It
began last year with a scene in Motorcycle Diaries where the lead
character did something that led me to wonder if I could do the same.
I mentioned my thoughts to a few friends. Only one, Dave, said let's
do it. (What "it" is, I'll get to below)
We
scheduled it for June 15. A trip to Rome delayed that. Rescheduling
was a challenge. Thursday it seemed like there was too much left
unplanned to do it this weekend. I said if we postpone we'll just be
in the same state one month later. So we said Damn the torpedoes,
let's do it Saturday.
The Day Of
Saturday
I woke up at 8am and walked over to Dave's place. He met me
downstairs. We walked down to the Hudson and up to the 39th Street
ferry terminal.
We took the ferry across the Hudson to Port
Imperial, New Jersey, walked north to a pier that felt about right.
It was roughly across from 60th Street.
As planned, we then
threw our shirts and shoes in a trash can so we were in just our
shorts, climbed over a fence, into the water AND SWAM ACROSS THE
HUDSON RIVER TO MANHATTAN!
Ho Lee Shit!
We swam
across the fucking Hudson River.
We had no backup or plan.
Getting in the water was eerie. I'd never done anything like this.
Were there rules about this? Was I going to bash myself against these
rocks? Would the current carry me out to sea?
People walking
along the pier stopped as we climbed in to ask what we were doing.
"Swimming across the Hudson, of course." "Have you
done this before?" "No, we're just doing it."
We
had no idea what would happen. We had no idea if it was legal. I had
heard that a drowning person in panic would push an untrained person
down to save himself, so we agreed each of us was on his own with the
river.
Maps on the web make it look like about a mile across.
We couldn't estimate the current. The air and water temperatures were
perfect. The web said the city declared the water safe for human
recreation and, in fact, sponsors swims in the Hudson (though never
across).
It took about an hour of swimming. Dave neglected to
tell me until afterward that he had experience in open water
swimming, when I realized in retrospect his swimming form looked
remarkably good. The current took us a mile downstream.
Not
many boats went by while we swam, although a giant Norwegian Cruise
boat had been tugged in while we were on the ferry to Jersey. If we
were in the water when that thing went by, no one would have noticed
it totally destroying us. The only boat that went close enough to
interact with us, not counting wakes that hit us, was a guy on a
kayak with an outrigger. Boy was he confused to see us. Dave yelled
out to him, "Hey, have you seen our kayak? We lost it. It's big
and long and blue. We paddled in from England," which didn't
resolve his confusion. But it was fun for us.
Dave had gotten
two waterproof disposable cameras so we were taking pictures the
whole time (I'll probably post them somewhere sometime). We took a
picture of the kayak guy. Before us he probably felt special as the
smallest boat out there.
We reached Manhattan about 40th
Street, at the end of a pier where the Circle Line docks. People saw
us and started gathering around. We couldn't talk to them because we
were on a ledge under the pier and they were over it. I cut myself a
few times climbing on the concrete and Dave slipped and almost fell
from the slippery moss on the concrete. We walked to the land end of
the pier and climbed up the rock wall to the main landing.
People
reacted extremely positively to these two guys woo-hooing and high
fiving each other. They couldn't believe we did it -- even the people
who saw us swim in and climb up. Amazing: They didn't believe their
own eyes! We got a couple beers and celebrated by cheering, telling
interested people about what we did, and answering their questions:
Why? How long did it take? Is it polluted? Was it hard? How far is
it? etc.
Our adventure wasn't over. We had to walk from 40th
Street back to the Village barefoot and shirtless. The one bar we
stopped in wouldn't serve us, dammit. My worst injuries are the sore
and cut bottoms of my feet from walking city streets and hot asphalt
and a sunburn.
We showered, dropped off the cameras to develop
the pictures, and went for lunch around 1:30pm. Eventually we went to
a rooftop party in the East Village.
Let me tell you, risking
your life in a barely-considered, crazy way makes for a great story
at a party. The answer to most questions about why we did it were
"testosterone."
What I Learned
The
two main realizations came when getting in the water and about three
quarters of the way across.
Getting in the water it became
real. I could easily have done everything up to there on my own.
Having Dave helped a lot to actually do it.
Three quarters of
the way across I was very tired, realized my plan had a problem, and
had a face-to-face-with-myself moment. In particular, since I hadn't
swum in years but am nearly in marathon running condition, I figured
if I got tired, I could just tread water until my strength was back.
But at that point I realized not only was I more tired than I
expected, the current was fast enough that if I treaded water too
long I could miss Manhattan and end up in the Atlantic.
If you
get tired running, you can just sit down and someone can help you. If
you get tired in the middle of the Hudson, no one is going to walk
past. If I ran out of energy, it could take Dave an hour to get help,
by which time my body could be floating by the Statue of Liberty. So
not that I was close to panicking, but it was definitely a time when
I was face to face with myself. I mean, no one could take a single
stroke for me so if I was going to make it it would have to be me
doing every stroke.
Not that the swim was "extreme," but a lot
of "extreme" things people do are actually planned and
structured, which de-extremizes them. If you sky dive, for
example, you're doing exactly what someone planned for you. I don't
know of anyone who just decided to swim across the Hudson. Yet it's
easy. Anyone can do it anytime. I think the simplicity of doing
something perceived by so many to be so risky added to the positivity
of everyone's responses.
I didn't talk to anyone with a good
idea of how to estimate the risk, let alone to quantify it. Everyone
except Dave and I thought it was too risky. They all overestimated
the risks. But everyone thought it was cool. How many cool things are
people not doing for no good reason?
It's so easy to plan to
do or think about doing things like this and never do them. On the
other hand it's as simple as anything just to do them. Life is best
lived just by doing them.
Random Notes
The scene in Motorcycle Diaries that inspired this is where the main character swims across the Amazon River.
The river bottom on the New Jersey side is less that six feet deep a couple hundred yards out, but it feels WEIRD to your feet. It has the consistency of guacamole, so you don't want to touch it.
When a power boat goes by even very far away you can hear it under water as if it was next to you, which can freak you out.
Visibility in the water was about twelve inches. The water may not have been polluted, but it was definitely dirty.
Your mood is great for at least a couple days after swimming across the Hudson River.
People in New York can see two guys walking barefoot and shirtless on the street and not notice anything unusual.
When I was starting to worry about making it across I remember thinking I would never want to do this again, but as soon as I was back on land that feeling was gone. I felt like I had conquered the river.
Worried I might have underestimated the risks, and having told almost no one, including family, about the plan, I wrote the following note just before heading to Dave's in the morning (I didn't tell Dave about it until afterward):
"I'm about to go swim across the Hudson. I suppose there is a chance I'll die. It wasn't suicide if I did. I was loving life. Better to enjoy it fully than not live it how you want."
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