It will be dark when
Rachel Horn jumps into the ocean off Anacapa Island early Saturday.
Four-in-the-morning dark.
Horn will have no
wetsuit. The sun will join her more than two and a half hours later.
By then, the
31-year-old swimmer will be slicing toward Silver Strand Beach near Oxnard. If
all goes as planned, Horn will arrive around noon after muscling through 12.2
miles of open water.
Among the greeting
party waiting beachside will be someone Horn hasn't seen in 16 years: Althea
Barilone-Hayes, a Special Olympics athlete Horn coached as a Ventura High
School student volunteer.
"This little girl
I taught when I was 15 is now grown up," Horn said of the coming reunion
brought about by her swim.
Horn is using her
journey across the Santa Barbara Channel to raise funds for Special Olympics
Southern California. The organization offers year-round athletic training and
competition for children and adults with intellectual disabilities. About 600
Ventura County athletes take part.
Lisa Barilone,
Althea's mother, remembers Horn.
"She was always
so wonderful with the athletes," Barilone said.
As plans for the
fundraiser went forward, Horn reached out to see if Althea, now 23, was still
involved. She is.
"Every time I
talk to Rachel, we both start crying on the phone," Lisa Barilone said of
the deep connection formed during the volunteer work.
Horn's initial
fundraising goal was $5,000. After recently exceeding that figure as word of
her effort spread, she upped the figure to $10,000.
"We're really
excited about Rachel taking on this great endeavor," said Gina Carbajal,
regional director for Special Olympics in Santa Barbara County.
Carbajal will shuttle
a group of Santa Barbara athletes to Silver Strand to cheer for Horn when she
reaches the beach.
Horn grew up in
Ventura and now lives in Santa Barbara, where she works for international shoe
company Deckers Brands in Goleta. The company already supports Special
Olympics, making Horn's fundraiser a natural fit.
Horn swam
competitively in the pool through college. She has since been drawn to
open-water swimming. Her longest ocean swim so far has been 6 miles.
"Being alone in
the water with no one around for that distance is not something I've
experienced yet," Horn said of the upcoming crossing.
She doesn't listen to
music.
"It's meditative
for me to swim these long distances," she said.
Mantras like
"warm, calm, strong" help, as does an image her buddies at the Santa
Barbara Swim Club tease her with: warm, buttery biscuits.
"I just keep
repeating it until I feel warm," she said.
Saturday's
effort will be conducted under the auspices of the Santa Barbara Channel
Swimming Association, a group founded in 2006 that monitors channel crossings
according to strict rules.
No
wetsuits, for one. And no hanging onto boats or kayaks that accompany and
observe crossings.
Swimmers
can have food tossed to them, a process Horn likened to "feeding a
seal." Her bagged mix will include carbohydrate powder and apple juice.
Diced peaches and mashed potatoes are also on the menu — a savory and sweet
combination sussed out through trial and error that doesn't require chewing
when jaws are cold.
Marathon
open-water routes are meant to test men and women against Mother Nature without
physical assistance, said Scott Zornig, the channel swimming association's
board president.
On
average, the success rate for the Anacapa Island route is about 50 percent, he
said. Assuming the swimmer has trained properly, the outcome depends on
conditions.
For
Anacapa, wind is the main enemy.
"If
it gets windy, it almost becomes prohibitive," Zornig said. Wind speeds
much above 7 mph can make for "a really rough swim."
Swimmers
depart early in the morning to avoid afternoon winds, but night swimming adds a
"spooky element" that requires mental and physical strength, he said.
Swimmers wear LED lights or glow sticks during the dark hours.
Crossings
typically cost a swimmer upward of $2,000 for an escort boat, crew and
fees that include insurance costs.
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