Lost long-distance swimmer knocks on door at 3:17 a.m.

LEDUC, Alta. — A long-distance swimmer’s sudden disappearance on Okanagan Lake shocked his support team, but perhaps equally startled was the caretaker who answered a knock on his cabin door in the middle of the night and found a dripping, grease-covered man in a swimsuit.

Wayne Strach, 61, set out from Vernon on Aug. 8 and planned to swim 135 kilometres in an attempt to break the record for the world’s longest open-water swim. About 40 kilometres and nearly 16 hours into the attempt, in darkness, things were going well. Strach switched from freestyle to backstroke for a change, but didn’t realize the switch made the strobe light on the back of his head invisible to his friends who were following along in a boat.

From their vantage point, it looked like Strach had disappeared under the water.

“I didn’t hear the commotion because my head was in my swim cap and my head was in the water, so I didn’t hear the boat honking. I didn’t hear the shouts of the support team — three of them. I wasn’t really looking for their floodlights, either, because at that moment I was just kind of looking up at the sky and enjoying the stars and the constellations,” said Strach, who has since returned home to Alberta.

Strach was enjoying the stars so much he didn’t look up to check for the boat for nearly 20 minutes. He got a shock when he did. In that time, he’d swum close to a kilometre and couldn’t see or hear anyone. He called out, but got no reply.

He didn’t panic. He knew he could swim as far as he needed to. The question was what direction he should swim.

Strach saw lights of what looked like a subdivision, but they appeared to be more than five kilometres away. He opted instead for what looked to be a brightly lit dock.

He reached the dock in about 20 minutes. It was a large estate, and Strach walked up to the steps of what turned out to be the caretaker’s residence. It was 3:17 a.m. when he knocked and Strach was covered in grease to protect him from chafing.

“He was greeted when he opened the door by a rather large, white, pasty-coated lake monster wearing nothing but a Speedo,” Strach said.

The police and the fire department were already looking for him with a helicopter and boats. Everyone was relieved he was safe.

The next day, Strach returned to the cabin to thank the caretaker with a bottle of Cognac.