gradually realized that my life would not permit me to realize the idea of swimming around the world. Doing such would cause me to not see my family for years on end. How could I possibly earn a living during this time? How would others see the situation? I started running through the criticism to come through my mind.
But the idea of a project involving swimming had grabbed me. There was no way of getting away from it. My objective was to achieve a Utopia. And I needed a vision that would get me there, a vision that I could realistically expect to realize.
I started looking for other projects involving swimming— and found the answer in the largest lakes in the world. In contrast to the highest summits in the world, which have all been climbed, the world’s largest lakes have yet to be discovered by swimmers. These bodies of fresh water include Asia’s Lake Baikal, Lake Victoria in Africa, Lake Titicaca in South America, the Great Lakes in North America, a variety of small-sized lakes in Oceania, and Lake Ladoga, which is located north of St. Petersburg, and which is the largest fresh water lake in Europe.
The more I studied the atlas, the stronger that I perceived the blue it contains, and the less the colors of its land masses. I have retained this focus to this very day. The first things I notice nowadays when consulting a map are the blue lines and expanses it contains. My way of perceiving the world is that of someone looking at a negative, in which the gaps between solids strike the eye. I have retained this 180° reversal of perception to this very day.
The large lakes—the “sweet seas” as I refer to them—occupied my mind throughout the entire winter of 2006/2007, and into the spring beyond.
It was spring and I was in Chur, a city in eastern Switzerland, when inspiration struck me. I was drinking my coffee— as usual unsweetened—and was regarding the unopened bags of sugar provided to me. The bags were illustrated with maps of Switzerland, its cantons—and its lakes. In the small maps’ tiny scale, my canton of Graubünden was an expanse of white, with no blue of lakes and rivers to be seen. This map was akin to those of the great explorers, for whom the world was comprised solely of such white uncharted areas. “Eu stögl cumanzar davant mia porta!”—“I have to start right at home” in Rhaeto-Romanic—was my response.
And that’s how my first trip was sketched— in my head, while I drank a cup of coffee. The first great expedition would be in the waters of my homeland.
It is perhaps not logical to believe that I was always destined to take this path. “Logical” sounds in any case too mathematical, too rational. It would perhaps be better to describe it as a “natural course of events”, as natural and obvious as the way a rivulet becomes a brook, a river, a waterway, a sea and finally an ocean. Anyone who shares or shared my feeling knows what I am talking about.
You have two choices in life. Either you bury your dreams as your life unfolds, or you decide “to go for them”.
While planning my trips, I kept on checking the want ads in the newspapers for something that would further my plans. I didn’t find anything. One day, I had an insight. The job according to my profile of skills and experience did not exist. My responsibility would be, therefore, to “place” this want ad. I “applied” for it—I was the only one to do such—and got the job. My adventure—which I christened the “blue miracle”—was ready to be launched.
Two decades had elapsed since the conversation between my father and me on the banks of the brook in Ardez. During these twenty years, I had encountered Gunther Frank in Basel, which is located on the Rhine, and had held a variety of positions. These twenty years had witnessed a series of intensive events, had been a time of searching for me. The only thing that never changed in my life was Cornelia, who was first my girlfriend and is now my wife. I have been with her since I was 20. We two have always worked together to set our joint objectives.
Cornelia viewed my plans to start something new as a setting forth of our way of living. The only question to be answered was: how are we to go about realizing these plans, since doing such would involve the whole family—with this of course including our children.
“Would I swim in pools, I wouldn’t go on swimming expeditions”
The Olympics. The Tour de France. Throughout my childhood, such peak athletic events fascinated me during the day and haunted my dreams at night. And this was not because the media so widely covered them, or because of the money and fame that success at them brought. It was the beauty of the sports and the toughness and obsessive behavior shown by the athletes that captivated me.
I have never lost this fascination, which drove me to select physical education as my major at my university and to get a certificate as a trainer of high-performance athletes. But this world of high-performance athletics did not satisfy me, as it did not fulfill me. Christof Gertsch was voted “Switzerland’s Sports Journalist of the Year” in 2014 and 2015. He joined me in investigating why high-performance athletics did not provide me with everything that I needed, and why I selected the path of being an “ambassador for water” to get there.
Christof Gertsch: Hasn’t every significant body of water capable of being swum already been traversed? The bodies with the coldest water, the longest river, the stormiest of all lakes. I would guess that everything has been achieved in this area. Ernst Bromeis: The opposite is the case. There is so much to be swum on this planet. But I am not surprised at your having this impression. Lewis Gordon Pugh is one of the best known of the world’s long-distance swimmers. In an interview in Forbes, Pugh recently stated “We’ve hit all of the world’s major landmarks. There’s really nothing left.”
And he’s not right? | I am not saying that swimmers like Pugh do not render extreme performances. But I find what their kind of swimming to be a kind of “circus feat”. Such swimmers adhere to rules orienting themselves upon those of the Channel Swimming Association. These lay down the permissible sizes of the swimming trunks, the dimensions of the boat accompanying swimmers—and that’s all. They don’t think big. I consider the “open water” scene to be very conservative. These stupid records—one kilometer in water of 1°, 500 meters in water whose temperature is below freezing—these are all just variations on the same theme. Our sticking to what has been predetermined will not allow swimming to develop. What I am looking for is swimming as a way of going on expeditions, as a way of exploring. And what is being explored is my inner being.
You are trying not to be part of the kind of athletics that is based upon classic ability to measure and to compare. Do you thus view yourself as being a freestyle swimmer—as opposed to an extreme one? | That is an important point. To understand its implications, let’s look at mountaineers. All that would be required to find out who is the fastest climber would be for the two competing against each other to be placed next to each other at the base of the mountain and to sound a starting gun.
That would be a kind of sport that the media would love to cover. But the climbers refuse to do such. They don’t want to bring head-to-head competition into climbing. It’s matter of principle to them. I take the same approach. Like them, I prefer not to engage in climbing which is completely measurable and comparable—that takes place in the artificial courses laid down on walls in climbing halls—and not outside in the mountains. Like the outdoor climbers, I am looking for experiences that do not represent compromises with the real thing. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I am a sort of free solo climber for whom there is just her or him and the wall. And nothing else.
In your case, it’s you and the water—and nothing else. | Exactly. Nothing else, not even an accompanying boat.
But you haven’t quite gotten there yet. | No. And perhaps I will never be there. An accompanying boat has the same function
