Length of Penn Cove, Coupeville : 3.2 miles

A Little About Penn Cove: Mussels, Orcas and Water Sports ​

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Penn Cove is our home, but it's also home to the largest and oldest mussel farm in North America, Penn Cove Shellfish. Part of the swim included cruising by the mussel farms, where normally seals hangout and lounge. 

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Penn Cove is also home to many orcas, 100 of which were horrifically captured in the 70s and taken to an aquarium. The captures were funded by marine parks including SeaWorld, Miami Seaquarium, the Vancouver Aquarium, and MarineLand. Tokitae was one of the whales that was captured, who spent her entire life at the Miami Seaquarium. She passed away tragically in 2023 before she was supposed to be taken to a coastal sanctuary. 

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The captures in 1970 were extremely traumatic to the now engandered orcas and the Southern Residents never came back to Penn Cove until 2024. Now, we regularly see orcas in the cove and we even have a little bell on the wharf dock to signal to other people when an orca is swimming by us. We're so lucky to have these amazing creatures back safely in the water by our home! 

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Penn Cove is already known broadly for orcas and mussels - but maybe soon will be known for water sports! People regularly wing foil in the cove over by Long Point and sometimes swim by the wharf.

As far as I'm aware, no one has swam the length of the cove before and wrote a blog post about it - so here we go! 

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Swim Prep: Lipstick ​

​My first open water race was in 2018 in Lake Washington, Seattle, where I swam 2.5 miles across the lake for abortion rights. It was during that swim that I met Masters swimmers, someone who would end up being my Masters coach, and many of the Alki Swimmers.

After that swim, I started on the Masters team in Capitol Hill and also began to swim regularly at Alki. The coach that I met during that Lake Washington swim started out her crossing by putting on bright red lipstick. I loved seeing that the lipstick was still on by the time she had crossed. Glamorous, strong and brave - that was what I aimed to be too.

I put on bright red lipstick (the same color my grandmother religiously wore, gifted by my equally glamorous aunt in NYC) before this big swim in honor of that first swim that changed my life. It reminded myself of my own strength and power and intergenerational strength and power. Having recently going through medical treatment since January, this swim allowed me to assert my own ability to just keep swimming through whatever life throws at me. My grandmother was also an "athlete" in her older years - walking 10-20 miles a day. She was known affectionately around her town of Southington, CT was the "walking lady." I remember playing with her bright red lipstick in her bathroom as a kid - she always looked so put together and she was the strongest and kindest woman I knew. On Mother's Day this year, I took the cross-country pilgrimage to her and my mother's grave in CT before I started medical treatment and asked them to watch over me and give me strength to get through it all and come out on the other side stronger than before. 

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Before my 58-year old mother passed away when I was 30, she told me "keep swimming, it's good for you." She only got to know the very beginning of my swim adventures - I had just started swimming open water when she suddenly got sick and passed away a week later. I swim long distance and cold swims, the hardest kind out there, to honor her statement and care for myself through all of the ups and downs of life. 

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All photos by @paulporterpaulporter 

During the Swim: Jellyfish, Starfish, Seal Friends 

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Unfortunately, the swim was quite uncomfortable for the majority of the time due to the fact that there were egg yolk jellyfish EVERYWHERE. I was constantly dodging them by coming up with new interesting strokes. Some of them were very sneaky and had their bell facing upwards and tentacles floating to the surface. Sometimes they are easy to avoid because the tentacles were floating downwards. I was grateful I could even see them in the water - it was extremely clear. I think if the water had been murky, I would have had to call the entire swim quits. If they had been the formidable yet beautiful Lions Mane jellyfish, I also would have likely had to exit early. I was so lucky for good conditions on this day! ​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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Throughout the swim, I saw loads of colorful starfish - blues, yellows, purples, pinks. I also had a seal follow me for the last mile. I didn't even notice he was right behind me! Only once did I see his speckled body dart through the water. And most importantly, my shoulder held up throughout the 2 hours 15 min and 3.2 miles! At about the 2.5 mile mark I started feeling some shoulder pain and thought it would be over. I paused and tried rubbing the area a bit in the water, and miraculously, it was better. 

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At about the halfway point, I had been stung so many times by the jellyfish in the face that I was starting to get nauseous. I almost stopped because of this too, but decided to keep going. My feet also started to get very cold by the end as I was wearing my thin thermal Blue Seventy booties in order to also wear my fins. Normally, when I don't wear fins I can wear my thicker booties which keep me warmer. It's a trade off that I have to make, and for this swim, I decided the fins were more important to me.

The swim had many obstacles along the way, but none were so horrible that they would make me stop. I was determined to keep swimming. I was nervous about seeing orcas throughout the swim, but having Paul and Evan nearby made me feel so much safer! At the same time, I knew seeing an orca would have been awe-inspiring too. Having recently seen both a shark and bear in the wild, I knew that the anticipated fear is greater than the fear during the sighting itself. The sighting of these animals in the wild  is always remarkable and when I see them, all I want to do is keep seeing them! This is always a good reminder that our anticipation of fear or bad things happening in the future is often greater than the actual situation ends up being. 

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