The Ghost of Taupo
10 March 2023
A funny story emerged after all the excitement of the swim. A story of a ghost and two children hiding under a blanket in the car - more on this later.
As you can see on the video there were a number of people at the halfway mark to encourage and support me. Thank you so much! One group was the crew of a swimmer who would attempt crossing Taupo the next day and the rest were friends and some of my own support crew. I even had two support swimmers to guide me into shore, Alison Boggs from my boat and Brian Gray from the other swimmers crew.
After exiting the lake and getting a 5min “pep talk” on land and ironically (as you will later hear) being told that "I look better than I feel" by Ally, I headed back into the water for the second leg of my two-way crossing attempt.
About 3 hours into the second swim leg, the jetski, that was being used as the navigation and feeding vessel, broke down. The two crew onboard were left adrift with an opportunity to get to know each other a bit more intimately in the cold and dark. Meanwhile I kept swimming now following the main support boat, “Yeah Buoy”. It would only be the next day that I would come to the realisation that the jetski had gone missing from my swim during the night…
Cutting an intimate story short, after a few hours adrift on the jetski, the jetski and crew were towed to the nearest ramp. Here the two crewmen, who would like to remain anonymous, spent another hour or so cuddling, I mean huddling, on the floor of a public toilet eating my powdered biltong and peanut butter & jam sandwiches while waiting for my land based crew to bring the trailer around.
At some point during this rescue mission the owner of the jetski, Frikkie, was notified that his jetski was being taken out of the water. In conversation with him, he mentioned that his two children had been traumatised seeing me come out of the water at the halfway mark. The crewmen did not think much of this at the time and thought it meant that I was looking tired and cold from the prolonged time in the water, nothing unexpected.
It was only the next day when stories were being shared that Frikkie told me that he was at the halfway mark the previous evening with his two young sons there to cheer me on. However, the moment they saw me rise from the water, swaying from side to side, white from a mixture of lanolin, zinc oxide and sunscreen with car headlights beaming on me, they could only think ghost! Their fight or flight response told them to run and run they did. They made a beeline for the car, where they remained, blankets pulled over their heads not to be seen and not keen at all to venture out in the dark to help load a broken down jetski later on.
The two boys did come and congratulate me with a manly handshake the next day when the sunshine would ward off any spirits and my colour had returned...
Here is to an adventure that bonded friends and created memories, all while supporting the Rescue Helicopter!
