Mitchell steers the ship while Oake keeps dry at Swimathon

This year’s Rotary Carl Oake Swimathon was a very different experience for the man whose name it bears.

“Well, usually I’m in the water,” laughed Oake Friday morning at the YMCA as teams of four swapped laps in the facility’s big pool. “People have always come up to me quite a bit later and said ‘Oh, yeah, I was there – I saw you in the water.”

Oake traditionally swam 100 laps at each year’s event, but didn’t do it last year or this for health reasons.

“It’s become the Oake family swimathon,” he said, noting that his daughters and grandchildren were in the water while he worked the deck, greeting swimmers and supporters.

The annual event is a fundraiser for Rotary programs and the Easter Seals, and features teams – many of them in costumes – completing laps to raise funds.

This year’s event was expected to bring in $50,000, said Rotarian Lyn Kimmett. He pointed to a new online fundraising tool, Canada Helps, which made it easier for people to donate.

Turnout – and proceeds – were down from last year, Kimmett said, but that was understandable. Last year’s event, the swimathon’s 30th, was spread out over several days with school visits from Great Lakes record-setting swimmers Vicki Keith, Annaleise Carr and Trinity Arseneaut and participation from swim legend Marilyn Bell, who became the first to cross Lake Ontario in 1954, couldn’t make it last year for health reasons but took part in the event via Skype.

“Marilyn wanted to come this year, but couldn’t,” Kimmett said.

But the turnout was good and the energy was high in the pool, he said, with teams dressed as superheroes, sharks and in Hawaiian garb among the participants.

Former Easter Seal ambassador Mitchell McColl and Team Mitchell were back with another fun cardboard vessel for the boy – this time it was a pirate ship, the HMS Carl Oake, which hit the water with Mitchell at the “helm” halfway through the early-morning event. “It’s going perfectly,” Oake said.

NOTE: The swimathon’s website is at www.ptborotaryswimathon.com.

KENNEDY GORDON/EXAMINER Mitchell McColl captains the HMCS Carl Oake pirate ship with help from Team Mitchell during the Rotary Carl Oake Swimathon on Friday morning at the YMCA on Aylmer Street. About 40 teams took part in the annual fundraiser for Rotary and Easter Seals.