My Inner Critic in Open Water
Is Swimming a Catalina Channel Relay Enough?
3 a.m. August 29, 2024 — Somewhere in the Catalina Channel
The sky is covered in clouds and the deep water of the Catalina Channel, the 21-mile stretch of Pacific ocean between Catalina Island and the California coast, looks black at 3 a.m.. I am swimmer #5 of an all-women relay team, the She Creatures, and it is my turn to jump in and swim for an hour.
Crossing this stretch of water has been a secret bucket list dream for me since I started seriously swimming in open water a decade ago, at age 49. Secret because back then, I hardly dared to imagine what my body and mind were capable of, so shaky was my confidence in myself as an athlete and as a person who can admit a goal, prepare, and attempt it. Most of my life I’ve been too fearful of failure and disappointment to declare what I really want, even to myself.
Now, here I am, standing in my suit, cap and goggles staring at the inky ocean.
“This is where you’re lined up to make your rotation with the swimmer and the kayaker and we all have eyes on you,” says Elwood, mate of the Pacific Star, the dive boat that we’ve chartered, showing me the doorway-sized opening midships on the starboard side through which I am supposed to leap into the dark. I’d said I might want to go down the stairs at the back of the boat instead.
“Uh-huh.”
I can see the little cake of red lights that outlines Rachel Wetterlin’s kayak, and, in between her and our ship, the glowing green lights on the swim cap and booty of Christine, swimmer #4, who I am to relieve. I can hear the steady plop-plop-plop of her stroke in the quiet night.
All six of us middle-aged women are dependent on each other for our relay team to complete this dream swim. Heidi, swimmer #1, started us off at Catalina Island around 11 p.m. swimming through flying fish to the little beach at Doc’s Cove, walking out of the water, and raising her arms in the ship’s spotlight for the start of our swim, which is being observed by the Catalina Channel Swimming Federation.
We have rules to follow: We swim for one hour each, in the same rotation, in just a bathing suit, cap, and goggles, until one of us makes the mainland. If one swimmer fails to complete her hour, or touches the ship or kayak, or fails to do a proper handoff with the next swimmer, our swim is disqualified.
We don’t know how many hours it will take us. The weather forecast is good, but we don’t know what conditions might arise. We also don’t know what we might encounter in the water. The channel is famous for its abundance of wildlife: fish of all sizes, jellyfish, dolphins, whales, and, yes, sharks. Wind and currents can rise up quickly and slow progress.
While hypothermia is less of an issue for a relay swimmer than a solo swimmer (who might spend more than 10 consecutive hours in the water), each of us has acclimated to swim for an hour in water below 70 degrees.
Not only do you have to physically and mentally train for such a swim, you have to plan financially. Channel swims aren’t cheap. Relay members have to join the swim federation, get their team approved, and then pay for the swim, including the application, boat charter, swim observers (2), and kayakers (2). This relay cost each of us swimmers about $1,100, not including travel and hotel. Similar organizations ratify swims in the English Channel and 20 Bridges/Around Manhattan, which together with the Catalina Channel make up the storied Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming.
It was triple crowner Diana Corbin, a mutual friend of us all, who had reserved the date for this relay and connected us on Zoom six months ago. Just 48 hours ago, we gathered IRL at the Hilton San Pedro Harbor and set our swim rotation in order of experience and speed:
Heidi Skrzypek, an accomplished Seattle swimmer who has completed Catalina and English Channel relays multiple times;
Deborah Gardner, like me, a virgin channel relay swimmer but unlike me burns a hole in the pool where she swims in Phoenix;
Cheryl Curran, also a speedy Seattle swimmer and a channel relay veteran;
Christine Stepherson, an experienced Seattle open water swimmer and channel virgin who swims medium to fast;
Pia Hinckle (me), a medium-speed swimmer who has overcome panic attacks in the water; and
Elaine Van Vleck, my friend, training partner, and fellow Dolphin Club member from San Francisco, a steady-paced marathon swimmer.
Jumping into the Dark
“You’re sure the water’s there, right?” I ask Elwood as I look down. At 3 a.m. it is so dark and the water is so calm that I cannot make out the surface. It is an abyss.
“I sure hope so,” Elwood laughs.
