all went well.

Finally, we just wanted to do a night swim to find out some of the many things that can go wrong when it’s dark. For example, Jim and I attached glow sticks to our caps – he wore red and I wore purple. As it turns out, green would have been more visible than either of those colors. We’ll know that for next time.

Also, marine life can make things quite interesting in general, and even more so in the dark. During our swim, we encountered literally thousands of small phosphorescent jellyfish. They’re grape-size, don’t sting, and light up when touched or otherwise physically disturbed. It felt like swimming through lychee soup with a Christmas tree submerged inside. Indeed, the jellies that came into contact with my goggles emitted flashes of white light so bright that it was hard to see anything else for a second or two afterward. In all, the jellies, boat lights and camera flashes made for an often confusing situation. Quite cool though! Indeed, the scene when swimming through a dense field of jellies looked like something out of Avatar.

During the latter part of our swim, we had not one, but two “visits” from the police helicopter hovering just above us with search light blazing.  On the second visit, which lasted about a minute, the helicopter was so low you could actually see the water flying.  The police didn’t say anything and we weren’t in any trouble, but it certainly spiced up the swim.

We stopped swimming at daybreak to watch the sun rise over a perfectly flat horizon — another beautiful thing to watch.