Fear is the Thing With Fins

By Matt Frassica, published by Out There Podcast

Released on Dec. 1, 2022

Welcome to Out There Podcast. Our stories are written for the ear, so for those able, we recommend listening while reading along. Transcripts may contain minor errors; please check the audio before quoting.

VOICEOVER: Hub and Spoke Audio Collective.

WILLOW BELDEN:  Hi, I’m Willow Belden, and you’re listening to Out There, the podcast that explores big questions through intimate stories outdoors.

We are hard at work planning out our next season, which is set to launch in the spring. Until then, we’re bringing you bonus episodes from time to time. And today is one of those times.

This story is about fear.

When you fear something, what do you do? Do you avoid it? Do you find ways to manage the fear? 

Producer Matt Frassica brings us the story of a marathon swimmer who has to overcome a fear of deep water every time she competes. It’s a fear that’s rooted in an experience she had as a teenager.

This story first aired on Matt’s podcast, The Briny, in 2021.

PAT GALLANT-CHARETTE: When I arrive at the ocean I will stand on the beach, and I’ll scan the water. I will look to see if there is any diving birds, and if I see any seabirds diving, that means there is a school of fish there. So I remove my wedding band, earrings, necklace and I do not wear tinted goggles. They’re plain goggles. Because anything that’s shiny, it’ll you know resemble fish scales, and so if a bigger fish, if something catches their eye, they’ll come in to investigate. And I don’t want to be investigated. (laughs) You know? So.

MATT FRASSICA: One day a couple of months ago, I called up Pat Gallant-Charette, who lives outside Portland, Maine. 

PAT: I am almost 70, I’ll be 70 in a few months. I’m a retired registered nurse. I’m in the International Marathon Swim Hall of Fame. And I hold six Guinness World Records for various swims. 

MATT: The title she’s most proud of is her record as the oldest person to complete what’s called the Triple Crown of open water swimming.

PAT: Which is around Manhattan Island, English Channel, and the Catalina Channel in California. 

MATT: Open-water swimmers like Pat aren’t allowed to wear wetsuits, even when they’re swimming in really cold water. But there is one piece of equipment Pat always swims with.

PAT: I bring a shark shield with me. It’s an electrical, invisible fence that sends an impulse, that if a shark gets near a person, it tickles their snout and they turn around.

MATT: This is The Briny, a podcast about the way we’re changing the sea, and the way the sea changes us. 

I live in Maine, and last summer, a woman was killed by a great white shark while she was swimming with her daughter off the coast. 

NEWSCASTER 1: Maine Marine Patrol says it is investigating the death of a swimming in possible shark attack off the coast of …

NEWSCASTER 2: If officials confirm this was indeed a fatal shark attack, it will be the first in Maine’s history.

NEWSCASTER 3: You can only go in up to your ankles at Popham Beach, a restriction added for swimmers, following Monday’s deadly shark attack at nearby Bailey Island…

MATT: There was a full-on shark panic, in the middle of a pandemic summer when it seemed like going to the beach was one of the few safe things to do.

Never mind that the experts said that great white sharks had always cruised the Gulf of Maine. And that this attack was the first fatality in the state since anyone had kept records. Or that the sharks were only interested in eating seals, not humans. 

Still, they put restrictions on how deep you could go at the state beaches. They said it was important to stay in shallow water because great whites are ambush predators — meaning they approach their prey from below. 

When I went back in the water, in the weeks after the attack, every time I put my head under, my heart started racing. I imagined seeing something coming up from the darkness. And two words kept repeating in my head: ambush predator, ambush predator.

That’s when I heard about Pat. When she’s training for a marathon swim, Pat always stays in shallow water.

PAT: I never, ever go deep unless it’s the day of the event. That’s the only time I go in deep water. 

MATT: And that’s because of something that happened to Pat decades ago.

PAT: When I was 13, my brothers and I went clam digging. My mother, before we left, she says, “You be careful of that incoming tide.” So of course, being teenagers, we didn’t listen to her. And we were clamming, and all of a sudden we had our baskets filled, and we turned around to head back to land which was only like 300 yards, and all of a sudden there was water surrounding us. 

