Dear Friends and Supporters Everywhere,

I have the good fortune right now to have a lovely American volunteer willing to write this update. It has been very difficult to write updates unless I find someone as willing as Erica to do so because a lot of my time is taken up with the incredibly difficult and frustrating task of finding boat support.

I had never realized before that to pay a boat driver was a death sentence for the actual support itself. These are very hard cultural lessons to acquire. ¨Indio,¨ the boat driver I had until Jaco (this is the name he used for himself even though he was not indigenous) actually was a fabulous boat driver and managed extremely difficult entries and exits at the beach of Esterillos Este that were potentially life threatening. It meant driving through heavy surf that I would have never dared to swim through, to come back onshore in the evenings and to leave in the mornings for the day´s swim. So to lose him was actually a great loss. It turns out he was on the run from the law for seducing a 14 year old, a crime that in Costa Rica can lead to a prison sentence.

Since his departure, I have struggled endlessly to find renewed boat support and it has been very patchy since. Many promises have been broken. A local company in Montezuma had offered 5 days of support that ended up being a mere 3 hours one day! Unfortunately this degree of non-commitment is extremely common here. After having been offered 3 full days of sponsored boat support by the famous dive company Undersea Hunter, this offer has just been withdrawn also without any alternatives given yet. I am still hoping that they will offer financial support instead. I had also been offered 2 full days of sponsored boat support by the famous athlete Roman Urbina that due to illness also could not be realized. So, three times back to back, offers that I was counting on have not come to fruition! I am almost at my wits´ end.

I have managed to swim 575 kilometers so far and the swim has been the easy part. What is truly exhausting is never knowing if a promise is good or just beautiful words in the wind. To conduct a project of this magnitude with so little to fall back on and so many broken promises along the way is extremely trying. I am finding myself mentally and emotionally totally exhausted. To do a project like this alone is an enormous, enormous effort and at times simply too much for one person to handle.

The radio reporter Gonzalo Correa from Radio Columbia has been a steady source of support for me. Almost daily, he has interviewed me on national radio news and at least the message is getting out to radio listeners on a vast scale. His is the largest radio news network in the country. I am so pleased that he´s chosen to take a special interest in my swim project and has attempted to solicit support wherever I have gone.

On days that I have been unable to find boat support, I´ve had the good fortune to go on various tours. Yesterday, I was invited to join the waterfall canopy tour through a company called Sun Trails in Montezuma and it was wonderful flying through the air above the forest with the beautiful view of the ocean. The day before, I was invited to join their Superman tour. This happened to be International Women´s Day and it was quite challenging to swing on the Tarzan swing and throw myself into space, trusting that all the ropes would hold! All the women on the tour decided that this was their special way of celebrating overcoming fear. Unfortunately there wasn´t an International Women´s day demonstration in this little town, but I hope that many of you have been able to participate in marches wherever you are.
This project also has an inspirational element. I am a middle-aged woman with no Olympic records, or any other competitive history, and yet was able to swim a distance world record last year and perhaps this year again, under extremely difficult circumstances. This is the living proof that one person can make a difference.

Just now, I finished teaching two classes to a primary school, touching the lives of every one of the children. I have no doubt that the message will get out to the parents and playmates and I asked the children to make specific commitments regarding ocean protection. As long as they wear their little string bracelets that I gave them, they are obligated to fulfill their promise, which could be to no longer eat shrimp or prawn until the practice of dragnetting is abandoned worldwide, or to stop eating conch. I have more faith at this point in children than adults to keep their promises, given what I´ve been through.

While in Quepos, I had the opportunity to teach a workshop to the Coast Guard there. I actually had the opportunity to need the services of the Coast Guard, when the engine of one of my boat support people failed. Unfortunately, the support was refused. I could not believe that any Coast Guard in the world would refuse an opportunity to potentially save lives. If I did not have the loaned cellular telephone, without which I simply would not be able to pull off the logistic of this one - thanks again to Nidia Lobo, the trusting nurse who has loaned me this phone for 3 months- it is unlikely I would be writing to you now. Since I keep phone numbers of every person with whom I´ve had direct contact in the phone´s directory itself, I went through my list of boat support people in that area and it was in fact Indio that came to the rescue. This was the reason why I hired him to accompany me hopefully all the way to the Nicaraguan border. It hurt losing him, because I believe he has a good heart. It is likely that we would have been swept into the open sea because of an offshore current when that engine failed.

