Kim Swims

Make them real nice and long. Stretch it out.

Nice and long.

Come on, Kim, you got this.

Whoo-hoo!

- Ready? - Yeah.

Fifteen hours of really good conditions

in that water is almost impossible.

-Right. - So...

And I'm prepared to take a bit of a beating.

- Oh, you're gonna take a bit of a beating. -Yeah, I do like...

I do like it rough.

You know, with this kind of odd system coming in,

I would just wait.

Usually this time of year, you don't have a chance in hell to swim out.

The Farallon Islands are the strange outcropping

of very remote islands

30 miles off the coast of San Francisco.

The goal is to swim from the Golden Gate Bridge

to the Farallon Islands.

It's a distance of about 30 miles.

Three men have done this swim.

And no woman has done this swim yet,

and... I want to be that woman.

- Simon's up. -He's first up.

-What if he fails? -Excuse me.

-Yeah, yeah, yeah. -The Aussie-Kiwi team.

-Oh, yeah. - But it's a friendly rivalry.

He's going first, and he's going to be the first to solo

Golden Gate Bridge to the Islands.

We got together to plan our swims

with Vito Bialla and David Holscher.

You have Vito, who is the captain;

David, who is one of the crew members,

a very accomplished marathon swimmer himself,

who also understands the tides.

So what we talked about was, what was

the best time of year to do this swim?

We obviously want to do it as late in the season

as we could, because the water's warmer.

But we also knew that September, October, November

is not a time that you want to be swimming at the Farallons.

You get a slight little ebb, but you get

a huge flow taking you out through the Gate.

I think it's the hardest swim in the world.

It's cold water. Most of the time,

very, very rough conditions, so for a solo swim,

I'm going to be waiting for essentially the stars to align

for it to be as flat as possible.

And then there is, you know, the wildlife,

as we call it--

the great white sharks.

I've seen the shark pattern. They're all around the island,

all around the island, all around the island.

I mean, either direction doesn't bother me that way,

because I also feel, for me personally,

it's... it's a very special place.

Oh, it is. For me in my head,

it's like the ecosystem of the Farallons

is 300 yards wide.

But you're going towards it, and that is... that...

-When you're weak and you're... - Yeah, you're tired.

The idea of swimming at the Farallons is completely nuts.

And I know

99.99% of people will agree with that.

But that is also... a tremendous allure for me.

You're gonna make it. There's no doubt about it.

-Yep, yep. -This is good.

So I'll send you guys... like, every five days,

we'll pick a day, and then we'll backtrack

-what the day does. - Okay.

I'm Vito Bialla,

and I'm chairman of Night Train Swimmers,

a nonprofit organization that fosters swimming.

-Incoming! - Buh-bye!

Bye!

I don't know how to describe Kim.

First time we went swimming, she got into the water,

and I took off and did two strokes, and I looked.

It's like, "Where's Kim?" And I looked behind me, and she was behind me.

She was like flashing and thrashing.

It's like, "Oh, my God, did we make a mistake?"

But she had that determination that she wants to be a swimmer.

It's like, OK, well, you have tiny little hands,

you have tiny little feet, you know, your form is awful.

You're gonna need a little help.

So next time she showed up, she was just a little bit faster.

-Whoo! -And that's the story of Kim.

Every time she showed up she was more intense,

and she trains hard.

I met Kim about four years ago.

I went down to swim with Night Train

for the first time, and Vito said,

"You need to meet this Kiwi girl."

And I thought, yeah, I suppose I'll meet her.

If she's Kiwi, if she's not Australian,

she can probably still be my friend.

She was a good swimmer, she wasn't a great swimmer.

She'd only started swimming probably a year and a half before I met her.

But she was already starting to do these

really long swims, and I thought that was

pretty special that someone that wasn't

a native swimmer had made themselves a swimmer.

And I think that's something about Kim--

that when she decides to do something, she jumps straight into it.

She doesn't really just dip her toe in,

she tends to jump in full steam ahead, straightaway.

Whoo!

Kim's whole sort of

body language is, like, bring it on.

She pours so much of her love and passion

into the sport and the things that she does,

and that's what Kim's all about.

It's very special to see her go from being

a shitty swimmer to one of the greatest in the world.

I grew up on a sheep and cattle farm

basically in the middle of nowhere,

south of this little town called Te Kuiti,

and it's actually the sheep-shearing capital of the world.

We did do some swimming. At that time every school,

pretty much in New Zealand had a swimming pool.

You'd do some lengths, you'd learn water safety

and things like that.

But, really, ballet was my thing.

And that was something that I started

when I was really, really young.

It became a really, really big part of my life.

Ballet definitely didn't come easy to me. I had to work for it,

and there were times when I definitely wanted to quit,

but my mum made me continue, and I'm really glad

that she did because it gave me

that sort of, I guess, that grit to persevere,

even if something's uncomfortable or if you don't like it.

I swim because

I feel so fulfilled.

I can't imagine my life without swimming.

It really completes me in a way

I didn't know I needed to be completed.

One thing I always notice

is when I'm back on land, all of the signposts say,

"Go left, go right, slow down."

It's all so controlled and prescribed.

When I'm out there in the ocean,

it's endless.

I am creating my own path.

It's this adventure,

and it's just a magical, magical space.

I'm weightless.

I don't know what's going to happen.

I don't wanna know what's gonna happen.

I don't wanna know how it ends.

Preparing for these swims is really an all-consuming goal.

I also have a day job that I love,

but I need to get my training in,

either before or after.

So I typically wake up around 4:00, 4:15 in the morning.

Check in with emails, things,

just to kind of see how my day is positioned.

And then I swim in a pool from 5:45 until 7:00.

Then I drive back to an aquatic park,

and I swim there for 45 minutes,

and then I go to work.

Last night I couldn't sleep.

It's this excited nerves.

It sort of comes in waves.

Sometimes it feels so surreal that this is coming up.

My dear friend and swim buddy, Simon,

his window starts on Monday.

He's up first, and I know he's gonna do it,

and I'm really, really excited for him.

Yeah, this is the Golden Gate Bridge,

and every time I go across this bridge

in the daytime, I look to see if I can see

those islands, they're pretty elusive,

you can only see them on a really, really clear day,

and that's what makes them...

that adds to the allure and the mystery.

Every time I cross this bridge,

I think about the swim.

I need to do this swim to be able to move

to the next chapter of my life.

So if I don't make the swim, what does that mean?

I have to be completely realistic.

That is a significant possibility.

And I'm prepared for it. I have trained for this.

Really all that awaits me is fate.

I read one headline,

you know, about,

you know, swimming in shark-infested water,

who would do that, and...

It is a little bit crazy.

So... I don't know, I just,

I wouldn't... I wouldn't not do it.

So what does that say about me?

I don't know.

Yeah.

Really what led me to swimming was,

you know, something that I, at the time thought was

the worst possible thing that could ever happen to me.

It was a fall down a staircase.

I hit my right leg on this big ceramic pot