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Beyond the Black LinesIT WAS JUST ABOUT when I lost all

feeling in both feet that I was so over-come with the beauty and singularity

of the moment that I stopped movingforward, took my goggles off and slowlytwirled around in wonderment. I wastreading water in the middle of westernPenobscot Bay as that fiery orange starof ours climbed past the horizon. Woo-hoo! I mean, who gets to do that—reachthe middle of one of the contiguous 48states’ coldest bays by swimming just asthe sun rises?

An open water swimmer does, that’swho.

Since I was in the middle of a race andquickly slipping to third place as a protégépassed me, I allowed myself just the oneholler and a quick “I love you” to my wife,

who was paddling my safety boat, beforegetting back into the swim of things. Iwas, however, thrilled through my thickwetsuit to the core of my amphibiousexistence—doubly so since nary a sharkhad mistaken me for an injured, flailingseal. Previously, the most I’d ever tackledin the 60-degree waters was a mile and I’dpeered suspiciously into the murkydepths the entire time.

Long before I scrambled up Islesboro’sbarnacle-encrusted rocky shore to finishthe first annual Lincolnville-to-Islesborofundraiser swim for LifeFlight of Maine,I felt victorious.

WHEN I WAS A CHILD, I wanted tochange the world. Not in a scary mega-lomaniacal way, but in a useful, day-to-

day manner. Instead of getting to PointB from Point A by walking, riding, ordriving, I dreamed of a day we’d swimplaces via “sideswims” (as in sidewalks)—narrow rivulets of blue connecting all myfavorite spots and making them accessi-ble by my favorite form of transportation.Although I’ve grown up, somewhat, andmostly given up on the sideswim revolu-tion, I have found a way occasionally tolive out my old fantasy: open water swim-ming.

Maine is an open water swimmer’smecca with its abundance of clear, clean,crisp bodies of water. Each summer moreand more people are taking to them. Nottoo far back, the only open water swim inMaine was Peaks-to-Portland. Now thereare events throughout the state, from the

Sebago Lake Challenge to MDI’s EchoLake race to the Islesboro Crossing forLifeFlight in Penobscot Bay. This pastsummer, in the third year of the Life-flight event, 80 people made the swim.Earlier in the summer 344 people swamthe 2.4 miles between Peaks and Port-land.

Matt Montgomery, a Maine swim-ming coach and the Age-Group Chairfor USA Swimming in Maine, said thisstate has become known nationally for

its swimming venues. “Maine is the nextfrontier for open water swimming in theU.S.,” he said.

To me, there’s no surprise in any ofthis, although I am a tad biased. I’vebeen swimming since I fell in the pool at11 months, was rescued, and minuteslater crawled back in. I’ve been racingsince I was 5. At age 45, I thought I wasstill good enough to qualify for theOlympic trials in swimming (no not thegeriatric Olympics, the real ones). I love

swimming—the way water ripples downmy body, water’s touch, and its feel.

“I am sure no adventurer nor dis-coverer ever lived who could not swim,”claimed Annette Kellerman, a Britishmusic-hall star and open water swim-ming performer of the early 1900s.“Swimming cultivates imagination; theman with the most is he who can swimhis solitary course night or day and for-get a black earth full of people thatpush,” said Kellerman.

Unlike pool swimming, open waterswimming has only distant boundaries,no walls and, most important of all, NOBLACK LINE, the eventual bane of everyswimmer’s existence. Swimming withoutthat ever-present guideline on the bot-tom of the pool is as appealing as a

I’ve been swimming since I fell in the pool at 11 months,was rescued, and minutes later crawled back in. I’ve beenracing since I was 5. At age 45, I thought I was still good

enough to qualify for the swimming Olympic trials.

Swimmers find freedom and beauty on the open water BY W. HODDING CARTER | PHOTOGRAPHS BY HEATHER PERRY

A swimmer heads out atthe start of the 2015

Islesboro crossing fromLincolnville to Islesboro,

which benefits LifeFlight ofMaine. The three-year-old

event has become so pop-ular that the limited num-bers of entry spots fill up

well in advance.

EXPLORE the MAINE BOATS, HOMES & HARBORS DIGITAL edition @ www.maineboats.com 35

lap after lap at your local pool? Evenwhen the obstacles aren’t quite so color-ful, they provide enough distraction tomake the time, er, swim by. On a sunnyday, each stroke creates mesmerizingwhirlpools and eddies that sparkle in therefracted light, fading silently into thesurrounding depths as I glide on.

Much like running, open waterswimming offers a near-total escapefrom the modern world. In the water,there are no Instagram updates, texts torespond to, or calls to dodge. It’s just me

and nature. For that time I’m immersedin the water, life not only seems moremanageable—it is. To get along, all Ihave to do is stay afloat and keep mov-ing forward.

Others take to the open seas (andlakes) for equally compelling reasons.

“The thing I love about open waterswimming is the unpredictable nature ofit: wind, chop, swell, temperature, clari-ty, and wildlife can all change in thecourse of a swim. In a time when evenour cars are driving themselves, this

unpredictability is comforting to me,”said Hopper McDonough, 44, a swim-ming buddy from Bath, Maine, andowner/operator of SwimVacation.

Back in 2006, he and I decided to gocruising in the British Virgin Islands.Lacking the necessary funds to charter ayacht, we decided to use our bodies asboats, towing our clothes and sundriesbehind us on a flagged surfboard. Wecovered 26 miles in four days, and ourundertaking was so unusual that localresort hotels put us up for free on each

spontaneous dance in a warm rainshower. Anyone who has done a signifi-cant amount of lap swimming or com-petitive racing learns to dread it; no mat-ter how fast or what stroke or what pool,that line is always there.