So we had to abandon our clam baskets and our picks, and we had to swim for it. I mean I was only 13, and I had no fear. It was just like, ‘Oh, we have to swim a short distance.’ We were down by the jetty. 

So anyway we started swimming and all of a sudden, my brother screamed, “Shark.” And when he screamed “shark,” I could tell he was not kidding. The tone of his voice frightened me. And I turned around, and there was something right behind me that went down. And I really thought that was a shark.

And I panicked. I couldn’t swim. And I thought I was gonna drown.

 And I remember just flailing in the water, thinking this is it. And suddenly, maybe about 10 feet in front of me, a seal pops its head up. And it was a seal the whole time. It was not a shark. And I just couldn’t get over that I thought I was going to drown, and it was all from fear.

And I just can remember that fright that I had. And from that day forward, whenever I went back into the ocean, I never went deeper than my waist. Even when my children were youngerm we’d go to the ocean, it was always shallow water. 

Just that thought, that they might be out there, and having that fear instilled in me at such a young age, I mean it just carried with me. 

WILLOW: Hey, it’s Willow. We’ll hear the rest of the story in a moment. But first, Out There is supported by About the Journey, an original podcast from Marriott Bonvoy Traveler.

From a Black-owned bookstore in Washington, D.C. to the birthplace of the largest queer film festival, travel journalist Oneika Raymond connects with locals who speak to the heart of the dynamic places she visits. The people she interviews will tell you where to go, what to do and how to see the world in more sustainable and meaningful ways.

I checked out an episode about Dallas, TX, where Oneika visits the Texas Black Invitational Rodeo.

So - in case you didn’t know this - a large percentage of cowboys, historically, were Black. Oneika shares their story, and she takes us into the thick of the action at this legendary rodeo event, where hundreds of Black cowboys and cowgirls compete.

Search for About the Journey in your podcast player. We’ll also include a link in the show notes.

And now, back to the story.

MATT: You might think marathon swimmer would be an odd career path for someone like Pat. But something happened in her late 40s that changed her outlook.

PAT: My youngest brother, Robbie, at the age of 34, died suddenly of a heart attack. 

MATT: Her brother Robbie was a serious swimmer. And he had competed in this race called the Peaks to Portland, which is a 2.4 mile swim from Peaks Island in Casco Bay to a beach near downtown Portland, Maine.

PAT: And Robbie had won the Peaks to Portland twice. My son Tom was 16 years old, and he was swimming on a local high school swim team. And he said he wanted to swim the Peaks to Portland as a tribute to his uncle Robbie. And I remember saying to him, “That’s so sweet, I wish I could do the same.” And he said, “Ma, you can if you try.” And I thought, you know, why not? I’ll give it a try. And I started training. 

It took me over a year before I even qualified. But I remember that very first day, just standing there with all these young, slender athletes, and here I was, gray hair, overweight. And I remember just thinking to myself, ‘What the heck did I get myself into?’ And then I started to think, ‘You know Pat, who cares if you come in last? Who cares?’

So anyway, I started swimming, and at the halfway mark, I was at Fort Gorges, in Casco Bay, and something clicked. I just, there was something about the tranquility of being in the ocean. I remember seagulls were squawking above, and I remember seeing a couple lobster boats going by. And it was just so tranquil. And I said, ‘Wow, I really really like this.’ 

And any fear, I mean, I didn’t have any at that time, and I was just focused now on getting to the finish line.

MATT: Pat liked being out on the water so much that she decided to keep swimming. At age 59, she swam across the Strait of Gibraltar. A year later, she swam the English Channel for the first time. 

All through her sixties, Pat kept swimming, and breaking records. But every time she got in the water, fear came with her.

PAT: When I was swimming Northern Ireland to Scotland, that’s a tough swim. But I was probably a half a mile out. The sun was just coming up, and I see something bigger than me circling me. But I couldn’t make out what it was. But all I could see was something going around and around, and it was following me. And I was thinking, ‘What the heck is that?’ 

And about 5 minutes later it was still with me. And all of a sudden, it went vertical, and I said, ‘Oh my word, this thing is getting in position to come at me.’ It did come at me. But what it was was this sea lion. 

