18-year-old swims “for the sea” from sea link to Gateway

MUMBAI: At 12 midnight, as the lights dimmed in the city, Hazel Raikundalia and her family left home to board a jetty docked at the construction site of the Bandra-Versova Sea Link. From there, they headed to a pillar at the Bandra-end of the Bandra-Versova Link Road, and at 2.09 am sharp, Hazel jumped into the sea.

“It was pitch-dark, and I could not see a thing,” she said. “I only knew which direction to swim in because of the light and sound of the boat in front of me.”

Hazel had embarked on a 36-km swim from the Bandra-Worli Sea Link to the Gateway of India, a feat that would take her till morning. Her goal was to call attention to the filthy, polluted waters around the city as well as get certified to tackle tougher routes like the English Channel, where the waters are far colder and choppier.

“Plastic bottles kept hitting me in the face, as well as pieces of net, so I had to keep warding them off with my hands,” said Hazel, recounting the gruelling all-night swim. “But the worst part was the dirty, stinky water; it left a bad taste in my mouth. Whatever I ate in my breaks, nuts and chocolates, I vomited out.”

The other major factor against her was the tide. Initially planned for the night of December 31, the date of the swim was shifted to December 29 as the tide conditions and timings were more favourable. But five km into the swim, while the tide continued to stay low, it changed wind and went against her. “The waves would hit me in the face, and that was painful. It tired me out,” said the teenager, who is a first-year student at K J Somaiya Medical College.

What kept her going amid the thrashing tide and vast and boundless Arabian Sea, which gave little indication of the distance left, were the hearty cheers of friends and family accompanying her on three fishermen’s boats. Her coach Umesh Utekar, an impartial observer from the Maharashtra State Amateur Aquatic Association and other swimmers from the Thane swimming club were also aboard, who joined her for 10-minute stretches. More family members joined on a fourth boat towards the morning.

“What we were afraid of was fishermen’s nets that she could get entangled in,” said Hazel’s father, Mitesh. “So the boat ahead shone a light in the water and ensured there were none.” When asked if there was any moment that they felt scared, both parents answered in the negative. “We’ve been busy preparing for the swim for two nights, but all through the night, we couldn’t keep our eyes off her,” said Mitesh. “She was magnificent.”

Hazel has been a swimmer since age 12 and has swum at the state and national level but the push towards long-distance swimming happened after the lockdown, when her coach propelled her towards it, noting she had the requisite stamina and physique. He too had swum in the seas around Mumbai in 1992 in a relay race, completing it in 42 hours along with five other swimmers.

To prepare, apart from her usual daily training from 6 am to 8 am and 5 pm to 7 pm, Utekar asked for permission for all-night practice routines at the Thane club. “They were very supportive,” he said. “Hazel swam twice for eight hours straight from 9 pm to 5.30 am.” While they covered only 24 km, the same distance is much tougher in still waters than in moving ones.

At 9.14 am, after clocking seven hours, five minutes and 49 seconds in the sea, Hazel alighted at the steps of the Gateway of India. She had battled garbage, thermocol, oil spills, plastic, and parts of her body were stained black from the filth. But as her father remarked, her objective of drawing attention to the filth in the seas was achieved. As was, of course, her marathon target.