Here's Mud in Your Eye (cont.)

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Outside Magazine August 2001

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Here's Mud in Your Eye (cont.)


	Big win, li'l trophy: For world-record holder John Cantillion, it's the thought that counts

AT LAST, IT IS TIME FOR THE games to begin. By 2 p.m. a couple hundred people have parked by the dirt track, trudged past the Ben & Jerry's van, crossed a single-plank bridge where a stream trickles out of the trench, and arranged themselves amid tussocks of hardrush on the banks of the bog. Standing at the starting line, shuffling his papers and peering over his glasses, Green explains the rules, which are few and suitably primitive.

Contestants will enter the bog one at a time. (This is trickier than it seems, since their numbers bear no relation to the starting order.) They must wear mask and snorkel; fins and wetsuit are optional. They must set off from the starting post, swim the length of the trench propelling themselves only with their legs (because, frankly, there's not enough room in the bog to do much with your arms), round the far post, and swim back. Bryn Davis is in charge of the stopwatch. Ladies may take a break at the far end without time penalty, though it will turn out that taking breaks has less to do with gender and more to do with sheer exhaustion.

Contestant number one, possibly Jeff Stone, thrashes off in an explosion of weedy water, but the bog is a lot longer and heavier than he has thought, and he stops every 20 feet on the return leg, floundering and gasping, kneeling in the bog to get his wind, spitting out his mouthpiece and a volume of stagnant water.

Next up is John Cantillon. His wetsuit reveals that he has thighs like mature anacondas. He dolphins away with such power that he washes both banks with a substantial bow wave, turns at 50 seconds, and shoots past the finish post with the grace of an underwater rugby player scoring a goal. A new world record: 1:39.13, nearly five seconds faster than the existing mark, set in 1997. He grins modestly and then leaves to catch the ferry back to Ireland. He needs to be at work early the next morning, looking after the interests of his travelers.

In honor of the town's history, Julia Galvin has mounted a small green velvet frog in her hair. She repeats her mantra and sets off with the calm dignity of a sea turtle. She has trouble with her mouthpiece and has to keep stopping to cough up peaty water ("Nice girls don't swallow," she informs the crowd) but records a creditable 3:50.41.

Dave McCormack, a bearded giant and the Irish team driver, goes next and manages a worthy 2:37.31, but then things drop off a little. The next guy crawls out of the far end of the bog and is never seen again. He is followed by snorkeler number 33, who has the promising name of Simon Whale. Whale looks every inch a pro in his new blue wetsuit but ends up with the slowest time of the day, almost four and a half minutes, and has to be hauled out at the finish line to lie giggling and wheezing on the bank.

Fortunately, the volunteer ambulance team—which consists of two middle-aged ladies, one of their sons, and a middle-aged man—is at the ready. The ladies offer Whale water. "Have a swig and wash all that lovely bog out of you," one counsels. They are assisted by a white terrier named Scrappy, who is wearing his own yellow reflective vest with MEDIC inked on the side.

Andrew Stead, from Australia, is next. He approaches the bog wearing only swimming trunks, mask, snorkel, and fins, having apparently decided to forgo the traditional wetsuit.

"What do I do if his shorts come down?" asks one of the ambulance ladies, sotto voce.

"Send in the dog," whispers the other.

Aside from Ireland, Australia is the only country to be represented by a national squad, even though this consists only of Stead, a fellow snorkeler, and a four-foot-tall inflatable penguin. "He's our coach," Stead explains after finishing, trunks intact, in 2:54.15.

Roz Lunn, a professional diving instructor from England, has the power and the breath control but loses time because she keeps plowing into the banks. "I couldn't see a thing," she says, panting at the finish (2:43.22). "It was like swimming through gravy." Strange wriggling trails like snake tracks appear in the bog: small fish, driven to the surface by the underwater mayhem.

Despite such challenges, the back of the pack shows a final flourish of class. Brian Crossan, who has as hairy a pair of feet as I've ever seen on a man, manages a good enough time to be Team Ireland's number-two finisher. Craig Napper of South Wales, champion two years back, swims 1:42.28 to finish second, and Gemma Davies, also from South Wales, wins the women's prize with an impressive 1:55.32.

By 5 p.m., it's all over. The last snorkeler has crawled out of the bog, and the crowd has thinned appreciably, as anyone with any sense has headed off across the field in search of a towel, a shower, or a drink. Green, warning everyone that "I could easily have made a mistake," reads the results, surrounded by dozens of wet, smelly, mud-streaked, weed-festooned lunatics. Simon Whale unaccountably fails to show up to claim his Slowest Time award. Julia, as president of the Irish Bog Snorkeling Association, accepts John's £40 and the winner's silver cup. A small boy has caught a ten-inch trout in the bog and put it in a bucket, and he is showing it to anyone who will look.

The water of Waen Rhydd, originally resembling a badly corked Chablis, is now the color and consistency of brown paint. There is little distinction between the bog and the bank, where the wet grass has been trampled flat and even the spectators are floundering in the mud. A kind of retro-evolution is taking place, and civilized humans are turning back into amphibians. At least for now, the bog has won.

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