“O.K.,” I say, then exhale long and slow. This is what I came for. I’ll be turning 60 in a few months and may never have the opportunity, or the conditioning, to do something like this again. This is why I’ve done months of training in San Francisco Bay’s 59-degree water. I want to be able to look at a map of my California coast and know that I swam to it from Catalina Island. I want to see what I can do when I put my body, mind, and spirit to a challenge.
“Accept the gift,” Marc, our Catalina observer, encourages me as I walk to the opening wearing my Hardcoresport bathing suit with the bright orange Garibaldi fish, my orange Dolphin Club swim cap, earplugs, clear Snake & Pig goggles, and a Sharkbanz on my left ankle. He then notes the time and location in the official swim log as I jump.
My feet leave the deck and in a few seconds, hit the surface of the Pacific Ocean. My head goes under and I am startled by the total darkness. “Woo-hoo!” I yell to relieve the tension when I pop up and stroke towards Christine. The water must be 70 degrees! Truly a gift!
“You’re gonna love it!” Christine says as we high-five, our official handoff from one swimmer to the next. Christine heads to the back of the boat to climb out and I swim towards Summer Wesson, the fresh kayaker who has relieved Rachel after her first four-hour shift. Both are experienced open water kayakers and marathon swimmers, I know I’m in good hands.
“Can you signal me at 30 minutes and at the last 10 of my hour?” I ask Summer. The swim rules don’t allow wearing a watch, and I’ve grown used to my Garmin buzzing every 15 minutes to help me pass the time on longer swims.
“I’ll raise the paddle over my head and shake it like this,” she says, the red lights near her blades glowing in the dark night and matching the garland of red lights around her head. From the water, she looks like a Tron Maypole queen riding a float.
I put my head down and swim.
And Then I See Them
The thick absence of light takes my breath away and I have to close my eyes. But I have to look. And then I see them.
The black water is aglow with bioluminescent plankton and pelagic gelatinous creatures. I am swimming through a parade of shimmering silver orbs, flickering pale blue bubbles, and glitter trails.
OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD.
I am stroking fast and breathing fast and only want to look at Summer and the world on top of the water. The water world is overwhelming! I don’t belong in this extraterrestrial broth!
OK, OK, calm down. You’re OK. Smile. Count strokes. Breathe. Repeat. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming. It’s going to be OK. See, your breathing is starting to even out. Take another peek at this bathymetric light show.
My outstretched fingers hit small soft orbs, kelp, and whatever else is floating near the surface like me. I “eke!” on the first few touches but control the instinct to stop to decide if what I touched is a danger. I feel no stings and the blobs keep coming so I accept that touching things and things touching me is just part of this swim.
Sometimes it’s a bioluminescent blizzard and my stroke seems to rake through the sparkles of a spilled costume jewelry box; other moments the blackness spreads out broken only by transparent sea pickles, aka pyrosomes, galloping beneath me like ghost dildos in the water.
I find a rhythm.
I inhale through my mouth on my right:
In my blurry goggles Summer looks like a festival lantern or a Christmas toy boat;
I note how close I am to her paddles. I desire to stay close to her like a duckling to a mama duck but need to stay far enough off so her paddles are clear;
I can see the outline of my elbow in the blue light from the blinkie on my cap as my hand throws itself forward into the water.
Face down, I exhale through my nose, bubbles traipsing along my neck in the dark, warm water. My mouth is closed and my eyes are open. I smile.
LOOK at all this!
I may never see anything like this again ever in my life!
I watch my hand pull the water past me, sometimes raising up a cloud of bioluminescent glitter in its wake.
Things I think about while swimming in the dark:
I am blessed with stars in the water;
black sky and black ocean;
I know nothing. The ocean is a miracle.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…
virgin, mother, crone
I am all these
My swim playlist runs in the back of my mind:
Modern Love, David Bowie
Heroes, David Bowie
Shake it, David Bowie
Don’t Stop Me Now, Queen
Message of Love, The Pretenders
Thumbelina, The Pretenders
A Brighter Day, Micheal Franti
Gratitude Strokes
I swim Gratitude strokes, naming everyone and everything for which I am grateful:
My husband Chris, my kids Luc, Fiona, and Simone; my basset hound Toby who just died at age 16 ¾ the week before this swim. I have his name written on my right bicep. My parents; my sister; my brother; my aunts and uncles; all my cousins and their kids; all my ancestors in California, Italy, France, and Ireland;
I stroke the names of my team; our crew; our observer; our kayakers; our ship;
My body, especially the parts that have been giving me middle-aged grief the last couple of years, starting with my sassy right hip, grumpy glutes, cranky calf muscles, and anxious ankles. I swim a stroke for each finger and toe;
I am so grateful to be able to swim
My courage that has brought me here to swim the channel despite my fear. Each of my swims this decade has been a lesson that
I can do what I dream
My dedication to retrain my nervous system so it can relax because
I’ve got this
All is well
Summer waves her shining paddle and I realize I am already halfway through my hour. Now, each moment feels precious. It will be over soon. I focus on the starry sky in the water.