And we came face to face — coulda touched it.

MATT: Pat has had a bunch of scares like this. And she has seen sharks. But she remembers how panicking almost made her drown when she was 13. So she talks to herself to calm down.

PAT: I’ll say, ‘OK Pat, you have a shark shield. You have your crew that is watching for your safety.  You also hired a boat crew that has the pilot and his crew watching for safety. Don’t go to the negative thoughts. Just stay focused and swim.’

Like, swimming Catalina Island, that’s off the California coast, it’s a 21 mile swim. The start of it is at midnight. And when we arrived, they had to shine a spotlight on the water. And here it is, pitch black out. Well, when they put the spotlight on, all of a sudden, we could see all these shimmery fish. And I’m thinking, ‘Hm, I wonder what’s going to be following them.’ You know, that’s the first thing that I thought of, because great whites are known in that area. 

And then all of a sudden, we hear this sound behind the boat. It was a whale that was spouting through its blow hole. 

So I jumped in the water, and then I started my swim. And probably 70 percent of that swim, I felt as though I was in this like sound proof room listening to the sounds of whales communicate. That’s all I could hear. It was like music. 

One mile out, I had something go underneath me that was bigger than me, and I could’ve touched it’s dorsal fin. I let out this bloodcurdling scream. And my crew, they were laughing. I was like, “What the heck?” And they said, “Pat, Pat, those are dolphins. Look around you!” And there was about 100 dolphins that all congregated around me. So that was pretty cool.

But as far as the fear, I always try to put it on the back burner. I figure, I get in the car every day, and I could get in a car accident, but I don’t stop driving because I’m fearful of getting in a car accident. You know, life is a risk. And I’m not about to stop because there are some fears.

MATT: I’ve been thinking about fear, and caution, and when one or the other of those things is justified. Pat’s story is a reminder. On the other side of fear, sometimes there’s a pod of dolphins swimming with you.

WILLOW: That story was produced by Matt Frassica for his podcast, The Briny. 

The Briny tells stories about how we’re changing the sea, and how the sea changes us. If you enjoyed this story, check out all the other episodes. Just go to thebriny.net, or wherever you get your podcasts.

So, one of the things I’ve been doing lately is selecting stories for the next season of Out There. 

And the way this works is that we put out a call for pitches, and then freelance producers from all over the world get in touch and send us their story ideas. We pick the ones that are most promising, and then we work with the freelancers to develop their stories. 

This process takes months. Like, a lot of months. Each story is carefully mapped out. Meticulously scripted. We go through umpteen rounds of edits. And that’s before we even get started on sound design.

I love this process. It’s collaborative and creative, and it enables a really wide array of individuals to tell meaningful stories in their own words.

But it’s also expensive. Those freelancers who produce stories for us? They spend a lot of time on their pieces. And we have to pay them.

That’s why I come to you so often, asking for support. 

Listener contributions make up about half of our operating budget. YOU make this podcast possible. And the more of you who contribute, the more stories we can produce, and the better they’ll be.

To everyone who is already supporting Out There — thank you, thank you, thank you! Current supporters include Dani Flores, Eric Biederman, Phil Timm, Doug Frick, Tara Joslin, and Deb and Vince Garcia.

To everyone else who is listening, thank you for being a part of the Out There community. It’s important to me that this show be available to everyone, regardless of whether you have the money to help support it.

But if you do have the means to make a contribution, consider becoming a patron. Patrons make monthly contributions to the show, through a crowd-funding platform called Patreon. You decide how much to give, and we take care of the rest.

Just go to patreon.com/outtherepodcast to get started, or click the link in the episode description.

The story you heard today is from The Briny, which is produced by Matt Frassica. Special thanks to Pat Gallant-Charette. 

Out There is a proud member of Hub & Spoke, a collective of wonderful independent podcasts. The Briny is also a member of Hub & Spoke. And you can check all of that at hubspokeaudio.com.

Out There’s advertising manager is Jessica Taylor. Our audience growth director is Sheeba Joseph. Our ambassadors are Tiffany Duong, Ashley White, and Stacia Bennet. And our theme music was written by Jared Arnold. 

Have a beautiful day, and we’ll see you in 2023.