Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Help From Above In The Canary Islands

47-year-old Ryszard Majewski, a recent convert to open water swimming due to severe arthritis in his right knee and two bulging discs in my back, informed us divine help when he participated in the beautiful la Travesía de La Graciosa a 2.8K island crossing between Lanzarote and the volanic island of La Graciosa across the strait of Rio.

The race is called the Queen of the Open Water Swims in the Canary Islands.

"498 swimmers took part in la Travesía de La Graciosa. "The race was great with amazing water and weather conditions with the exception of a current [across the Rio - shown in black in the map above]. The boats dropped us off 200 meters from the starting point in the water. We jumped off and swam towards the beach. 100 meters later I discovered my goggles were missing.

"Panicked and stressed thinking all the sacrifice, training and money I spent to take part in this event went all out the window as there was no way to swim without goggles. With 500 bodies in the water, 8 zodiac boats, 2 ferry boats and 15 canoes, the goggles could have been anywhere. Then there was a message from God telling me to swim back 100 meters towards the boat and...there my goggles were floating!"

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