Five hours after this incidence, I got a call back from Mar Viva for potential assistance. Obviously, this is a little late for any emergency. My faith in public institutions has definitely waned. Mar Viva is also one of the organizations that had promised boat support and ended up in nothing. I´m afraid to say that at this point, I´m almost used to broken promises, and take anything anyone says with many teaspoons of salt, not just a grain of salt! Another situation that is very difficult to come to terms with is a generalized sense of apathy that seems to surround me. All my workshops are for free, there is absolutely no charge. I carry a very important film with me, Shark Water, and would love to show it to many people. So far, I have not once been able to show all of it, only in small parts. Even though my current hotel sponsor has a nightly movie showing, I have not been able to get through to the right person in order to be able to show it and give a presentation to accompany it. This seems a real shame being that I´m here as a guest, and this could work as a promotion of this particular business. Humanity has to cut through its apathy if we are to create a livable world into the future. While I write this, 2000 sharks will have had their fins cut off. While I write this, dozens of turtles will have died in drag nights. While I write this, many dolphins will have been by-catch to be thrown overboard dead, as part of the tuna industry.

On radio, I have been asking people to join my boycott of shrimp and prawns. I have also asked that they join my boycott of products made in China and Taiwan, the major importers of shark fins. I am aware that asking people to join boycotts of this nature may net me more death threats; however, the oceans cannot wait. The situation is very urgent and you all have to act now. The eco-systems of the world seas are close to tipping. The Gulf of Mexico is considered a dead zone. Will we allow other parts of the oceans to become dead zones? Ninety-percent of the fish that roamed the seas in the 1950´s are gone now. Can we afford to lose the other 10%? How can we all live a little more lightly on this aching planet? My message to school children and adults always addresses how each and everyone can make a difference. If we lose hope, we have nothing left. As the saying goes, ¨When a butterfly beats its wings in Mexico, the weather patterns in the Arctic are influenced¨, every action that is done for the benefit of Mother Earth and Sea has impact. This is perhaps the most important lesson that I can teach to combat apathy and hopelessness. We may not always see the result of our protective action for the planet, but trust that it is never lost. Sometimes a small act is amplified times a million, without you ever finding out.

So I will continue swimming, as long as it takes. This particular journey will end when I fly back on April 2nd. However, my commitment is to continue doing these swims as long as it takes and as long as I am able.

Yes, there have been personal losses for me also. The man I loved has left me, because he said my vision of the world was too big for him. So I´m also dealing with the pain of a major heartbreak, but I cannot allow this to stop moving my vision into action every single day. I know that what I can offer the world is profoundly needed, and is worth personal sacrifices. The reward for my work is the love in the faces of the children whose lives I´m privileged to touch, and the miraculous encounters I have while swimming with my beautiful brothers and sisters of the sea.

The universe cries out for us to embrace it with love.

This is what I have to remind myself every day, especially on days when I´m feeling discouraged because yet another boat support has fallen through. My dear friend John Chapman from Tree of Life Tours always reminds me to see the big picture. Conversations I have almost daily with a friend I gained through the radio interviews have also helped buoy me up. Luis Chang steadfastly reminds me to remember what this is really all about, and I know he often prays for me. There is a lot of power in people praying for each other. The format doesn´t much matter. Loving thought towards another being profoundly influences the well-being of the loved one. So for today, I send you all a big hug and lots of love. I also ask you to include me and the sea in your prayers and I will include all of you. After all, I get to pray for eight hours, swimming, every day that I actually have boat support. Those swims are really moving meditations. It may be that I´m feeling so unbalanced right now because it has been so many days since I´ve had a good, long, swim meditation. Please pray that I find a boat support today.

Thank you all for being there for me, and thank you Erica for writing this for me.