An Open Letter to my Ocean 6 Sisters

An Open Letter to my Ocean 6 Sisters

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Flom Barot-Datoy, Ching Furbeyre, Monique Furbeyre, Sheila Omaguing, Frances Yap:

We did it! After more than eight gruelling hours at sea starting from Dumaguete, how wonderful it was to reunite with you in the shores of Siquijor!

How we still had the energy to jump up and down in utter joy, and then run to the welcoming arms of our family and friends – I will never know.

But the one thing I know for sure is this: I could never have done this feat with anyone else but you, guys.

How did we ever even think about swimming to Siquijor anyway? I remember it started out as a joking challenge by our friend Dr. Rene Abesamis. That time, of course, we took it more of a joke than a challenge.

Then we somehow connected with Philippine Aquaman Atty. Ingemar Macarine, the only person who has attempted and succeeded in swimming from Dumaguete to Siquijor. He encouraged us to do the swim, and introduced the idea of doing an open-water relay. Atty. Ingemar even volunteered to swim with us. I think it was at this point that we began to seriously consider it.

The thought freaked us out, for sure. The most feasible route from Silliman Beach to Siquijor had a distance of 26 kilometers.

Twenty-six kilometers? The farthest we’ve swam was only eight kilometers when we crossed the Tanon Strait from Liloan, Cebu to Sibulan, remember? I’m sure we were asking ourselves, how could we possibly swim 26 kilometers?

However, being the Alpha women that we are, we started to believe that we could do it. Our battle cry? “Bahala na!”

As with our other open-water swims, training together was always difficult. Instead, we had to work around our personal schedules to find time for ourselves to train both in the pool and in open water. In between, we kept in touch in our group chat, discussing our training program, plans for the swim, our fundraising efforts, and everything else under the sun.

Unfortunately, I think we enjoyed discussing the “everything else” more than anything.

As the date drew nearer and the swim became all too real, we started to become anxious and apprehensive. The lack of training, the thought of injuries, and personal issues seemed too much of a challenge at times.

But somehow, we always pulled through for each other. Fears were soothed and our confidence gradually grew. We believed we were ready. We could do this. Together.

All too soon, D-day came. May 26, Sunday. Finally we were all together on the water. After a final wave to our family and friends, off we went.

The plan was to swim three kilometers before taking our first water break, then every 30 minutes thereafter.

We each swam alone, but together. We all swam together, but alone. It was a familiar feeling — a silent and personal commune with the blue sky above us and the deep deep, blue sea.

And then came the water breaks. A water break for the Ocean 6 is tantamount to Comedy Hour!

Obviously, we were never born to keep quiet for 30 minutes — because we couldn’t stop the punchlines and the laughter in the time that we stopped swimming and got together for the water break. It was even a miracle that we didn’t forget to drink water!

To be honest, I am now struggling to remember how challenging it just got as the current got stronger, we had to re-route to the shores of the town of Siquijor. I mean, it just felt like an endless, seemingly-pointless series of freestyle, breaststrokes, and backstrokes.

But like a new mama who automatically forgets the excruciating pain of a woman in labor the moment she sees her baby, so it was for me when we could finally see the shores of what they call Isla del Fuego.

But until we made landfall and stand on the shores of Siquijor, no one really knew if we could actually complete the swim.

I know we had originally planned to do a relay swim, but somehow during the swim, we just convinced each other that each of us could swim all the way. And we did! That was pretty amazing, if I may say so.

People always ask us why we do what we do. Well, we do what we do because more than the distances that we swim, we swim for the things we believe in. We swim for the women and girls who need a voice. We swim to protect the ocean and all it holds. We swim to save a life by bringing attention to drowning prevention.

And most of all, we swim because it is in the middle of the vast ocean that we are closest to God, where our prayers start to get more fervent with that first stroke, and does not end even until after that final pull.

My Ocean 6 sisters, it was an honor swimming to Siquijor with you. Twenty two kilometers worth of pure joy, unimaginable pain, sheer excitement, almost non-stop laughter punctuated with frustration, and heavy drama.

Until our next crazy idea… salamat, mga dzae!

Maru Rodriguez

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