Free Swimming to Antarctica by Lynne Cox

gentle-spirited and enlightened man.
    Fahmy and his wife, Donna, invited my parents and me to their home to make sure that this goal was something that I—not my parents—wanted to achieve before he decided to serve as a mentor and role model to me.
    Fahmy was a short man, only five feet high; this told me that size, like age, didn’t really matter unless one let it. His shoulders were broad, as was his chest, and his arms looked powerful.
    Still holding my hand in both of his, he led me to the table. There were piles of stuffed grape leaves, triangles of phyllo dough filled with feta cheese, roasted eggplant, and tomato and ground lamb, piles of fluffy rice topped with pine nuts, and wonderful dishes I had never tried until that night.
    Fahmy had me sit beside him, and, handing me a platter of rice, he said in a melodious Egyptian accent, “Whatever questions you may have, I will try to answer them for you.”
    Fahmy had grown up in Cairo and had swum for the Egyptian national team in the 1940s and 1950s. He was one of Egypt’s most celebrated athletes, in a country that names streets after long-distance swimmers. In 1941 he made a forty-one-hour long-distance swim in the Mediterranean, establishing a new record for time and distance. Fahmy made this swim at a time before goggles had been invented, or snug-fitting bathing caps, so to protect his eyes and ears from the salt water, he swam breaststroke with his head above the water. The longest swim he accomplished was in the Mediterranean. He swam nonstop for eighty hours. “The way I do this is, I meditate when I swim,” he said.
    I did too. I knew that we understood each other. I immediately liked him. When my father told him that I was very stubborn, he laughed and tilted his head way back, until tears filled his eyes. “That is a very strong characteristic for a channel swimmer. Perhaps a better word for stubborn would be
determined,”
he said, wiping happy tears from his eyes.
    During his daily swims, he pondered life’s big questions, and Ibelieve that through those daily meditations he had discovered the essence of himself and the answers to his questions. “You know, the ocean is a very, very beautiful place. It is God’s gift to us,” he said.
    I was sure Fahmy was God’s gift to me. I think he saw in me a younger version of himself, full of hope, eagerness, and determination. That day I told him that I was very grateful that he was sharing all of his knowledge with me. He said that once there had been someone who had helped him, and one day I would also pass on what I had learned to someone else. That was the way it was meant to be.
    He began describing what I should expect. He said, “The English Channel is filled with very cold water, strong tides, and strong currents. But you have already swum across the Catalina Channel, so I know that once you train for it, you can do it. One of the biggest problems is the cold water. It stings; it feels like prickers in your skin. The water temperature in the Channel is usually between fifty and sixty degrees. Many people have problems with the cold water. But you will not have any problem because you are training in the ocean in cold water.”
    Fahmy’s confidence in me made me feel happy, and he made me feel more self-assured. He was not only giving me insights into the physical challenge of the English Channel; Fahmy was beginning to coach my mind. It was so natural for him; he did it without thinking. Everything he said about what I was doing was positive; everything seemed possible.
    On the day we first met, Fahmy painted a mental picture of Dover Harbor for me. “The beach at Dover is made of pebbles. You can hear the beautiful waves caressing them. High above the harbor are the beautiful white cliffs, and always there are seagulls, circling overhead. Dover is a very beautiful place. It is well protected, and it is a good place to train.”
    Fahmy told me that I needed to contact the Channel Swimming