by Lori Thompson
CENTRAL MANITOULIN—Ray Scott touched shore at 4:07 pm Monday, August 18, eight hours and fifty-seven minutes after setting out on this historic 19 km swim across Lake Manitou from Sandfield to Newby’s Bay.
The swim had been scheduled for the previous Friday but the wind was very high in the narrows, causing four foot waves. That morning there were fresh challenges, with a 7:10 am start that was slightly later than planned, and a change in wind direction overnight that had forced a route reversal.
“I wanted to start here, in Newby’s Bay,” explained Mr. Scott. “It’s a big long stretch. It would have been nice to get that out of the way first. The wind doesn’t typically blow this way. All summer long it’s blown from the west. Today it’s from the east. That’s one of the things I’ve learned. Nature won’t adapt to you. You have to adapt.”
Mr. Scott’s wife, Anne Marie, and sons William and James were in the support boat, and three friends shared paddling duties while daughter Marjorie manned the phone lines at home. “This swim could not have happened without the crew that we have,” he said. “Mark (Varey) from Timberlane. The paddlers, Craig Maxwell, Andre Leblanc, and Mark Gibault. My family. In fact, anybody I’ve talked to was very supportive. When I put the crew together, I was thinking I needed to try and surround myself with the best people, best talent. That’s not just true for this swim but for anything in life.”
“The waves were a little rough at the beginning,” said Ms. Scott. “It was difficult to manoeuver the boat.”
“The waves were more irritating than anything,” explained Mr. Scott, “but I trained in waves. I trained whether the waves were there or not. I don’t think you can over-condition for long distance swims. It’s hard to train here. We don’t have a pool locally. I’d go to Espanola but that’s a long way to go for one hour in a lane. The water here has been so cold I actually drove to Sudbury a couple of times.”
Training for the swim was crucial, but Mr. Scott has no idea how many hours he trained or how many kilometres he swam in preparation for this marathon. “You can’t just wake up one morning and do it,” he said.
He praised Jackie White of Manitowaning for her coaching. “I couldn’t have done this without Jackie. She shaved incredible amounts of time off my swim. Well, I put the time in but I couldn’t have done it without her guidance.”
Ms. White refused to take credit. “He’s a good student,” she said.
Ms. Scott maintained contact with Ms. White, who couldn’t be there, throughout the swim. “She was really the one doing the coaching, she told me what to do. She’s awesome, a very good swimming coach.”
Keeping his strength up through water and nutrition breaks was important, and Ms. Scott was the whistle blower. “Every 15 minutes I’d blow the whistle for a water break, and every 30 minutes or so for nutrition.” Mr. Scott used power gels to obtain the calories he needed to swim the long distance in cold water.
The temperature of Lake Manitou was only 15°C, which forced Mr. Scott to wear his wetsuit. He hadn’t used the wetsuit in training and figures this was a contributing factor to the pain in his left shoulder. “I was pretty sore the last four kilometres,” he said, “my left shoulder was pretty sore. The wind blew me along a bit but it was hard slogging when the wind was against us.”
The support team wasn’t overly concerned until the last two kilometres. He wasn’t always using his left arm and was zigzagging instead of swimming in a straight line. “It was hard to watch him,” said Ms. Scott. “One thing that really impressed me is how Andre is very skilled in a canoe. He was able to shepherd Ray when he was zigzagging.”
“Having the kind of expert paddlers we had with the wind we had made all the difference. I don’t know if just anybody would have been able to keep everything on course the way they did. I knew they were the best around,” Mr. Scott said. “It would have been impossible for me to finish without my paddlers. When you’re in the water you can’t even see, not landmarks, not anything. Mark Gibault was wearing a white hat; halfway through the swim that’s all I could see.”
Apart from their expertise in keeping him on course, Mr. Scott appreciated that connection they provided. It helped “just knowing there was someone there with you.”
He also appreciated the support he has received from the greater community. “There are a lot of people from my church and people from around the Island praying for me,” he said. “Every half hour someone was praying for me. In the weeks leading up to the swim people were praying and, frankly, my training went better. I don’t know if other athletes want to mix sports and religion, but it’s working for me.”
In addition to raising funds for Manitoulin Family Resources (www.rayscrazyswim.ca/mfr.html for information and how to donate), Mr. Scott is hoping to generate interest in marathon swimming. “I’m hoping that now that I’ve done this it will generate interest and other people will swim it. There’s a lot of really great swimmers in the region, more talented than I’ll ever be. They may find the idea attractive. It’s a good swim for a marathon. The water is clean and clear. In other summers it’s probably warmer.”
However, there are no other lakes in his immediate future. “I don’t have any plans to do any more marathon swims. I’m looking forward to doing more musical pursuits. Training takes a lot of time. Swimming isn’t my first love, but it just felt like this was the right summer to jump in with both feet.”
Son James perhaps sums it up best: “Whatever he sets his mind to do, he does. And he has to have something to do. I don’t know what he’s going to do next, but it will be something.”
