Jeffrey Esmond
September 2, 2003

My First RoughWater Swim

There was this rock on the ocean floor at the edge of the reef that I couldn’t pass.  Each time I’d take a breath and look down, the rock was in the same place.

I’d been preparing for the Waikiki Rough Water Swim since January.  It is the premier swim event of the year, leaving from Sans Souci Beach, just Diamond Head of the Natatorium and going in at the Hilton Hawaiian Village.  There were just over 1000 swimmers and I was in group D of 5 groups.  

As it turns out, in spite of having beautiful weather lately, a hurricane named Jimena was churning up the waters just hundreds of miles south of Hawaii.  Although it was not headed toward the islands, it was passing due south.  As we have experienced with other hurricanes out in the ocean, it makes for great surf.

The race goes out about 700 meters, then you turn right around a big orange buoy to swim about 2.3 km along Waikiki, to end up swimming about 900 km into the Hilton.  It’s about 2.4 miles.

It started at 9 but I didn’t feel I had my full strength.  My group left at 9:15.  As they said “Go!”, I waded out calmly and slowly began my swim, just behind most of the group so I wouldn’t get stuck in the tangle.  That first part of the swim went well.  I swam with good strength at my moderate/slow pace toward the turn buoy.  Maybe in about 15 minutes I was out to the buoy, but somehow it ended up far to the right.  So along with all the swimmers around me, including the last group that had caught up to me, we turned towards the buoy and began swimming.  It took about half an hour to go maybe 100 meters but I finally caught up to the buoy, although by now it was far to my right as I had headed out into the ocean. 

I kept swimming, though there were less swimmers around me.  Nonetheless I could see a lot of swimmers up in front of me.  The waves were not too large and unmanageable, although there was some roughness in the water.  But I could breathe okay.  So I kept swimming.  I began to count strokes since that helps me swim farther.  I was going for 1000 strokes but had to pause at 58.  The next time I got to 100.  I looked behind me and the buoy was not too far back there.  I began to swim again.  I saw I had reached the reef and figured now I could monitor my progress.  I picked the first stone to watch as I passed it.  But I never passed it, as it was there with every stroke.

I decided I needed to develop a strategy.  It was either to swim in, or out, but not to stay on the present course.  I decided not to do either one as I noticed I had drifted to the same level as the buoy.  So I decided to swim to the buoy where already there were a lot of people grabbing on and just staying there.  I began to go for it, but didn’t seem to get anywhere.  In fact, I felt like I was farther away from it.  Still, just like the other swimmers, I have an ego, and wanted to do this race without being rescued.  So I began to do my strong hard stroke, but I was not making much progress so I paused again to think about it.  But as I thought about it, the buoy was getting smaller and smaller.  I recalled my past rescue from Sacred Falls which taught me not to take too much of a chance in a dangerous situation.  I was drifting in the opposite direction of the race, in the direction of Diamond Head.   

I tread water for a while and looked around and tried to decide if I should get help when I figured other people would need it more than me.  But my heart started to beat fast.  My mind was fine and still confident but I didn’t like that feeling in my chest.  I looked around for help but there was nothing close by.  So I just stuck my hand up and began waving.  I didn’t want to scream.  I waved and then tread.  Then I waved some more and more, not too frantically, but as I rode each wave up.  I saw a kayak headed in my general direction so I waved to him and he signaled that he was headed towards me.  He made it over to me and asked if I was okay. I said my heart was beating fast.  He asked if I could hold on to the kayak and I said yeah.  Another lady popped up out of nowhere and he tried to paddle to her but couldn’t, so she swam to us and grabbed the front of the kayak.

We sat there, floating back, trying to see the buoy until finally a boat came along.  There were already about 15 people on and it was pretty full.  Most of them were older, say 50 on, and mostly from Group C.  I didn’t know anyone on the boat.  They pulled me up and my heart was still beating fast.  I leaned back on the back of the boat and tried to calm down.  One young girl up front was crouched down crying, another lady was sitting up front not exactly crying but with tears and wearing an orange life vest just staring forward.  Everyone else was in doing fine.

I looked out into the ocean and could only think of the Titanic.  There were so many people out there, a lot were just treading water, a lot were hanging onto whatever they could, the buoys, each other, surfboards, kayaks, little boats that were packed.  The surf made me think of The Perfect Storm.  Combining those two scenes is not pleasant.

We were pretty far out and the boat drove around out there looking for other stragglers.  There was one older lady way out there who said she was fine and didn’t want help.  She had no clue how far out she was.  People yelled at her to get on so she got on.  We went farther out and there was a lady around my age who also said she was fine and she wanted to finish.  Someone pointed out that that orange buoy off in the distance was only the first buoy.  She was really surprised and came on the boat.  I’m not sure how they could not know where they were.  They were so much farther out in the ocean than me, even though they were farther ahead.

We picked up an overweight man who had no number but said he was swimming for fun with the race and had seen a boy with a blue cap.  We couldn’t find the boy. 

The boat was real slow and other little boats passed us as we tried to make our way towards the end.  We were overcrowded and started taking on water.  Some of scooped water into swim caps to get it out and others threw up over the side.  We didn’t really get much water out.  I didn’t get seasick.

A Coast Guard checked up on us but when the driver yelled that we had to get people off they yelled that they can’t take anyone.  About 7 or 8 people jumped off and swam for the other boat.  I didn’t have any energy to swim again.  After about an hour, the boat I was on finally made it to shore and dropped us off at the Ala Wai Canal.  We walked back to the Hilton and found out that at about two hours only 146 people had finished.  As I walked back I heard sirens.  Then the helicopters showed up with nets and began scooping people up.  The announcer asked all surfers to go out and rescue people.  Waiting for everyone I knew to come in or be accounted for was extremely difficult.

In all, about 346 people finished.  Everyone else that was still out there was forced to be rescued.  Some people managed to swim back to the starting line.  Other people noticed as they swam back that close to shore, right over the very shallow reef, they could do the swim.  Too bad I didn’t get to do that.  As of today, everyone has been accounted for.  Although one man on my boat commented that he saw a lady two feet under floating.  He pulled her up and resuscitated her.  On the news, that was the only story of a difficulty.  I guess since it is such a demanding swim that the strength and ability of the swimmers kept people in.

I didn’t get to finish my first Rough Water but I’ll never forget it.  I can’t wait for next year.