While two swimmers put their heart and soul into their attempt to cross Lake Ontario last week, departing from Queen’s Royal Park early Friday morning just minutes apart, neither reached their goal of arriving in Marilyn Bell Park early Saturday morning.
The two men, Jason Kloss and Greg Maitinsky, each had their personal reasons for the swim, and both had to do with mental health.
Kloss’ grandfather, Dick Kloss, was his coach and mentor who recently passed away after suffering from Alzheimer’s. That's why Kloss chose ‘just keep swimming’ as his mantra, from Finding Nemo’s Dory, the blue tang fish who suffers from memory loss every 10 seconds.
Adding to Kloss’ motivation to raise funds for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) was the recent suicide of a friend.
Kloss, who hails from Paris, Ont., said he was embarking on the swim for “everybody who is struggling, like my grandpa who died, and Mike, who died of suicide, and everybody that's still with us and struggling with mental health."
Maitinsky, from Hamilton, had his own reasons. “I have anxiety, so I fight anxiety by swimming,” he said.
This wasn't the first time that either of the men undertook a long-distance open water swim.
Kloss followed his grandfather’s strokes who, more than three decades ago, swam across Lake Huron in 36 hours. Twenty years later, Kloss completed the same swim, from Port Sanilac, Michigan to Grand Bend, Ont., in 26 hours.
After that, Kloss took nearly 11 years off from swimming, but he eventually returned to the pool to improve his mental and physical health.
“Jason has been training really hard for the last year and then more recently, to get out of the pool and into the lake,” said David Moore, Kloss’ father-in-law, “he's spent the last number of months training at our cottage in Lake Huron.”
Due to his parents' travels, Maitinksy has had the opportunity to swim in open water all around the world. In 1982, he swam his first five-kilometre race in Lake Balaton, Hungary, at the age of six. He has also swum in Lake Erie and Lake Huron.
"It's just a great feeling to be in the lake," Maitinsky said. "We've got a beautiful body of water here. And feeling the waves, and seeing the wildlife around it, it's great."
Last year, he completed the same swim in 16 hours, a time he said he hoped to achieve again.
The unstable weather had been a factor and the swimmers were glad to have what looked like an 18 to 21 hour window of good weather Friday and into Saturday morning. Neither swimmer was particularly daunted by the waves rolling in the early hours of the Friday.
“That part is because of the river,” said Maitinsky, pointing to the white caps just off shore. “They tell all the swimmers you have to get through that part and then you're probably good. And that's just because there's a sandbar out there,” he said, pointing to a different set of waves.
“We're hoping that the weather holds,” said Moore.
But their time of departure was moved up, along with a window of arrival, based on weather and in the hope that the swimmers would reach their destination early enough to beat the worst of it.
In indelible black marker, moments before he set foot in the lake, Kloss' wife wrote the initials of his grandfather and his friend Mike onto the back of his hand.
And then the men were off.
Each swimmer had a support crew including feeders, spotters, lifeguard, and EMT, and pacers who were expected to swim alongside.
Unfortunately, after hours of battling strong currents, both men were forced to end their swims prematurely.
At 9:55 p.m. Friday, Greg Maitinsky left the water. His swim team reported he had decided he didn't want to fight the currents and waves for another 12 kilometres, the distance left of the 51-kilometre swim. It was his second time crossing, and his goal was to beat his record, but when he realized it was not in reach, he left the water, and climbed into one of the Zodiacs accompanying him.
Soon after, the engines on one of the boats with him died suddenly, his team reported, and then smelled smoke coming from the engines, and called a mayday. The boat rapidly filled with smoke. The Toronto Harbour Police on patrol not far away arrived to help, and crew members evacuated the boat. Other Harbour Police and fire boats arrived, the electrical fire was extinguished, and the crew were taken to their headquarters.
Jason Kloss pulled himself out at 2:30 a.m. on Saturday, after swimming 40 kilometres, battling waves four to eight feet, while his pace had slowed to a crawl.
Both were safe and well, and as NOTL’s Tony Chisholm, who has experience with helping swimmers during their lake crossing, said the weather is always a gamble, and it’s the lake that beats them.
As it often happens in Lake Ontario, it was the currents near Toronto that were the last straw for the swims.
“It’s always a shame when the swims are not completed," said Chisholm. "It often has nothing to do with the skill or endurance of the swimmer, [but] more [with] what the lake allows."
