The Biggest Bluefish to Ever Come Ashore at Sanibel Island

by Randy Nutt

 

At 9:42 AM on January 10, 1998, Miami's Gail Rice, Gold Coast Masters, splashed into the 66 degree waters on the southeast side of Sanibel and began swimming the twenty-two miles around the island.

The 41-year old mother of two tackled this swim, as she does all her marathon swims, armed only with her suit, cap, and goggles. She only paused long enough every half hour to smile and take some warm fluids from her three-man crew kayaking at her side.

Five hours into her swim, she entered Blind Pass, the mile long shallow divide between Sanibel and Captiva. For over an hour, her crew directed her in zigzags and circles in order to find knee-deep waters she could swim through. When she finally passed into the Gulf of Mexico for her final eight-mile stretch, a three foot wave hit the kayaks, sending the remaining warm fluids overboard.

During the final three hours, the wind picked up as the sun disappeared into the horizon and to combat the cold, Gail churned her arms through the water even faster. Her every muscle quivered so much that when a small fish snuck into her suit, she thought its flailing were her muscles shaking and so the fishy stayed with her to the end.

Nine hours and 37 minutes after she'd begun, Gail Rice, in a lovely shade of blue, swam ashore exactly where she'd started and became the first person ever to swim around Sanibel Island.

 

Note: Last summer, 1997, Gail swam 44 of the projected 70 miles in her Bimini, Bahamas-to-Florida attempt before being defeated, after 14 hours and 53 minutes, by battalions of big, blobby, biting jellyfish that made her nauseas, dizzy, and swollen from the stings. She said she'll be back. She won the 1995 Manhattan Island Marathon Swim, finished second in 1996, and last year, at age 40, became the first person to swim around Miami Beach (21 miles).