Staff Reporter, Toronto Star
If swimming across Lake Ontario is on your bucket list, there are more people now than ever willing to help you take the plunge.
A record number of seven swimmers are taking on the lake this summer. But if you’re up for the challenge, you’ll need a lot more than a bathing suit and swim goggles.
Solo Swims of Ontario will have you to fill out tedious forms and find four specific types of escort boats, said Rob Kent, the founder of Lake Ontario Swim Team (LOST), a growing community of swimmers that helps first-timers meet the onerous prerequisites to swim solo across the lake.
LOST members fill the information gap, help each other find escort boats and train together on weekends, Kent said.
“Every Saturday morning, 50 to 70 people show up in Oakville for a swim in the lake,” he said, adding he “could not have imagined” that the team that started with a group of friends in 2006 would become 200 members strong.
LOST swimmer Madhu Nagaraja became the 50th person to complete the Lake Ontario solo swimming marathon on Sunday, after 24 hours in the water. His fellow swimmer François Hamel had to be pulled out of the water earlier that day due to shoulder injuries.
This summer’s marathon swimmers also have four routes to choose from.
Michele Benoit will make her first attempt to swim across the lake in August. The 42-year-old will be swimming a route never before travelled, starting at Port Dalhousie in St. Catharines and, she hopes, ending the 45.2-kilometre swim at Spencer Smith Park in Burlington.
“I wanted to land at home,” said the Burlington native, who is swimming to raise funds for clean-water projects in Africa under the banner of Waves for Water.
This year’s group of swimmers includes the youngest and oldest crossing hopefuls.
At 60, Colleen Shields is the oldest of the group. She says this will be her last swim across Lake Ontario, after two successful finishes in 1990 and 2006.
Despite a recent bad fall that left her with rib injuries, Shields said she’s not going for anything less than the finish line.
“This is a do-or-die,” she said. “I just want to finish this business and hang up my suit.”
Shields will be taking the Niagara-on-the-Lake to Toronto route, the traditional 51.5-kilometre course set by Marilyn Bell in 1954. The route starts from the gazebo at Niagara’s lakeside park and ends at Toronto’s Marilyn Bell Park.
Unlike her previous two crossings, this year’s swim has nothing to do with being “young and cocky,” she said.
“I want to show women my age that age is just a number,” she said. “It doesn’t define who you are.”
Annalise Carr, 14, will be the youngest person to attempt the crossing.
Although you could technically be too young or too old for a successful finish, the right age and strength isn’t all it takes to be a swimming champion, said Kent.
The 47-year-old boasts a tall and athletic build that’s got him through a seven-day run in the Sahara Desert and a 47-kilometre swim around Manhattan.
But Kent was pulled unconscious and hypothermic from the English Channel just six years ago in a failed attempt to cross it.
“There’s a fair component of luck to it,” he said. “If Mother Nature says you’re not doing it, you’re not doing it.”
The swimmers are expecting an ideal 24C water temperature, but at times the lake “rolls over,” he said, lifting the cold water to the surface.
“This is adventure in the true sense of the word, that you just don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Each swimmer will be tracked with a GPS device throughout the journey. Real-time tracking updates will be posted on LOST’s website.