Ouch!
My left middle toe curls violently. I flex my left foot up and down while I swim and eventually it relaxes. Then my left calf starts to cramp. WTF? I’ve been strengthening these muscles and swimming loads longer than this with no cramps, what gives? My left calf cramps and un-cramps as I swim. Just after Summer gives me the 10-minutes-to-go signal, I get a savage charley horse in my upper left calf that stops me mid-stroke. Yowza! I have to manually stretch my toes towards me until the death grip softens. I swim again, letting my legs go soft and be dragged behind me.
Hmmm, could the cramps be from the Sharkbanz, the heavy anti-shark magnet strapped to my left ankle? Since everyone on the relay team but Elaine and I was planning to swim with one, I anxiety-purchased it last week. But I never did a training swim with it, so maybe the finely-tuned machine that is my body was thrown off by that extra 3 ounces on my left leg.
I see Elaine jump off the boat and swim towards me. “It’s an underwater light show!” I tell her as we high-five. I head to the back of the boat and climb out on the wide dive platform.
It’s 4 a.m. and my first swim leg is over. I will swim again in five hours.
Bunk & Breakfast
I’m not cold from my swim but I’m thankful for the ship’s hot water shower to rinse off the brine and warm me. I dress cozily and, after a snack, nap in my bunk for about two hours. I wake with a scratchy throat and a headache, probably from the lack of sleep, anti-seasickness meds, and the ship’s diesel exhaust. I take some Advil and follow the smell of bacon up to the galley. Mate Max cooks me up one of the Pacific Star’s famous breakfast burritos. Eating the warm egg, cheese, sausage and salsa wrap is like a hug from the inside out. I sip on strong black coffee with milk and sugar and feel renewed.
On deck, Catalina island has faded into the hazy background of a cloudy horizon lit by a weak sun. Land is still not in sight but conditions remain luscious. I watch Christine gracefully jump in and swim up to Cheryl for a high five. They are friends from Seattle, along with Heidi, where they all live. Cheryl climbs out from the back of the boat, all smiles. We talk about how lucky we are with these great conditions.
In the daylight, I’m not afraid to jump into the gentle swell of this big ocean. I know I’ve got this. In fact, there’s already that little voice in the back of my mind asking: is this IT? Swimming an hour here and there isn’t that big of a deal, my inner critic says, anyone could do that.
Please stop, I want to stay in the wonder of the work I’ve done to come to this moment on the ship with these women.
I shake off the familiar voice chipping away at my accomplishment before it’s even happened and prepare for my 9 a.m. jump time.
I chug my Skratch Labs pineapple hydration drink for some fuel and electrolytes and put Sun Bum 70 on my face, neck, arms, and shoulders. I take care to cover the back of my thighs and legs, especially the big scar at the base of my right calf from my melanoma surgery last fall. The skin cancer, which was stage zero, was a shock. The surgery and subsequent skin infection kept me out of the water for months and I fell into depression and thought I might never have it in me to swim long and hard again.
And yet, here I am.
The deck is almost hot to my bare feet when I take off my Crocs and step up to the opening. I’ve decided to forego the Sharkbanz on this swim. I’m less scared of sharks then I am of another round of debilitating leg cramps.
Dolphins!
We are making good progress and will likely make landfall during Heidi or Debroah’s third swim. This 9 a.m. swim will be my last. I vow to take in all it gives me.
I jump into the blue blue blue water. It is still warm. All the night creatures seem to have gone to bed, or been washed into a different area by the tide and current. There is not much to see in the azure besides an occasional sea pickle.
