Swim Across America Held in Amagansett Saturday

[caption id="attachment_39736" align="alignnone" width="800"] John Ryan Sr. welcomes swimmers to the water off Fresh Pond in Amagansett on Saturday.[/caption]

By Gavin Menu

The End End’s swimming community is strong, and growing stronger. About 100 swimmers participated in the 17th annual Swim Across America event at Fresh Pond in Amagansett on Saturday, raising funds for Swim Across America, a not-for-profit organization that has been on a 27-year mission to support cancer research, prevention and treatment.

One of the swimmers, a young member of the East Hampton Hurricanes program, lost her father a week earlier to pancreatic cancer and swam in his honor on Saturday.

“Her father passed away last Wednesday,” said Hurricanes coach Tom Cohill. “She was in Texas for swim camp, she got home Tuesday night and was able to be with her dad. She took the week off from practice, Tuesday was the funeral and she came for practice Wednesday morning at 6 a.m., and she came to practice Friday morning at 6 a.m. She and her friends went to Taylor Swift last night until 3 a.m. and here she is today.”

Similar stories of hard work and inspiration flowed across the Amagansett bay beach throughout the morning, with tales of survival and perseverance, but also of loss and heartache. Fighting Chance, a Sag Harbor-based organization offering support to cancer patients and their caregivers, also benefits from the event and brought a team to participate on Saturday.

“Some people say these events in the summer are all about the money, but I always say they’re all about relationships,” said Duncan Darrow, founder of Fighting Chance. “We’re trying to build relationships with people who are pillars in the community because we want them to know about us. We see about 300 patients a year, but there are always people you wish you could have touched who didn’t know about you.”

Gordon Trotter and Mike Delalio, who recently opened a new training facility called MuvStrong in East Hampton, organized a team for Saturday’s event in honor of team member and Sag Harbor resident Mike Gaynor’s mother, who recently lost a battle with cancer. The team was outfitted in all pink swimsuits.

“We decided we’d don the pink if we raised five grand,” Trotter said with a smile. “We raised over $6,500 so here we are.”

Twins Griffin and Sophia Taylor starred once again, finishing first in the 3-mile and 1-mile swims, respectively. The 17-year-old swimmers from New York City, who summer in Montauk and work as East Hampton Town lifeguards, finished first and second in the 1-mile swim last year, although the event is not billed as a race and official times are not kept.

Amanda Calabrese, an East Hampton native and elite lifeguard competitor who is off to study at Stanford University in the fall, finished first among 41 swimmers in the half-mile swim.

The event was hosted by the East Hampton Ocean Rescue Squad, which had lifeguards in the water and on the beach at every turn.

“The key to the whole thing is you have the Ocean Rescue guys who’ve been doing this for a long time,” Cohill said. “And you have the older people that embrace the water, they embrace the ocean, they embrace surfing and an active lifestyle. And then it trickles down to the kids.”

East Hampton Ocean Rescue will host its next open water swim, the Montauk Ocean Challenge, on Saturday, July 25, at Ditch Plains Beach. Register at active.com or on the morning of the event. All proceeds will benefit the Montauk Community Playhouse.

[caption id="attachment_39737" align="alignnone" width="800"] Sophia Taylor was the first swimmer to emerge from the water in the 1-mile event.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_39738" align="alignnone" width="800"] Saturday's event brought out swimmers of every age to raise money for Swim Across America and Fighting Chance.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_39739" align="alignnone" width="800"] Griffin Taylor, 17, was the top swimmer in the 3-mile distance.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_39740" align="alignnone" width="800"] Team MuvStrong, which raised over $6,500 at Saturday's Swim Across America event.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_39741" align="alignnone" width="800"] Jim Arnold, a member of the East Hampton Ocean Rescue Squad, helped organize Saturday's event.[/caption]