Warm tears mingled with the cold ocean water to form a salty crust on Frank Reynolds cheeks as he made his final strokes toward Lovers Point Beach in Pacific Grove. Both exhausted and exhilarated, he took a few critical steps onto the warm sand before returning to the water to embrace the four other men who had joined him on this crazy and sentimental adventure.
In Saturday’s predawn darkness, brothers Frank and Paul Reynolds, their uncle Joe Schertler and friends Thomas Dietrich and Michael Scharf had set out from Capitola Beach with two missions in mind: 1, to honor the Reynolds’ grandfather, Frank Sr., a prolific marathon swimmer who was afflicted with Lewy Body Dementia prior to his death in June 2014; and 2, to swim the 24 miles across the Monterey Bay in record time.
Ten hours and 20 minutes later, they could cross both items off their lists.
“It was very emotional. I kind of teared up as I was approaching Lovers Point and the beach,” said Reynolds, 29, of Monterey. “It was emotional, just thinking about all his crossings. He was an inspirational human being, not just from a swimming standpoint, but from a character standpoint. It was beautiful.”
Adhering to the Monterey Bay Swimming Association rules, which prohibit swimmers from wearing anything but a basic swimsuit, cap, goggles and a coat of Vaseline, the five mostly newbie marathon swimmers became the first sanctioned relay team to complete the crossing. Because the MBSA is less than a year old, and the relay was the first to complete a crossing under its auspices, they are also the fastest.
Kim Rutheford, a founding member of the MBSA and an official observer for the relay, said relay teams from Santa Cruz Masters Swim Club and UC Santa Cruz have also completed the crossing, but their times and the validity of their swims are currently unknown.
“There have been many relays who have crossed the bay. This is the first one under our guidance,” said Rutheford, who completed the swim herself last September.
Still Rutheford said, there’s no denying the team was fast.
“They were really good and fast swimmers. With perfect conditions, it was a perfect match,” she said.
The fastest known crossing is 13 hours flat, set in a solo effort by Dublin’s Patti Bauernfeind on Aug. 26, 2014.
“I love the fact that anybody is swimming there, it is such a gorgeous body of water. We are so blessed to have it there,” said Bauernfeind, who noted that solo and relay efforts are typically not compared. “Anybody going out and enjoying it and challenging themselves, I think it’s terrific.”
Reynolds and Dietrich, who both swim regularly with the Kelp Krawlers, an open-water swim club in Monterey, hatched the idea for the swim while looking across the bay at Santa Cruz after a workout last December. Both played collegiate water polo and, as Reynolds put it “had our pick of the litter.” So they put out the word and before long had recruited an all-star squad. Scharf, 29, of San Francisco was the MVP of the 2007 NCAA Men’s Water Polo Tournament with Cal and Paul Reynolds, 22, of Los Angeles was a four-time NCAA All-American water polo player with UCLA. Meanwhile Schertler, 53, of Atherton, brought critical open water experience. The Reynolds brothers’ uncle, Schertler also swam the English Channel as part of a relay.
For the next eight months, they worked with coach Peter Albers to fine tune their plan and their training. Whenever they wrote an email to one another, they signed off with the mantra “Under 12 hours.”
“We definitely wanted that. That was the driving force,” Dietrich said. “When we got cold, the last 15 minutes felt like 15 hours. It was hard to keep your mind with a positive attitude to keep going.”
The swimmers agreed to take hour-long stints. A countdown clock would warn the next swimmer that his time would near. After slathering on the Vaseline as protection from hypothermia and jellyfish stings, he would dive into the water behind the swimmer, surpass him, then give him a high-five to mark the exchange.
Frank Reynolds went first, diving into the pitch-black waters off of Capitola Beach at 3:30 a.m. Then, just as he passed the pier, he heard a deafening screech.
“It made me kind of cringe and ruined my stroke,” he recalled.
It turned out to be a large dolphin, which had cut between Reynolds and the support boat. Dietrich said that as it swam away through the bioluminescence, it left a trail and scene worthy of a Disney movie. During a later leg, Reynolds again found himself surrounded by dolphins, this time hundreds of them. The team also saw a shark during one of Paul’s legs, as well as whales. They saw jellyfish — the creature that had foiled many previous crossing attempts — but didn’t get stung once.
“We’re still kind of taking it in,” Dietrich said Monday. “The fact that it came together and conditions were perfect — well, we would have liked it to be warmer — but the swells were minimal, there was no wind, it was cloudy all the way across until the very end when it was sunny. We couldn’t ask for a better crossing.
“We could try to do it 10 times and it wouldn’t be as smooth as this one.”