Outdoors

A cleaner bay to enjoy good clean 'fun'

By TERRY TOMALIN, Outdoors Editor
Published November 2, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG - I forgot how big Tampa Bay is - until I tried to swim across it.

My birthday falls around Thanksgiving and so when I turned 37 in 1997, my lifeguard buddies and I decided to celebrate by seeing how long it would take to swim across the narrowest point, just south of the Gandy Bridge.

Sure, we could have looked at a map, but that wouldn't have been as much fun. If my memory serves me correctly - for this was 10 years ago - there might have been a wager involved. The victor, I believe, received a case of beer.

The water was cold, so we didn't worry about sharks. We knew that the true bad boys of the bay - the bull sharks - had headed for warmer waters months before. But we did bring along a boat to keep an eye out for other boats and a few kayaking friends, just to keep stragglers on course.

Everything started fine, then I hit a sandbar just 1 mile from our starting point. I stood up, watched the cars zoom by on the bridge, and realized that I was alone and borderline hypothermic.

A sensible man would have flagged down the support boat and called it a day. But, as I tell my son, a winner never quits and a quitter never wins. Picnic Island was only 1 or 2 miles away, I thought to myself.

So I ducked my head and started stroking, hoping my momentary lack of focus did not cost me a case of beer.

Back in my groove, I marveled at how clean Tampa Bay actually was. A few feet below, I could see crabs and fish scurry for cover as I passed overhead. Twenty-five years earlier, only a lunatic would have attempted to swim across the bay.

But thanks to the Clean Water Act and some forward thinking on the part of the Tampa Bay area's elected officials and civic leaders, water quality had improved enough that a dozen lunatics could swim across the bay without fear of getting sick.

Two-thirds of the way across, I hit a pocket of cold water and the sea grass suddenly disappeared from view. Staring down into the inky blackness of a shipping channel, I listened for the far-off drone of a powerboat engine. I could taste gasoline in the water, so I knew there probably were boats nearby.

I popped my head up to have a look. My friend, Dr. Greg Todd, paddled by and informed me that I was swimming off course.

Party pooper. If you can't get lost swimming across a nearly 400-square-mile bay, where can you get lost?

Todd pointed toward Picnic Island and told me that three of my buddies - Joe Lain, Chip Hall and Skip Maxwell - had passed by just minutes earlier.

I powered on, but I had to stop again to get my bearings. The Gandy Bridge was getting awfully close. If I got swept under it and up into Old Tampa Bay, I'd be swimming all night. Forget the beer; I'd have to buy breakfast, too.

But luck was with me. Instead, I made landfall in a shipyard. I climbed up a barnacle-encrusted seawall just in time to see my training partner, John Homer Jr., jumping over some concrete culverts.

We sprinted barefoot down the beach in our Birdwell baggies, finishing just a few feet apart at a picnic table surrounded by some cold and cranky lifeguards. What should have been about a 3-mile swim turned into at least 31/2 miles and a nearly two-hour event because we kept getting lost. In hindsight, we should have put the boat in front of us to keep our bearings.

But now they wanted beer. All eyes focused on the birthday boy.

Oops, I knew I had forgotten something.

Times Outdoors Editor Terry Tomalin can be reached at (727) 893-8808.

FAST FACTS

Going the distance

Ron Collins won the swim across the bay that day in 1997 and shared the case of beer with his friends. The following spring, Tampa Bay Watch held a similar fundraising swim, but after several years, the event was canceled because it became too popular to manage safely. Collins went on to become the first person to swim the entire length of Tampa Bay. Each spring on Earth Day, he still hosts the 24-mile Tampa Bay Marathon Swim, which attracts competitors from all round the globe.

[Last modified November 1, 2007, 18:12:09]