The Saipan-Tinian Channel is full of surprises. I entered the water at Opyan Beach on the south coast of Saipan at 9:21 AM on Saturday, 04 October estimating a crossing time of 4 to 5 hours. I knew there was a possibility of a reversed current running from west to east, but my experience was that it would eventually change back to a normal east to west current in time to make it to shore on Tinian before nightfall.
My faithful friends, Rik and Janel Villegas and two of their children, Alicia and Jason saw me off and a new friend, Nazario Borja from the Tinian Military Liaison office would be on the north shore of Tinian scanning the channel with binoculars. Rik would phone him with my departure time and the direction in which the current was carrying me. That would give him an idea of where and when he was apt to sight me. Beyond that, there is not much you can do for a solo channel crossing. An estimated time of arrival and place of arrival are meaningless due to the unpredictable nature of the current.
For the first 45 minutes or so, I was not being deflected by any current so I turned straight for Tinian. At the end of two hours, heavy rain obscured the entire island of Tinian and swell from the west was beginning to predominate over swell from the southeast. At about 3 1/2 hours it was obvious that a reversed current had developed and I turned straight south to cross the current as quickly as possible and then aim for a point farther south on Tinian. Periodically, I would turn toward Tinian and check on the apparent movement of houses, geographical points, etc on Saipan relative to each other to see if I had gotten across the current or if the current had changed. I finally got a break around 5:00 and started making progress. That would last for about an hour, then relative movement of objects slowly stopped and reversed direction. The reversed current was back.
I turned south to continue trying to get through the current, but the current was fanning out on the east end of the channel and I was not getting any indication that I was approaching the edge. Meantime, because I was not fighting my way into the current, I was being carried farther to the east. Finally, I was looking up the east side of Naftan point, the southeast corner of Saipan from a distance of several miles and had lost all the progress I had made toward Tinian and then some.
As a rather desperate measure, I aimed back toward Tinian and started swimming harder knowing that nightfall was rapidly approaching. Soon I could see the futility of this and went back to a southerly course. I have hundreds of hours of night snorkeling and night SCUBA dives as deep as 120 feet so the ocean at night was not new to me and not to be feared except this time I would be doing it without a companion and without a light. I knew that jellyfish would be the main threat. They are light sensitive and stay deep in the daytime, but come up to the surface layer at night. The ocean turns black shortly after sunset, but around your hands bio-luminescent creatures provide hundreds of points of light as your swimming stroke disturbs them. The creatures do not provide enough light to illuminate the dial of a watch so I did not know what time it was until dawn.
The jellyfish did not disappoint me. They made their presence known shortly after sunset and I would be hit by dozens during the rest of the night. I was accumulating a lot of jellyfish venom in my system, but it was not a type to which I am sensitive so I was just experiencing non-life threatening annoyance.
Periodically, I could see car lights moving along the shore then stopping with their lights pointed out into the channel. I knew that Nazario had friends helping him keep track of possible places to exit the channel on the rugged east coast of Tinian. At about 9:30 a Coast Guard helicopter arrived from Guam. It made a trip across the west end of the channel, then made a sweeping arc across the east end. At the end of this arc, they passed directly above me, but that was not good. They had spotlights shining out of the door on each side, but the area directly below the helo was a blind spot. On a later pass they aimed directly at me, but then turned before their lights illuminated me. I could see the near impossibility of locating a swimmer in the ocean at night.
I was beginning to feel some chill. I swam with my head out of the water much of the time to avoid jellyfish stings on my face and, in particular, on my lips. A jellyfish sting on the lips feels like a red hot poker. With my head out of the water I was experiencing the chilling effect of evaporative cooling of my hair so I would occasionally swim with my head in the water.
The rest of the night was spent aiming at the radio antenna lights on Tinian, checking for direction of movement indicated by the lights on Saipan and then, if there was no indication of change in the current, aiming at lights farther south on Tinian. I knew that the current would probably change back to east to west with a predawn low tide. It was still dark when I realized that the current was shifting, apparently, hours before the tide change. I was surprised to soon see the first glimmer of dawn. Although it had been a challenging night, it had passed quickly.
With the return of day, I was once again navigating looking at islands and not lights. This time the current was flowing dependably in the right direction. I did not waste time in closing on Tinian. If the normal current began to run at full strength, I ran the risk of being carried past Tinian and into the Philippine Sea. For years, I have had plans for this contingency, but now I just wanted to get to Tinian by the most direct route.
The helicopter returned just before 8:00. I had hoped to be standing on the shore by this time, but still had some distance left to go. They located me on the second pass. I gave them a thumbs up indicating that I was fine and continued toward shore. Shortly, a police boat arrived. They asked If I was Jim Bell for the record and how I was feeling. I confirmed my identity and told them I was feeling great. They said they would keep me in sight, but not interfere with the completion of my swim.
It turned out my estimate of the distance to shore was a little optimistic. I came ashore near the Blowhole, a point of interest on Tinian. I climbed the rock wall high enough out of the water to consider myself on Tinian and then swam to the boat at 11:22. I had been swimming ontinuously for 26 hours without food or water, but was not at the point of exhaustion.
I was greeted by the crew of the police boat: LT Augustine Dosalua, Heinze Cabrera, Adam J. Safer, Ray Aldan and Anthony Borja. They were very considerate in their treatment of me. My legs were like rubber and they lifted me into a chair. LT Dosalua would let me drink water only one gulp at a time with separation between gulps. Rehydrating should be done slowly.
Back at the Tinian harbor, I would have gone straight home, but Terri Clawson, a friend and physicians assistant, had requested that I stop by the Tinian Health Center. All my vital signs were normal. A test of my blood probably would have shown a higher than normal level of jellyfish venom and a psychiatric evaluation probably would have indicated a need for further testing. I was a little unsteady from rolling in southeast swell for 26 hours and a little tired.
I had a lot of time to think in the channel. Why was I back for another crossing when two crossings would have sufficed? When I was swimming the south coast of Saipan in the last stages of my swim around Saipan, I was swimming along the north side of the channel and began to feel a need to get back into deep water swimming. There is a sense of solitude when you are far from shore alone. Why else do I swim alone? I would not find out what reserves of energy I have if I had a boat to take me home. I would not have to figure my way out of every situation and would not be forced to consider all possible ways of dealing with different conditions if I had an escort.
What did I find out about myself on this crossing? When I swam the channel at the age of 43, at the end of twelve hours, I felt like I could have swum all night. At the age of 70 I got to find out that I do have those reserves of energy and more. What is my limit? I did not find that out. I feel certain I could have gone to 30 hours and probably past that. I found out that practically all of my experiences in the sea can still be accessed even 40 years later. That allowed me to approach a night in the channel without anxiety.
There is one problem with all of these considerations. It was a great experience for me, but not for many other people. There were people who had a long sleepless night and put themselves at various levels of risk on my behalf. There was family and friends who didn't share my knowledge that all was well. The experience I had cannot be duplicated without impacting other people and therefore it may be one of those experiences better reserved for dreams than life. For that reason, it may be time for the Old Man in the Sea to hang up the goggles as far as solo channel swimming is concerned.
I will keep you posted on my upcoming swim of the shoreline of Tinian.
Jim Bell, October 6, 2008
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1 comment:
All I can say is WOW!
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