"Even with a wetsuit, it feels like suicide. With each stroke away from the secluded beach, the swimmer becomes more aware that if he stops moving his limbs, the cold of the fifty-degree water will consume them. Within about ten minutes, feet aren’t feet anymore—they become solid blocks attached to legs. The inexperienced ocean swimmers can’t keep their face under to exhale after each stroke because the denseness of the freezing water makes their chest constrict so tightly that exhaling into the blackness would be like trying to blow through a thin straw. But the swimmer keeps moving, struggling against the force of the ocean, like the sensation of two magnets being held so close that they almost meet."
"During the early morning, Kevin Haugh often swims among historic boats resting in the water against the docks where tourists walk in the afternoon. This morning the sun has not risen, and the only distinguishable light he can see is from the round glow sticks attached to his fellow swimmers’ caps. As he swims with his head down, he feels something so large under him that it seems to displace the water, making it rise. As he brings his arm down. . ."
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