I focus on my stroke. Looking down past my armpit, I reach tall with my right hand like I am getting something off a shelf and let myself hang in this glide for an extra second and then switch, rotating my left hip and reaching long with my left hand as I push the water past my waist with my right.
The Pretenders’ Thumbelina sets my swim rhythm in my head and I envision 73-year-old badass punk rock grandma Chrissie Hynde playing hard like when I saw her live just a few weeks ago.
It is just me digging in the Big Blue.
I consider the blues, the blue meanies, blue moons, blue dogs, blueberries, bluebirds, bluebeard, blue bloods, blue crabs, blue eyes, blue jeans. Which blue is the right one? This is beyond HEX codes.
Indigo
Cerulean
Cobalt
Navy
Lapis
Royal
Sapphire
Uno, due, tre, quattro, cinque … I count strokes in Italian up to 100 and then start over again. I relax in my salty blue broth.
My hour flies by and no leg cramps. Rachel gives me my 10-minutes-to-go signal. I notice she keeps looking between the ship and the horizon. I breathe to my left a few times to get a look at the boat, where I see everyone has gathered on the bow.
“DOLPHINS! A big pod right up ahead,” Rachel yells to me.
I start to hear squeaks and chirps under water. Marine mammal chatter. I lift my head and sight a few dorsal fins about one o’clock from my position, at least a hundred yards or so away. Well, at least I got to see some fins. Everyone else has a much better view of them than me. I just keep swimming, wanting to finish strong.
Looking down, watching the light zig zag into the blue and stretch away, I suddenly see a dolphin fly by, followed by another, and another, and then layers of dolphins, dozens of them, swimming under me and Rachel’s kayak.
“I can see them!” I exhale-say to Rachel. I smile into the water.
Hi guys! Thanks for the visit!
These dolphins are white-blue-gray-silver with a lighter side stripe below the midline. I reach back into my college marine mammal biology brain to see if I can ID them. Probably Tursiops, the common Bottlenose Dolphin. I swear they are smiling, telling jokes, and yukking it up.
They keep coming,
stacked two,
three,
five deep and across,
a vertical Flipper freeway that roars and chirps under me for maybe 30 seconds and then is gone, leaving the water bluer and quiet in their wake.
Studying whales aboard a tall ship in college was a highlight of my life. I’ve worked for decades to inch my way back to the water since my joy of the ocean was replaced with panic attacks after becoming a mom and starting perimenopause.
These dolphins are welcoming me back!
They are saying, have faith, Pia. Have fun! Play! Trust in yourself, in your community. And fuck Sharkbanz! We’ve got you.
There is magic in the world.
Smugglers’ Cove
A couple hours later, we are close enough to the mainland that I can see buildings on the cliffs of Rancho Palos Verdes. Our relay is almost over. But better to not count open water swimming chickens until they’ve hatched. Anything can happen.
Our team experienced a roller coaster of the unexpected, from Diana getting Covid and being unable to join us; to a ship engine issue just as we were leaving our hotel that pushed our swim out another 24 hours; to a Gaza protest that closed the marina road the day of the swim and delayed everyone’s arrival to the ship; then an AWOL second swim observer that might have scuttled our swim but for Elaine’s suggestion to set up a swimmer-sourced observer rotation to support Marc. These were moments I thought the universe was telling me this swim was not to be and probably for some good, disastrous reason.
Instead, it has been about as perfect a swim as can be with warm water, perfect conditions, great crew, and a fun team of well-prepared women.
Letting go of control and rolling with what comes is a big lesson of open water swimming that I continue to learn, in and out of the water.
Captain Ethan and observer Marc tell us that the entire team can get in the water to finish the swim. Deborah is cruising towards Smugglers’ Cove, an isolated pocket beach. They remind us of the rules: stay behind Deborah and let her clear the water first to officially end the swim.
In the water we jump, one after another. This is the first time all six of us have swum together at the same time. Like me, all these women faced their own doubts, anxieties, and obstacles to be here. We laugh-stroke through the swells and kelp towards the beach, which is a couple hundred yards away.
I watch as Deborah struggles in the surf, then climbs out and jogs up the beach a few yards to the cliff where she raises her arms. The boat horn sounds and our swim is officially complete after 14 hours and 6 minutes of swimming. The She Creatures are the 208th relay team to successfully swim the Catalina Channel. We did it. I did it.
