Buenos Dias! This week marked a very special occasion for the crew of La Paz Fishing Charters.  We hosted the Night Train Swim Team, a relay swim team with a goal, actually a world record in their sites.  Earlier in the year, I was contacted by Vito Bialla, owner of Bialla Vineyards in Napa, an excellent flavored and VERY high rated red wine.  He always presents a “straight to the point” and easy dialogue: “Anthony, we want to set the world record for the longest, continuous, relay swim.  We want to raise money and awareness for the Wounded Warrior Project and wanted to know if the MARIANA and LaPazFishingCharters.com is willing to be our escort vessel.

Needless to say, our initial conversation was short: “Absolutely!”  With our recent efforts fundraising for Fishing 4 Freedom, La Paz Fishing Charters was honored to support the idea and totally up for the challenge.  We were to plot a course just over 150 miles, for the world’s longest continuous relay swim.  The synergy was excellent and the detailed planning began.  Since space on the 54′ MARIANA was not a issue; careful thought needed to be placed towards a healthy and energetic menu.  The Night Train Swim team consists of 6 swimmers, 1 reservist, and for this particular trip we had a representative from the Wounded Warrior Project, MSrgt William ‘Spanky’ Gibson, as navigator.  Spanky lost his leg when he was shot through the left kneecap by an Iraqi sniper; he was dragged to safety by members of a Special Forces Team, including Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, Michael Monsoor.  The 8 swimmers, plus my 2 crew and I, put our total group at 11 persons on the MARIANA for the 4 days.  We were ready for it!

The Night Train Swimmers follow the long established “English Channel Rules.”  1. 6 Swimmers Total  2. Swimmers shall only be allowed to where goggles and swimsuits without any type of flotation.  Wet-suits are strictly forbidden.  3. Swim-caps are optional and can only be made of silicone; no neoprane allowed.    4. Swimmers shall keep their same order throughout and swim an hour each, with a total of 5 min allowed for thr transition.  5. All swims should have official observers.

As part of the final preparations for the Sea of Cortez swim, Night Train had its official send-off party at Bialla Vineyards in Napa on Sunday.  The team, friends and family all enjoyed an afternoon of swimming, food and great wine on a beautiful sunny California day.  “We’re getting into taper mode, so the next two weeks are about recovery and mental preparation for the task at hand,” stated Vito Bialla, host of the party.

The swim began on June 26 at 6:00am from the beach in La Paz.  The seas were calm at sunrise and remained that way most of the day, water temp was 87 degrees- T&W.  Every swimmer was covering an amazing distance - averaging more than 3 miles per hour.  We went through the 6-swimmer rotation two times before the sun began to set.  During twilight, the winds began to pickup and we saw a building storm on the horizon, maybe 80 miles away.  Over the next 3.5 hours, conditions steadily worsened.  As the wind continued to build, the seas increased to 4-6 ft swells.

At 9:30pm, while Vito was halfway through his third swim of the journey and the team had covered 48 miles, it was decided that it was unsafe to continue swimming.  As soon as the swimmer was more than 15 ft from the boat, we could no longer see him.  Even the safety kayak we had in the water next to the swimmer, which had multiple locating lights attached, was not visible from the boat.  A few minutes later, we had everyone back aboard the boat and safe.  Enjoy the attached video: La Paz Night Train.

Safety is always the primary concern, so we were happy to have everyone back aboard in one piece.  We are all, of course, disappointed that we did not achieve our mission of breaking the world record while raising money for Wounded Warrior Project, but we will now begin planning our next adventure with the lessons learned from this one.  There are already talks about the 2nd attempt in 2010.

Unfortunately we had to abort the swim attempt, but that didn’t mean abort the trip.  The fishing recently had been excellent, so we completed the route with lines instead of swimmers in the water.  For Oklahoma native, Marine Spanky Gibson it was a dream come true: “I’ve never fished in the open water- and when I found out I was selected to represent the WWP for this, my dream was to catch a marlin!”
On the 3rd day, Spanky caught a 125lb Striped Marlin- Mission Accomplished!  We spent most of our fishing and cruising around Isla Animas, an awesome rock formation near Loreto.  We had great success spearfishing and dropping baits around the rocks for big Triggers, Parrots, and Bonitos.  On the cruise back home, we followed a pod a dolphins right onto some Tuna, to close out our fishing.  We had another awesome experience snorkeling and spearfishing along the backside of Espiritu Santo, before stopping at Tecolote Beach on our way back to La Paz.

Despite 2009’s unsuccessful 1st attempt to set the world record, Night Train, along with the crew of the MARIANA and LaPazFishingCharters.com, had an outstanding time.  More importantly, we learned collectively, what will be necessary to make our 2nd attempt a success.  Visit www.SwimSeaofCortez2010.com for information on the 2nd attempt.