THERE’S OFTEN SOMETHING fascinating about listening to an expert in full-flow breaking down details of their passion or trade. A musician waxing lyrical on the shape of a tune or a mason lining out what makes for good stone.

That’s how Nuala Moore talks about waves.

In Drake Passage – the narrowest gap between South America and Antarctica, where the tip of Cape Horn reaches out towards the South Shetland Islands – the waves are infamous for being among the most treacherous in the world.

At latitude 55 degrees south, where Dingle native Moore was drawn to swim in 2018 on one of her many remarkable expeditions, there’s no land east or west, as the world rotates. So, there’s nothing impeding the waters of the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Southern Ocean as they wallop together.  

Moore mildly refers to this chaotic convergence as the water’s “excitement”.

Further to this, the ocean floor in Drake Passage lies four kilometres deep before rising sharply to a 100 metre shelf near the clutch of islands around Cape Horn. All of this creates rogue waves which meant Moore could have been swept away from her support team as she tried to swim a mile in the wild waters.

“They’re the type of waves that get excited having to get through a tiny passage,” Moore explains, “They can swirl back, they can eddy, they can twist, they can turn. Your crew could see you and then the next wave you could be 100 metres away.”

A member of the Chilean navy mans a lighthouse on Cape Horn and has to grant permission for boats or people to pass through. The Kerry swimmer’s reputation preceded her and she was given permission to swim.

However, the lighthouse keeper ruled that it wasn’t safe for a rescue dinghy to accompany her on the journey. Moore’s support team were confined to the main command boat which, because of its size and the nature of the sea, had to follow at a distance of around 100 metres.

“Then suddenly you realise, if I don’t have it in me, they’ll never find me,” she says of the daunting prospect of facing the passage alone. 

Moore’s training and decades of experience and research meant she knew she could cope with the temperature of the water. At least for a while.  

“I knew I could withstand the pain and I knew I had the skills to survive at all costs. 

I had the knowledge, but its greatest evil is the fact that you know that you don’t have a survival mechanism in that level of water beyond a certain time. You know you will die. 

“When you understand the whole drowning mechanism, you suddenly become exposed to your own choices. And I made the choice to come here. I had a team. I have to trust my team, but I also have to trust myself that they won’t lose me and I won’t lose focus.

“Because once you start to breathe erratically, or once your breathing goes and your skill set goes then you are your greatest problem.”

Moore completed the swim in 28 minutes and landed her second Guinness World Record. 

She picked up her first in 2013 when she, along with fellow Irish woman Anne Marie Ward, was part of a relay team that swam across the Bering Strait from Russia to the United States.

The records sit alongside a slew of other medals, awards and achievements including multiple ice swims in the Arctic circle, winning Russia’s ice swimming championships in 2016 and swimming around Ireland as part of a five person team in 2006.

Nuala is from a fishing family and has been swimming all her life. As a child she would go out on the boat with her father on Sundays and be dropped into the water at the harbour’s mouth. “People have told me that I should look into it,” she jokes, “maybe we weren’t intended to swim home, he just threw us out.”

She discusses her expeditions with such enthusiasm and clarity that one can’t help but be swept into agreeing that it is, indeed, logical to swim from Russia to the United States (through some of the coldest waters on the planet, whose icy depths are home to all manner of terrifying sea monsters).

Moore’s adventures can come at great personal cost, both physical and financial. After spending 56 days swimming around Ireland she couldn’t raise her arms over her head for two years. She also spent a fortune of her own money to finance her journey to Chile to swim Drake’s Passage. 

Overcoming the challenge is its own reward and Nuala sometimes wakes up laughing in the middle of the night, thinking of all she has done.

Discussing why she goes to such extraordinary lengths, despite repeatedly being told she’s mad, Moore reveals a desire to test herself that sets her apart from the vast majority of people who have ever donned a swimsuit.

“In life sometimes we can cover up for our weaknesses. But the minute you’re exposed to anything in the extremes you can’t.

 They keep you honest. They strip you back and you have to face who you are. Because if you present for an event and you’re less than perfect, that’s it, the extremes will take you.

“That’s why sometimes we go to the extremes because you have to present the best version of yourself. And every now and then, that is a wonderful place to be. To be able to pull out that person and then put them back into the box after.”

Safe swimming

With lively pub sessions and large gatherings off the table, Christmas swims are one of the few opportunities for groups of people to socialise this year. The festive dip is a favourite annual ritual for many people, but it’s not without risks. 

Moore never swims out of her depth when she’s alone and always has a fully trained team, including rescue divers and nurses equipped with defibrillators, when she attempts her extreme swims. Constantly practising rescue training drills are what gives her the trust in her team necessary to enter some of the most treacherous seas on Earth.

“When you’ve seen the belly of the beast, you always try to stay safe,” she says.

Before entering the water Moore says people must know how they’re going to get out again. This is crucial when swimming off rocks or other areas where the way out of the water may not be clear.

It’s also important to have warm clothes at hand and everything else you’ll need post swim to warm up and change. “Plan your swim and swim your plan,” is the code she lives by.

Anything below 15 degrees Celsius is defined as cold water, which can seriously affect breathing and movement. Water temperatures in Ireland are significantly below this most of the year. They are currently hovering around 10 degrees on the coasts and are even colder in freshwater.

Cold water shock narrows blood vessels in the skin and causes the heart to work harder. It also causes an involuntary gasp for breath. This can lead to breathing rates increasing rapidly, causing a feeling of panic and potentially leading to water being inhaled into the lungs.

“You have to go through a little bit of a calming exercise,” Nuala advises, “you have to calm down that gasp reflex.”

“The minute you take your first few steps into the water you breathe out (big exhalation) and then you breathe in calmly. Slow it down. Splash water under your armpits, your neck, your face and then start swimming slowly.

“Approaching the cold shock is really important because the cold shock can trigger a cardiac incident.”

The cold water also poses the problem of swim failure as the body restricts blood flow to the arms and legs in order to protect the vital organs. Once muscles are cooled, they don’t have the same capacity to operate, causing them to become fatigued much quicker.

“You wouldn’t expect to go in and swim a kilometre in the month of December if you’re only swimming a kilometre in the summer,” Moore says. “If you normally swim a kilometre, I would always suggest to people that they don’t swim anything more than 200 or 300 metres until they figure out how they swim in cold water.”

Another important piece of advice is to have a maximum time on the swim, Moore suggests having a limit of 10 minutes until people get practised at open water swimming. She also notes that people swimming in groups have to swim to the level of the weakest swimmer.  

Reason, season, lifetime 

Before the pandemic hit Moore had plans to travel to Nepal to swim a kilometre in a lake on Mount Everest. A month before she was due to set off Covid came along and put that on ice.  

The time that has elapsed since has brought a new perspective. “I spent the last 10 years before Covid pushing myself into the abyss because I had four, five and six events a year. I put a lot of stress and pressure on my body. I have caused a bit of damage,” she explains.

The freezing waters left their mark on her hands, which suffer from inflammation. The increased commercialisation of the adventure swimming world has also made competing in the events less appealing. As has the accompanying need for social media promotion, which Moore doesn’t enjoy. 

She has a linen shop, Strawberry Beds, on Dingle’s Green Street and taking time away from work for promotional activity comes at a cost.

For now, Kerry’s ‘Ice Queen’ is enjoying taking the “tourist route”, swimming off the kingdom coast on “pretty days” and giving it a miss when the weather is too bad. 

“Everything is for a reason, a season or a lifetime. I find that at the moment I don’t see value in the sacrifice. I’ve given 15-20 years to the sport and, for me, I think I’ve got what I need from it.”