Paperwork sinks Lake Ontario swim bid
Tom Bartlett, 72, determined to try crossing again next year
Exhaustion chilled Tom Bartlett.
His shoulders stiffened. His elbows ached. Twenty hours into a bid to become the oldest person to swim across Lake Ontario, his 72-year-old body started to shut down in sight of the Toronto shoreline on Tuesday night.
A bolting start from Niagara-on-the-Lake — swimming at a pace of 3.6 km/h — twisted into the sluggish nightmare finish in the waterfront glow of the CN Tower. The waters grew cold. His brain veered as wildly as his path.
“I was hallucinating,” the Galt-raised Bartlett said after returning home to Waterloo in the wee
hours of Wednesday morning.
“At the very end, I could see these little dancing flowers in the air.”
Bartlett, who grew up taking 10-cent afternoon dips at George Hancock Pool in Cambridge, signalled his submission to swim master John Scott in one of the inflatable power boats bobbing beside him.
Somehow, the Great Lake he was poised to conquer had won. Bartlett was pulling himself out of the water after swimming 41 kilometres. It was his call. He would not pass that burden on to Scott. He accepted it.
His dream to match the 1954 feat of his childhood hero Marilyn Bell, who became the first person to swim 51 kilometres across Lake Ontario, seemed all but accomplished a few hours earlier.
At the midway point, there was talk about landing in time for dinner.
Marilyn Bell Park, his destination, was in sight. It was five miles ahead, he thought in his imperial-system calculations. He felt great.
“We were right on top of Toronto,” Bartlett said.
That’s when his three-year, three-boat, $3,500-in-expenses effort into swimming across Lake Ontario slammed into a maddening wall of unfiled paperwork.
Red tape, not sea monsters or weary old limbs, pulled him under.
Barlett, who sells fish at the St. Jacobs Market, needed permission to land where Bell had finished her historic swim as a 16year-old on a September day 64 years ago.
Fresh forms had to be filled out with Toronto’s harbour patrol for his on-again, off-again swim — which had been pushed back a week by the safety-conscious Solo Swims of Ontario organization due to cold lake temperatures. If you cancelled, you had to apply again, Bartlett explained.
“I left that up to the pilot taking us across — that didn’t happen,” said Bartlett, who declined to name the pilot of his lead navigation boat.
“She said she would do all my paper work this year. At a meeting a month ago, she said, ‘Don’t worry about it. I’m going to do all the paperwork for you.’ That wasn’t done.”
So, with success in sight, Bartlett had to turn right toward failure. He lacked permission to land at Marilyn Bell Park. Instead he and his team were ordered by radio to head up the shoreline to land at the Leslie Street Spit.
It was a right turn into disaster. A punishing current, like an unlucky albatross around his neck, staggered Bartlett. The happy banter on his boats was replaced with grim silence.
“All of a sudden, the current hit us and we were at a standstill for almost four hours,” said Bartlett’s son Malcolm, who rode in a Zodiac beside his dad. “The wind just got knocked out of our sails.”
At 9:48 p.m. Bartlett came out of the water exhausted. It was dark again, just like when he began in Niagara’s peaceful waters at 12:24 a.m.
The four-hour boat ride back across the lake to the starting point was too much time to reflect on the surreal disappointment — years of training; a halfdozen starts called off due to storms and low water temperatures and personal matters over three summers. Now that he had a fine day, a late twist cost him a crucial stretch of up to 10 kilometres.
“At the very end, when we made the right turn, we were at Marilyn Bell Park,” Bartlett said as he prepared for a team barbecue on Wednesday.
“We swam down to Leslie Street, in a current, to get to the Leslie Street Spit. That’s how far we went out of our way. Otherwise, I would have been at Marilyn Bell Park an hour and 40 minutes earlier.”
On Wednesday, Bartlett kept his frustration in check. He said he was grateful for the efforts of his team and supporters.
But his 40-year-old son tried to sum up his father’s feelings.
“It’s hard to deal with the disappointment of just like, noncompletion,” Malcolm said. “Never mind the human error in competence of other people that you rely on. That’s what’s kind of digging at him.”
But Bartlett should still be proud, the 80-year-old Bell said in a post on her Facebook account Wednesday.
“You swam with heart, determination and great effort,” Bell said of Bartlett. “Proud to know you and call you friend.”
And Bartlett, who turned 72 on Aug. 11, isn’t about to give up. He had Lake Ontario at his mercy on Tuesday. He is eager to try again.
“I know I can do that swim,” Bartlett said. “I’m pumped to do this next year. I’m going to train all year and I’m going to do it.”
I was hallucinating. At the very end, I could see these little dancing flowers in the air. Tom Bartlett