Tito Craige
Above: Tito Craige and Leslie Fanning about to touch Morocco.
As I waited for my first Social Security check, I decided to push the envelope with swimming, a sport I’d practiced for six decades. I read about the Gibraltar Crossing and realized that the idea of swimming from Spain to Morocco allayed my worries about turning 70. For me, when I am in the sea, all is well with the world.
It all started inauspiciously at UNC’s Bowman Gray pool. I was four and my swim teacher was squeezing my chest too tightly. Later that day, my mother yelled, “You bit his wrist like a damned dog. What a mean boy you are!”
At 17, as a summer volunteer in Newfoundland, I was surprised that cod fishermen were drowning from panic and water aspiration. The next day, I invited local kids to drown-proofing classes, and, by August, they were equipped to survive in freezing water. Over the years that followed, I found a hero, Lynne Cox, who pioneered the use of swimming to “establish bridges between borders.”
The 15K Strait of Gibraltar is one of the world’s great passages, connecting the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. On one side of the Strait is Africa and on the other is Europe.
The Gibraltar Crossing is one of the Oceans Seven, a group of marathon swims that includes the English Channel. Gibraltar’s challenges include freighters, mountainous swells and gale-like winds. Spaniards Laura and Rafael Gutierrez created ACNEG (the Strait of Gibraltar Swimming Association) and assured the governments of Spain and Morocco that swimmers would be monitored and they’d have passports. I applied to ACNEG for three years, and, one day, ACNEG emailed me, “You’ll be the first swimmer in 2017. It will be cold. You have a ten-day window and during that time either the sea calms down or we cancel. But no need to worry.”
Tito Craige and wife Kim.
When I told my wife, Kim, I had been accepted, she yelled, “Wow! I can throw food and water bottles to my hubbie! Yay! And I get to see Andalusian horses!”
I called Iva Anderson, AKA. IvaHawk, an ex-Marine who humors me with CrossFit. His curiosity awoke when I offered an air ticket: “A free trip? Hell, yeah!” I took my medical form to a UNC physician who frowned, “Forget it. Much too dangerous. I won’t be a part of this.” So I went to Duke physician Mark Messick, a vet who decorates his office with pictures of attack helicopters, and he smiled, “Sure, I see no reason not to do this.”
The ACNEG website suggests that no one can be completely prepared: “In principle…crossing the Gibraltar Strait may seem simple but many swimmers have had to abandon due to the peculiar problems of the zone (currents, winds, fog and so on). Due to this, the happy outcome of the Gibraltar Strait crossing must be accompanied by a great dose of good luck.”
I hired Anne Cleveland, a coach from San Diego whose email address begins with “Wishuponastar.” She laid out a regimen that included 10K workouts, ice baths and speed work. I found a swim partner, Lesley Fanning, a Charlestonian who was forced to abort her 2016 Crossing and wanted a second chance. Lesley shared what she had learned: “Buy the best wetsuit and sit in tubs of ice.”
Co-swimmer Lesley Fanning, Laura Gutierrez of ACNRG, Tito Craige.
She and I swam through the winter at Wrightsville Beach, despite once having to rescue her kayaker/husband in 48 degree surf. By February, my 100-yard times eclipsed my personal records from decades earlier, but, by early March, my blood pressure rose 30 percent, and Cleveland warned that I was over trained.
In the third week of March, we flew to Spain. On March 30, Lesley and I met ACNEG’s Laura Gutierrez who told us we’d cross on the 31st.
The next morning, pilot Antonio Montiel told us the three rules: “To get past shore currents there’s no eating for the first hour. Stay close to each other and follow the lead boat.”
Over the next fifteen minutes, gusts heading toward the Atlantic dropped to zero, and, at a certain instant, they began to move in the right direction, i.e. into the Mediterranean.
The Crossing was on. I sprinted, happy that I was reaching for something beyond anything I’d attempted. Below me, sunlight spread its shafts through the green depths and I was in synch with the sea.
During the hours that followed, towering freighters loomed above us. Churning swells made me lose sight of Lesley. An earplug fell out and I couldn’t hold the water bottles. Lesley and I swam across each other’s legs. Things were getting crazy.
Then Antonio yelled for us to aim for ledges straight ahead. Morocco! I slid through the waves and lunged for the black cliffs. We both touched Africa, but just to be sure, I jumped up and down until I heard the boat’s siren announcing that we’d completed a sanctioned crossing. I clambered up the boat’s ladder and vomited my breakfast of Scottish oatmeal over the side. Pilot Antonio whispered, “Drink electrolytes. Everything’s going to be ok.”
My 4 hour 57-minute crossing was faster than I had hoped for and I was happy to be the fourth oldest to have crossed the Strait.
My wife told me, “I learned so much in that Zodiac. Life is full of things I didn’t know existed.”
Tito Craige celebrating successful Morocco swim.
As for me, I found out that swimming to Morocco is a shared adventure, dependent on training and luck. And it helps to have a team of pros like Rafael, Antonio, Anne Cleveland and IvaHawk. In the weeks that followed, both Anne Cleveland and Rafael Gutierrez, ACNEG’s founder, died of cancer. Their lives remind me that none of us knows how much time is left, but we can take advantage of every hour we have.
Editor’s Note: Tito Craige of Chapel Hill is a triathlete, history instructor at Durham Tech and a retired East Chapel Hill High School teacher.