We hug and ham it up on the beach for the ship’s drone that is filming us. I pick up a souvenir rock and stick it in my suit before we swim back to the boat.
Outside, I’m smiling and happy but inside I am too tired to feel anything. The roller coaster, the swimming, and the lack of sleep have taken a toll. The end of our swim is over so quickly. In less than an hour we are back at the marina, gear packed up and back the hotel by 2:30 p.m.. Deborah drove back to Arizona from the marina and the Seattle crew is rushing to make their flights home.
There is no time to celebrate as a team. Only Elaine and I stay overnight in the hotel, order in way too much Thai food, and then crash. I sleep 13 hours straight.
The Abyss After the Swim
If I’m being honest, I thought that if I finished a channel relay, I would feel triumphant, whole, validated.
Maybe it would make me want to attempt a solo channel swim.
Maybe it would energize me into finishing my memoir.
Maybe I would never doubt my swimming abilities again. Or my writing, or myself.
Instead, I feel detached. Disembodied from Girl who Swims with Dolphins and Ghost Dildos. I float in a sea of melancholy, being tossed from accomplishment to apathy and back again.
There's that voice whispering that I’m still not really a swimmer. Will anything ever satisfy you inner critic? Ten years ago, I could barely swim for 15 minutes in the bay. I worked up to a 1-mile swim. Then 1.5 miles. Then I swam the Golden Gate. Then Alcatraz. Then an 8-mile swim. Now a Catalina Relay. Why is that “not enough”? Swimming has shown me the gifts of the journey, not just the outcome, but I still have trouble acknowledging my achievements to myself.
Intellectually, I know endurance athletes are prone to Post Race Depression, where the months of total focus, intense physical training, and emotional investment leading to an event give way to feelings of loss, emptiness, and depression. This was true for me.
Plus it turned out that the scratchy throat I had on the boat was COVID. Once home, I collapsed for a week with a low grade fever, body aches and brain fog that dropped me deeper into dejection and belittlement. But this imposter syndrome feeling goes back further than the Catalina Channel, back way before I became an athlete.
I tell many aspiring yet anxious open water swimmers that it’s never too late, to just start where you are and you will surprise yourself with what you can do. And that’s true, just like the dolphins reminded me in the channel.
But it’s also true that if you have a brain like mine, with a strong negativity bias strengthened by decades of practice, and if, like me, you grew up with parents too busy with their own egos to recognize your accomplishments, if you felt like nothing but utter brilliance was worth attention and that self-aggrandizement was uncool, it is an uphill battle to stay in the light and to value yourself.
Why Trinkets Matter
Swim trinkets matter to me. Patches, medals, certificates, ribbons, t-shirts, coffee mugs, martini glasses, socks, anything commemorating the event, even my name on a race list, grounds me. These physical souvenirs help me remember that I DID THAT. There’s a historical record. I exist.
“Pia, in recognition of your successful Catalina Channel relay, I present to you, on behalf of the Catalina Channel Swimming Federation, this medal and commemorative swim cap,” Elaine said solemnly, placing the medal with the blue ribbon over my head in the locker room at the Dolphin Club, 68 days after our swim. Normally I would have gotten it in the mail but Elaine had attended the federation annual brunch a few days earlier and brought them home for us.
I was surprised how moved I was by this gesture. I hadn’t realized how much the swim really did mean to me and my inner athlete, critic be damned. I felt like the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz when he receives the medal of courage—encouraged by this external recognition to realize the inner bravery I summoned to face my fears and swim anyway. To write anyway.
This simple act from Elaine made me feel like what I did, and had minimized in the weeks since — swimming for an hour at 3 a.m. and 9 a.m. in the middle of the Catalina Channel, being part of the She Creatures team that swam it — really is a major accomplishment. It’s a hard thing to do that I chose. It means something. And here is the physical proof to remind me, for when my inner critic gets the best of me.
Wonderful read, Pia. I’m not an open water swimmer like you, or even much of a swimmer, but I was with you the whole way and loved it. Congratulations on your accomplishment and thank you for sharing your adventure with such honesty and openness. I also loved the reference to HEX codes and the many songs. You are a poet, too.
Incredible Pia! Beautiful, honest writing and astonishing accomplishment. Thank you for sharing your journey and your voice. Brava!!!!!