Limitless - From Dingle to Cape Horn, finding my true north in the Earth's vastest oceans

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THE SOURCE

I pinched my nose and squeezed my eyes shut. The beach seemed so far away. Why did we say this far out? I’m the youngest; I’ve never swum this distance. What if the boys don’t wait? What if I can’t swim that far? The water is really deep. What if I panic, or drown?

Stop it! I screamed to myself. If you cry, Dad won’t let you swim to shore. I put a huge grin on my face, the kind I put on to pretend I was fine, mainly because showing any fear or tears could mean being told I couldn’t do it. You’re too young. I was always too young.

Today I was nine years old, and I was going to jump into that crystal blue water.

Focusing on the castle, I jumped up high. I hit the water so hard it felt like I was sinking for ages. It was deep. I could hear the bubbles. I kicked my legs and put my arms out as if grasping for the blue sky. I opened my eyes. Everything was blurred. The salt water stung my eyes, but I was determined to get to the surface. My cheeks were bursting from holding my breath.

Keep smiling. Don’t panic. You can do this.

I turned around, gave a big thumbs-up to my dad and started my slow swim to the beach, which now seemed like miles away. The small, choppy waves were mountains in my vision. I stared at the stone tower high in the sky, at the people standing at the bathing box (a concrete structure built in the 1900s for ladies to change in because the main beach was men only at that time). I reached out with each stroke, as if pulling it all towards me.

Behind me, standing on the side of the boat, was Gerard, our neighbour’s nephew, who spent summers in Dingle. I heard him jump. The splash was followed by shouting from my father.

‘Nuala! Nuala! Come back! Gerard! Hey! Grab the tyre.’

I flipped over on my back and lifted my head to see my father, two arms holding the boat hook, reaching for Gerard’s arms, which were grasping at the air, directionless.

No, no, no, no! was all I could think.

I screamed at the boys gone on ahead, but my voice was lost in the distance. I turned back to the boat and focused hard on Gerard. At this stage, he was closer to the boat and seemed to be okay. Should I go back or forward? I was half afraid that, if I looked at my father, I would be in trouble for bringing a friend who couldn’t swim.

He was shouting at Gerard, who was now panicking. He caught Gerard with the boat hook, a long pole that he used to pick up ropes for lobster pots. A seasoned fisherman is always accurate with a boat hook. In that minute, Gerard, his curly hair draped over his face, wrapped his arms through the black car-tyre fender, holding on for dear life. I tried not to show any emotion as I breaststroked towards him in case Dad took us both out of the water. He was angry. We were always supposed to check if our friends could swim.

‘I thought you could swim!’ I screamed at Gerard, deflecting my father’s anger and doing my best to ignore his frozen stare and his clenched mouth, recognising the accident that might have happened.

‘I can,’ a squeaky voice replied. We were both more afraid of looking up at my father than the challenge of the deep sea and the waves.

‘I got a fright. No one waited for me. You were gone.’ Gerard was shaking from the experience. We didn’t tell my father that Gerard had never jumped off a boat before.

‘Come on, swim with me to the beach,’ I said as I grabbed him by the arm, pushing my feet off the timber side of the boat. I shoved him ahead of me into the water. He was 13 years old, but he didn’t live by the sea, so I made allowances for him.

‘We’ll be fine, Dad,’ I said with a big smile, as my legs worked hard underwater to keep me up.

I turned to face the beach. The boys were standing on the sand, staring back at us. I was tired, but there was no way I was going to get back onto that boat and miss my day. Getting Gerard to shore was a better plan.

‘You’ll be fine. Just keep heading for the castle.’

I started slowly beside him, convincing him he could make it to the shore, all the time praying I could swim the long distance myself. I could hear the engines of the Bridget as my father prepared to leave, so I relaxed.

It was only fear of the deep water and being left behind by the group that had frightened Gerard. About five minutes later we joined the others, the sand clearly underneath us. Once we were all together, everything was forgotten. That day, pushing Gerard the whole way to the beach, changed so much for me. I realised that not everyone had the same experience as we did. I also gained the confidence to look beyond what I was capable of when I needed to. I needed to get Gerard to shore; I needed my father not to realise I was afraid; I needed to be strong. And I was strong because I was more afraid of being told to leave the water than of facing my fear.

The engines revved and the Bridget steamed away out the bay, rounding the head. We watched her get smaller in the distance. In a few hours, she would return to pick us up.

Our Sundays in summer were all about this trip to the beach, while my father went mackerel fishing out in the bay. The boat was a 30-foot timber fishing boat with the wheelhouse up front. It was painted blue and named after my mother, Bridget.

My father was a fisherman, as were the rest of my family on both sides. The sea has always been a way of life in our family. As a very young child, my job was to sit at our back window for hours, watching, and tell my mother when my father’s boat came around the headland so that she could put the dinner on. Then we ran to the pier to carry his bags home and help him tie the ropes. Catching the ropes on the pier as they were thrown from the boat was such fun. I could never tie the knots, but I could hold the boat until another fisherman or my father got up the ladder.

As children, we spent a lot of time in and around boats on the pier at Dingle. Some children were not allowed on the pier, but it was our playground. We jumped from boat to boat, pulling ropes and helping unload boxes. My mother would not tell my father that we jumped from the pier and swam around and through the islets. The fear of being given out to and stopped was far greater than any fear of the risks.

The Bridget was a small vessel, so she was always tied outside a line of larger boats. When the larger boats came in, the fishermen would untie the vessel next to the Bridget and slot into position, so that a smaller boat was never closer to the pier than a larger boat. This prevented damage. Sometimes it meant our boat was five or six boats out from the pier. We loved pulling the huge ropes, feeling the strength of dragging five or six huge vessels, often falling on our bottoms on the concrete as the huge line of boats drifted towards us on the pier. These were the jobs we were given.

Once the inside boat came close to us, we jumped fearlessly from one boat to the next, always from bow to bow, using the handrails as guides. Sometimes we climbed up high ladders, holding our bags, never dropping anything. This was considered a thrill, one that would be viewed as highly risky today.

Our beach, where we all swam as children, was beside a working harbour. Dad always told us to stay on the rocky side of Sláidín Beach, the east side, the side of the lighthouse. We had been warned to stay away from the ‘channel’ on the west side because this was the deep area where the boats travelled in and out of the harbour. Dad would bring the boat to a stop and point out the deep, running water where the trawlers travelled in from fishing.

He always gave the same warning: ‘If you swim out here and get caught in this flow, you will get swept around the point to the Crow Rock, and you won’t get back in.’ Getting swept away was always a huge risk. ‘I can’t see you in the water under the bow of the boat when I’m in the wheelhouse steering her in. So don’t come over here.’ He always spoke in a tone and manner that made it clear a response was not required.

As the summers passed, I swam out further. In a small town like Dingle, the older children always minded the younger ones on the beach. We would all go there together as a group. I tagged along into the water, too, and the boys always ignored me, hoping I would go away. Around the headland is another beach called Beenbawn, past the lighthouse, an area my father warned me not to pass, but we would walk there every day and swim from the beach. Past the lighthouse, the water is deep, making the tides very dangerous for swimming.

One particular day, the boys decided to go swimming around the headland. My brother told me to wait on the beach. I nodded and sat down on my towel, abandoned. I watched like a prisoner planning an escape. I stared at the rhythm of their arms as they pushed out into the glassy sea, their bodies moving forward silently, the reflection of the green cliff grass clear on the surface of the water. Five heads, staying close to the rocks on the cliff side where it was calm, passing the bathing boxes. They all stood on the rocks and chatted for a minute. Sometimes I could hear a...