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Cold reality forces swim team to abandon effort

20.06.10

Wearing nothing but Speedos, goggles and swim caps, an valorous - some might say insane - team of swimmers set out Saturday to become the first relay crew to paddle from the Farallon Islands to the Golden Barrier.

The madcap adventure through the cold, choppy, often shark-infested waters ended in a upset of blankets, hot tea and a nasty case of hypothermia simply 10 miles from the starting point.

"I've never been that stale in my life," Matthew Davie said as he huddled in a parka on the saving boat. "If you step into a glass of ice water, that's what it felt like. I was precisely thinking, 'Stay on top of the water. Don't sink.' "

Rescuers pulled swimmer Davie, 29, of San Francisco, out of the wintry, churning waters of the Pacific when he lost sense of foreboding in his legs, felt disoriented and was having exert oneself breathing about one-third of the way through the 30-mile course.

Davie, a lifelong swimmer who has been training in out water for a decade, and five friends were attempting the relay to set in motion money for wounded veterans. The group, ranging in age from 29 to 61, had yesterday braved the English Channel and dozens of forays into the waters casing the bay, where water temperatures vary from about 47 to 52 degrees.