Ketchikan swimmer makes history in Wrangell Narrows

Britta Adams of Ketchikan did her homework before jumping into the frigid waters of the Wrangell Narrows last month.

She consulted nautical charts, tide and current tables, cruise ship schedules, ferry schedules, commercial fishing openings and weather reports. She spoke with fishermen, ship captains and the Coast Guard.

Most critically, she downloaded "Uptown Funk" to her iPod.

Guided by husband Mark Adams in an escort boat, friend Mike Schuler in a kayak and singer Bruno Mars in her ears, Adams, 31, became the first known person to swim the twisting, sometimes treacherous Wrangell Narrows in Southeast Alaska.

Adams swam south to north from Marker 1 to Marker 50 on June 14, covering 10.5 miles of the 22-mile channel in about four hours.

For about an hour, from markers 8 through 21, she swam through dense fog that essentially rendered her blind and sent waves of panic through her.

"My husband ran us through there on instrument only," she said. "My kayaker tucked up next to him and I tucked up next to my kayaker.

"This was a huge feat to attempt to begin with, and zero visibility was a hard thing to get my head wrapped around. I lifted my head at one point and I was concerned.

"I swam with my head down for a good 10 or 15 minutes trying to ignore it and work through it. The fog kept getting thicker and thicker. Maybe 20 to 30 minutes into it was the crescendo of my panic."

Cue Bruno Mars.

Adams wore, among other things, a pair of goggles attached to an iPod shuffle and swim buds. As her panic increased, she searched for an up-tempo song to keep her going, and she found "Uptown Funk."

"I said, 'OK, let's go.' I repeated 'Uptown Funk' for the rest of the fog," she said. "Whenever I hear that song now, I think about the fog, and just putting my head down."

Have wetsuit, will swim

Adams, a slight 5-foot-3, grew up in Ketchikan and has been a swimmer for most of her life.

When she was 18, she entered the inaugural Pennock Island Challenge, an 8.2-mile swim around a rocky island near Ketchikan. It was her first taste of ocean swimming, and she's been hooked ever since.

"I swim all over in Ketchikan," she said. "I take a wetsuit when we're out in the boat and I just jump in."

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Adams has done the Pennock Island Challenge five times, but she hadn't gone on a big swim since the birth of her daughter Anneka, now 3. This winter she decided it was time for something new, something bigger. She started planning a swim up the Wrangell Narrows, which goes south from Petersburg to Point Alexander.

William Hopkins, a retired Alaska Marine Highway captain from Ketchikan who wrote a book about the Narrows, said he's never heard of anyone swimming a length of the channel before.

And as news of the feat spread through Ketchikan and Petersburg, no one has come forward with tales of any long-ago Wrangell Narrows swims, he said.

The Wrangell Narrows is one of the most buoyed channels in the world, Hopkins said, and Adams swam the most challenging part of it — a winding stretch known as Pinball Alley because of its many green and red navigational lights.

"Overall it's a remarkable feat," said Hopkins, who sailed for the state ferry system for 30 years.

Water temperature: 48 degrees

Adams began her swim at 4:15 a.m. at Point Lockwood Rock on the day before the start of the commercial dungeness crab season. The timing was an important factor because she wanted to avoid sharing the water with crab pots and fishing boats.

She wore two wetsuits, two pairs of booties, a pair of gloves and neoprene socks with an additional pair of thick socks on top of them. Only her face and neck were exposed.

The water temperature was 48 degrees.

"It is so cold that my teeth and my face hurt when I first get in," she said. "I'm only that cold for a good 15 minutes, and once my body numbs I don't feel that cold."

It takes 45 to 60 minutes to get past the shivering stage and relax into her stroke, Adams said.

"Then it's auto pilot," she said. "My stroke is solid. A metronome. You can set a clock by it. I'm not fast, but I'm consistent."

In preparation, Adams trained in a swimming pool three times a week and in open water once a week.

"My longest training swim in the pool was 14,000 yards," she said, an effort that took four hours and 280 laps. "That was mental training at its finest."

Fueled by Fig Newtons

Adams averaged between 1 to 3 knots and took feedings every 30 minutes, treading water while consuming whole-grain Fig Newtons, energy gummy chews, electrolyte drinks and Ensure.

Her goal was to make it to Marker 42, but when she reached that point, she kept going.

She finally stopped near Green Point, where the current coming from the north meets the current coming from the south. Going farther would have meant swimming against the current.

"I had a lot left in the tank, and that was surprising for me," Adams said. "I can do more. I want to do more. And I will do more."

The swim was a team effort, she said.

Mark Adams, who made the trip in a 31-foot aluminum boat, provided navigational skills acquired from years spent in waters around his hometown of Ketchikan.

Schuler, who frequently serves as a kayak escort for Britta, brought search-and-rescue experience and an ability to read the water.

Those two served as guides while Adams swam and swam and swam.

"My job is not to steer," Adams said. "My job is to swim."

Adams said success required many things to come together at the same time, starting with advice from Hopkins that she swim during a neap tide, which brings the shortest vertical rise and fall and the weakest current.

She needed to make sure she wouldn't encounter a ferry or cruise ship, and she needed decent weather so her husband could safely drive the boat.

"It's a gift for everything to line up," she said.

“I can try anything now’

When she started thinking about the swim in February, Adams was inspired by the idea of doing something that had never been done before.

"It's amazing when people want to do something that's never been done before, that sense of adventure, and they don't know if they can accomplish it but they're putting themselves out there," she said.

"I honestly went into this thinking it would be a great lesson in disappointment: 'Britta, this may not happen.' Working the hardest you've ever worked and not being able to do it. I just promised myself I would be kind to myself no matter what and just do my best.

"I wanted this to be a great experience no matter what the outcome. 'Cause I did the work. I did all the work to make this happen.

"… That is a great feeling. It feels limitless, like I can try anything now."