CITY FOCUS:Fighting stroke by stroke

As the sun rose, Lindsey Eastman paddled through the Pacific Ocean, miles out to sea, salty water lapping in her face. For the past few hours she had been fighting a 102-degree body temperature, nausea, and exhaustion and she still had more than 30 miles to go. Regardless, the 22-year-old from Huntington Beach pulled herself through the water, stroke by stroke, until her hour was up.

Gruelingly, Eastman lugged herself out of the water and into a boat that followed alongside her as she swam, keeping her on course. As she went below deck to sleep off the fever for the next of her five hours, another swimmer plunged into the choppy waters for 60 minutes of bone-chilling exercise.

Tired, nervous and sick to her stomach, Eastman still felt confident as she and five classmates from California Baptist University in Riverside worked at completing a team relay swim from the shores of San Pedro to Catalina and back again. After finishing their journey, they now have bragging rights for completing a Catalina Channel Swimming Federation-sanctioned double crossing, a 50-miles round-trip swim.

Around 8 p.m. Saturday, nearly 24 hours later, Eastman and her five teammates swam into the Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro completing the swim. A crowd of almost 50 family and friends cheered them in from the shore.

“It was pretty smooth sailing except for on the boat,” Eastman said. “We all got really motion sick. We were all throwing up, couldn’t hold down food; even the kayakers were getting sick.” The only people not heaving on the boat were the captain, his crew and the onboard EMT.

Earlier the evening before they set out, Eastman and her teammates were told the seas were too rough, cold and dangerous for the swim that they had spent months training for. But recognizing how determined the group was, the ship’s captain, John Pittman, offered to at least try for a couple of hours and see how things went. Once they got out to sea, there was no turning back. These guys were too determined.

Over the last two months Eastman, Garrett Miller, Melanie Lentz, Louis Boehle, Angie Rodriguez, Barrett Wilson, and alternate Amy Migliazzo could be spotted lapping it up between the Newport and Balboa piers. When they were not pulling through the waters just outside the surf in Newport Beach, the team of six intercollegiate swimmers would throw on a pair of jeans and practice.

The weight of the denim would help simulate the ocean’s strong current, Eastman said.

Besides bad weather, the team experienced a number of kinks in their schedule during the jaunt out to sea, Eastman said. The original plan of hitting the water in pairs for 60 minutes at a time gave each person only a two-hour break in between swims.

The EMT on the boat realized that the swimmers would not make it at that rate and a quick decision was made after the first three rotations that everyone would swim in solo missions. This still gave each swimmer one hour in the water, but now five hours of rest after each outing, Eastman said.

“After five hours we were able to regain body temperature,” she said. “There was no way we were going to do it the other way.”

Along with the crew, a small number of friends accompanied the swimmers on the boat. Eastman’s big brother, Bobby Eastman, 24, and three other kayakers kept an eye on his sister and the other swimmers. Younger brother Michael Eastman, 18, shot video from the boat.

“The hardest part was trying not to psyche myself out,” Lindsey Eastman said. “During the daytime when you could see into the water, you started imagining things,” like just what could be swimming up below you.

Outfitted in only goggles, swimsuits, caps, the team defied 52-degree waters and choppy seas still in the grips of a massive storm originating in the southern hemisphere which, earlier this week, brought 20-foot waves to some Southern California shores.

To keep from chaffing, the group also added an entire layer of Vaseline to their bodies.

Over the last six weeks the group gained sponsorships from Starbucks, UGG Australia, Speedo, and also took private donations, raising around $4,000, which will be given to the Make-a-Wish Foundation.

“I think that this is an answered prayer,” Eastman said. But seeing and hearing the supporters riding along in the boat and on the kayaks gave the group the “momentum” they needed to finish what they started.

Slide shows of training and the swim, along with information on how to donate can be found online, at www.valorswim.org.