Disclaimer: This stunt was performed under the supervision of professionals. Do not attempt this swim on your own.
What scares you more than anything in the world?
Is it heights? Spiders? Public speaking? Snakes?
My biggest phobia? Swimming in deep, dark, murky water with absolutely no idea what’s swimming below me.
This phobia is exactly why Kara and I decided it would be a super “fun” idea to swim 1.5 miles from the infamous Alcatraz prison to the shore of San Francisco. Yep, right through San Francisco Bay which is definitely not deep, dark, murky, or potentially filled with sharks…
Hang Tran via Getty Images
Okay, I’ll admit, when I got an email from a follower proposing this feat, my immediate reaction was, “You could not pay me $1 million to do that.” But the more I thought about it, the more I realized this was something I needed to do to prove that I could face my fear and come out as a stronger person.
Besides, the odds of us getting eaten by sharks were very low. Probably. . .
The Preparation
Why are we doing this? Whatever possessed me to think this was a good idea?
Kara and Nate
These were all questions that swirled through my mind as we stood on the San Francisco shoreline, 20 hours before the swim, staring at Alcatraz looming very, very far in the distance. We had hoped that visiting the beach where we hoped to finish our swim would help us visualize success, but I think it only made us more stressed.
So naturally, we decided to take a visit to the one place we knew would fill us with a warm fuzzy feeling: a prison that used to house some of the most deadly criminals in the world. We learned all about the 3 criminals who escaped Alcatraz and attempted to swim to the mainland. Whether they survived the swim or not is something no one will ever know for sure.
Kara and Nate
We should’ve guessed that visiting Alcatraz wouldn’t make us feel any better about this challenge than our visit to the beach, but we continued to purchase some wetsuits and swim caps (because someone who has never worn a swim cap in their life should totally be allowed to attempt a swim as crazy as this one).
The Swim
Ice cold. Bone-chilling. Mind-numbing.
There are no words to describe the shock our bodies felt the moment we jumped into the freezing San Francisco Bay. My breath froze in my throat, and for a moment I thought there was no way I’d make it past the first stroke. Every nerve in my body screamed at me to turn back, to get out, but I knew I just had to keep pushing forward.
Bryan, our guide and open-water swim expert, piloted a boat behind us, never straying more than 10 seconds away in case anything happened. Our angel swimmer Sylvia, who by the way, did this swim twice while pregnant, swam right alongside us cheering us on.
Kara and Nate
The first few strokes were hard. So hard. The waves slapped against my face. I couldn’t catch my breath. My heart was racing, beating faster and faster. My brain screamed at me to stop, but Bryan screamed at us to take “just five more strokes”.
Five more strokes. Just five more strokes. I repeated this over and over. Even as my lungs filled with salt water and the waves slammed into me. The panic I felt was almost overwhelming, but I knew if I stopped, I wouldn’t start again. So I pushed through as my arms burned and my lungs felt on the verge of exploding.
The Half-Way Point
And then there were sharks…
Kara and Nate
As we reached the halfway point, I felt my panic start to subside. I was able to swim 10 strokes at a time, then 20. My mind calmed down and I started to feel confident that I was going to make it to shore.
But then… I swear I started seeing shadows in the water below me. I was sure that a shark was going to swim under me at any moment. And that’s when I started to panic again.
Immediately I caught myself and realized that there was no use in panicking. The shark sighting was all in my head and I needed to focus if I was going to make it to shore. So, I pushed the fears out of my head and put all my focus on taking just five more strokes.
The Finish Line
It was time to race against the clock.
Bryan had told us that if the swim took too long, he’d have to pull us out of the water so we wouldn’t get hypothermia. So as we reached the final stretch, we knew we had to start pushing if we were going to make it to shore in time.
After nearly one hour of swimming, we were getting more and more tired and I swear, every time I looked up, I was just as far from the shore as I had been 10 minutes ago. But as I started to approach the shore, I could hear the sounds of people cheering in the distance and those cheers helped me push to the end.
Kara and Nate
Kara finished first and when I got to shore, I noticed through the brain fog that a group of our Instagram followers had shown up to celebrate the completion of this feat with us. We cannot tell you how grateful we were for their support, hot coffee, fresh pastries, and puppy cuddles. It was the perfect way to end this challenge!
We Survived
That was definitely one of the hardest hours of our entire lives.
There were no breaks, we were constantly fighting through panic, and I swear we drank half of the San Francisco Bay, but the feeling we felt when we finally reached the beach was one of the top highlights of our lives. We did it! (And we never have to do that ever again).
It might seem a little ridiculous to say, but once we finished that swim, we were entirely different people than we were before the swim. We always feel this way when we finish challenges that push us out of our comfort zone. There’s something so validating about facing your fears and conquering them and every time we finish one of these daunting physical challenges, we feel more empowered to go out and take on the world. We’re all so much more capable than we think we are!
If you want to watch our full “escape” from Alcatraz to San Francisco, check out the video below!
Hi! We’re Kara and Nate. High school sweethearts from Nashville, TN whose shared love of travel has led us on the adventure of a lifetime. In 2016 we quit our jobs to spend one year traveling around the world. Seven years later, we still haven’t stopped! We quickly fell in love with life on the road and capturing our travels on video. We’ve visited over 100 countries, and have been fortunate enough to build an awesome community of subscribers on our YouTube channel and newsletter Daily Drop.
We’re so grateful to do what we love everyday and we hope our story and our content might inspire you to travel somewhere new!