Perhaps you have to have paid yourdues in a lap pool to appreciate howimportant a distinction this is, but theever-present nature of the black line canmake me a bit batty. I find myself singingthings like, “Just put one hand in front ofthe other and soon you’ll be swimming

‘cross the bay… Just put one hand infront of the other and soon you’ll beswimming ‘cross the bay… Just put…”For an hour straight.

The insanity immediately rolls awaywhen swimming out in the open. Eachpassing swell produces new challenges

and sights and quite often obstacles toovercome. Once, when I was swimmingin a race around Manhattan—I was oneof six swimmers who did 4.5 mileseach—I swam into both a couch and aused condom. When was the last timeyou ran into either of those while doing

34 MAINE BOATS, HOMES & HARBORS | November/December 2015 | Issue 137

The insanity immediately rolls away when swimming out in the open. Each passing swell produces new challenges

and sights and quite often obstacles to overcome.

Author Hodding Carter, right, talks to Bates College swim coach Peter Casares before the start of this year’s Islesboro crossing.Most open water swimmers choose to wear wetsuits for the swim, which takes anywhere from an hour to two and a half hours.

The 3.1 mile Islesboro crossing is one of the longest open water swims in New England. Each swimmer must be accompanied by a friend ina kayak or other small boat. This year’s event raised more than $115,000 for LifeFlight of Maine, which provides critical care transport via helicopter.

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207. 244.7854 / info@jwboatco.com / www.jwboatco.com

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At the finish of the Islesboro crossing, swimmersclambered up through the seaweed onto the shore.Although exhausted, just about every competitorwas still smiling at the finish.

island we reached. One time, we wereeven presented with a bottle of rum. Itwas such a life-altering adventure thatHopper decided to turn it into a busi-ness. He leads fellow swimmers, as wellas newbies, on swims of various lengthsaround the islands every spring, incul-cating them in one of the major loves ofhis life. During the day, they swim any-where from hundreds of yards up to acouple of miles, then at night they wineand dine aboard an accompanying tri-maran. It’s been so successful he’s evenadded weeklong Hawaii trips.

Swimming, and open water swim-ming in particular, has been around formillenia. In Rome, a person was consid-ered ignorant if he didn’t know how toread or swim. According to the Britishswimming-memoirist Charles Spraw-son, Romans were embarrassed byEmperor Caligula’s inability to swim. Itspopularity waxed and waned with thecultural tide. Many feel modern openwater swimming saw its rebirth with the

British poet Lord Byron’s romantic four-mile crossing of the Hellespont (thewaterway that connects the Sea of Mar-mara and the Aegean Sea) in 1810. Eversince, romantics and realists alike havetrained to do the same, as well as toattempt an ever-growing number ofother swims. Open water beckons toswimmers much like Mount Everestdoes to climbers.

In recent years, open water swim-ming has experienced unprecedentedgrowth in popularity. Think back 20 to30 years: you might remember seeingone crazy swimmer plodding along in alocal lake. Flash forward to now and inthose same waters, dozens of swimmershave taken his place. USA Swimming,the governing body of amateur compet-itive swimming in the United States,does not keep track of open water swim-ming. However, in England, whereswimming trends are similar to our own,membership in the Outdoor SwimmingSociety grew from 300 in 2006 to 23,000

(Above) Open water swimming in Maine goes way back.Mitchell Williams won the Portand to Peaks Island swim in 1927.

A Portland native and graduate of the Tuskeegee Institute,he is shown here with his wife Florence.

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in 2015. Testament to this trend, the Bei-jing Olympics included open waterevents for the first time in the moderngames, as has each successive Olympics.The sport even has its own publication:Open Water Swimming magazine is cel-ebrating its second anniversary this year.

My thought is that, unlike duringmuch of the 20th century, our ponds,lakes, rivers, and harbors are once againsafe enough to use. Hopper agreed. “Themajor reason the sport is growing inpopularity stems from the Clean WaterAct,” he said. “For years, the bodies of

water closest to our major populationcenters were so polluted that somewould regularly catch on fire.”

Today we can once again swim inplaces like the Hudson River in NewYork and Boston’s Charles River, theGreat Lakes and San Francisco Bay, andMaine’s Penobscot Bay. While it wasnever as polluted as its southern cousins,can you imagine going for a nice littleswim outside Belfast back when theyused to dump tons of rotting chickenparts straight into the harbor? Today, thechicken plants have closed and the bay ismuch cleaner.

Maine is puddled with clean ponds,lakes, rivers, harbors, and bays simplybegging to be swum in. Best of all,when going by water, you can get therefrom here. ✮

W. Hodding Carter has written for several

national magazines, including Esquire, Smith-

sonian, Newsweek, and Outside. The author

of the books Westward Whoa, A Viking Voy-

age, and An Illustrated Viking Voyage, he lives

with his family in Rockport, Maine.

38 MAINE BOATS, HOMES & HARBORS | November/December 2015 | Issue 137

Photographer Heather Perry says she ishappiest in, on, or under water. Her workhas appeared in National Geographic,Smithsonian, The New York Times, andmany other national and internationalpublications. She is currently in themiddle of a 10 year personal projectcalled Kids in the Hood, which is a dailydocumentation of the youth in herneighborhood in Bath, Maine.

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