Authentically Thursday.

It rained all night. Richie, Lulu, Simon and I set alarms for 0600 so we could move to a new location.

We have become a pretty good team over the last 4 years and again over the last two weeks and all manned our posts as ordered, each doing our part to get our yacht safely off the dock. Richie piloted of course, while Lisa, Simon and I managed dock lines and defended the bow and stern with large rubber fenders the size of me. The most credit of course goes to Richie who un-parallel parked this thing in a stiff wind and swell without a single bump into the dock or neighboring vessels. We motored to the next bay over and dropped anchor.

A few words here about the SwimVacation team. Hopper and I, as business partners who are also best friends, have broadened our own friendship into a family of highly skilled, very conscientious and passionate people who are really really good at what SwimVacation is all about. These include a few remarkable boat captains, chefs, a crackerjack deck hand, a faithful lifeguard and a small but impressive stable of swim guides. In each of those positions, the title makes up only about 10% of the job. And each member of our team is ready to pitch in with whatever needs doing at any time. We support each other, and that makes the support of our guests even better. What these jobs really require is a seemingly bottomless well of people skills, compassion, anticipation and stamina. We take the business of bringing people into the sea very seriously. We operate on the edge of places - out where things can get windy and rocky and a little wild and definitely wet. It’s not always a smooth ride, but our guests are always safe in our hands, encouraged to exceed their own expectations for themselves, and always cared for in a way that I hope enables them to go home better for having been with us. That’s the job. And our team is uniquely good at it.

Pause. Lulu just brought my coffee to my nest which is where I am blogging from this morning. A nest that is warm and dry, because she remade it with dry blankets after the rain got in while I was out swimming. I didn’t even ask. She just did it.

There is not a single aspect of my work I could have done over the last 2+ weeks without the support, skills, laughter and dedication of Richie, Lisa and Simon. I love them all.

Which is even more important on a washout of a morning as Thursday offered up. The kind of rain event that makes you call a “bed day” and all you do is stay cozy and sip coffee slowly and read books. Which made it a little tough to jump into the ocean first thing, well ok not first thing as we all sipped coffee in jammies and just talked about swimming before finally committing to a swim. The water was warmer than the air which helped a lot when we finally did jump in.

Our swimmers embraced what we were given, and that is what open water swimming is all about. We rounded the corner under dramatic skies, played in the sea foam, poked cautiously into a few cracks in the coast line and made a beeline back to the yacht where Richie had the hot water primed for rinsing, and Lulu welcomed us aboard with the smell of bacon.

We pulled anchor and headed for Skiathos in very rough seas. We rocked and rolled and pitched for an hour. What’s important to know is that as bumpy as it was, it would have been far worse had Richie not been at the helm. He skied and surfed this boat where he could to minimize the impact for us all, and somehow, Lisa had lunch in the oven. Our guests took this journey in stride, which is no small thing. The last few days of bonding, challenge and reward have made them all pretty hardy, and perhaps tougher than they thought when they stepped on board. 

A bumpy motor sail like that is oddly exhausting, and we all cat napped in place on and off. We reached Skiathos and dropped anchor in swanky Koukounaries Bay and recovered with a miracle lunch. 

The skies blued up, and we made an afternoon swim in brilliant sunshine, over boulders and grasses and pure white sand that makes everything and everyone brighter. 

Back on the yacht, cocktails and cards and crazy good dinner and chocolate mousse and stories and laughter and the kind of closeness that can only come from sharing uniquely rich, sometimes challenging but always rewarding experiences.

It makes me anxious to share the bumps in the road with you, the followers of our sea-journeys. But this is the truth of what our SwimVacation experience is all about. This is an authentic account of  a week on the ocean - a place that never guarantees easy breezy going, but will always peel away layers to reveal the core of who we are. It’s difficult to reach these corners of ourselves on land, surrounded by comfort. 

One more day. The wind has died, the sun is shining brightly. Our four swimmers have done a little more than they thought they might this week, and I hope Friday is a mirror reflecting what’s possible.

That all sounds a little dramatic, even to me. But I’m at the end of two weeks at sea, surrounded by friends like family and doing everything I love to do. I’m stripped down to my core too.

TIme to swim.

Love,

Heather