Holland's Bryan Huffman completes historic English Channel crossing
HOLLAND — When Bryan Huffman was a high school swimmer, a West Michigan swimmer named Jim Dreyer attempted to swim across all of the Great Lakes.
He succeeded — and that inspired Huffman, a 49-year-old ophthalmologist from Holland, to look at the water a little differently.
Huffman was determined to find an inspiring swim for himself, and after some searching, he found the English Channel.
The English Channel is a popular open water swim — dozens attempt it each year. There's a bar near the channel with the names of the hundreds of crossers over the years.
Huffman wanted to be one of those swimmers.
"I learned about the challenges of the English Channel, and decided I would one day like to swim it. At the time, I didn’t know how to arrange for a swim, and didn’t have the time or resources to make it happen," Huffman said.
Then life happened.
"In college, I did triathlons and coached age group swimming," he said. "Then life got busy and I didn’t swim for about 25 years. A few years ago, my oldest son started middle school swimming and my younger son started diving. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed swimming and coaching.
"Around this time, I did a few open water swims on camping trips at the conference grounds in Grand Haven. The first swim was about a mile, and felt surprisingly good. The next one was a bit longer. I started thinking about my old dream of swimming the English Channel, and did some research of what was involved. I decided to start training and see if I thought it was feasible."
He started taking advantage of a great place to practice, right where he lived.
"I started training in August of 2020 in Lake Macatawa," Huffman said. "My first swim was across the lake and back near Kollen Park. My son accompanied in a kayak to be sure I didn’t get run over by a boat or drown. Over the next few weeks, I swam two-to-three times weekly and increased my distance to about two miles per swim.
"I felt pretty good at this distance. My goal was to swim the five-mile length of Lake Mac by the end of the season. I accomplished this by the beginning of October. That is when I booked a spot on the Viking Princess II with the Brickell brothers to swim the English Channel.
"I was surprised to see that most of the spots were filled two years in advance. I was lucky to get a spot for the first neap tide in October 2022. October is the very end of the channel swimming season, and not the ideal time to swim; but I didn’t want to wait three years to swim, so I took it."
Huffman took his training to Holland Aquatic Center.
"By mid-October 2020, the lake temp had dropped into the 50s," he said. "I decided to join the Holland Aquatic Center. The HAC was under construction, and the evening swim hours were limited to two hours. I would rush over from work and try to get in as many yards as I could before they closed.
"I was still trying to ratchet up my total yards per week, and pushed pretty hard to get 7,000 yards done in two hours. I ended up overdoing it and injuring my shoulder. I spent a month in physical therapy strengthening the accessory muscles of my shoulders before I could swim much again. I started meeting other regular swimmers at the pool."
That changed everything.
"By summer, Mike Landis invited me to swim with the Holland Masters Open Water Swim Team," Huffman said. "They met on Saturday mornings and swam in Lake Mac or Lake Michigan. They were training for the Big Shoulders 5K Swim in Chicago.
"I swam with them every Saturday that summer, in addition to another three days per week on my own. Through open water Saturdays with the team, I met Paul and Marisa Brinks, who ultimately traveled with me to England to assist on the swim. I also met Coach Mike Daley who ultimately agreed to coach me for my last year of training."
Huffman got back in the open water with regional swims, going from pier to pier in Lake Michigan, including Holland to Grand Haven.
Meanwhile, as his English Channel swim was approaching, he got some shocking news.
A man named Nick Hobson, who lived in the Holland area before moving to New Zealand, died in an open water swim between islands in the Cook Straight.
"The currents took him way out to sea, and the other swimmer attempting it quit part way across," Huffman said. "He had expected the swim to take about eight hours, but it would be over 16 before he finished. We were all excited at swim practice the next morning (to) talk about it. He had fought strong currents for hours, but he had finished.
"But eight hours later, we got a call ... Nick had died at the finish. We were all in total shock. Nick had finished and lost consciousness while swimming back to the boat. He was airlifted for medical assistance, but could not be revived. This was a major shock, especially when I was getting ready to do a very similar swim."
The team hosted a memorial swim for Hobson from Holland to Grand Haven.
Huffman used that motivation to honor Hobson during his swim across the English Channel.
The shortest distance across the channel is 22 miles between Dover and Cap Gris Nez in France. There are moving currents and tides to consider, with a possibility of 17-plus more feet of water at high tide. Meanwhile, the channel is far from the equator, with a water temperature in the mid-to-high 50s. No wetsuits are allowed for an "official" swim.
"The currents make a straight line swim across the channel impossible," Huffman said. "Most swim tracks are s-shaped. This increases the distance of the swim by miles. My swim track was 37 miles."
To top it off, instead of swimming during neap tide — when currents are weakest — inclement weather pushed Huffman's swim to a spring tide, with the strongest currents.
Trying to wrap his head around those factors was the most difficult part of the journey.
"Starting a swim across the channel at 1:15 a.m. in the pitch black and cold takes mental training," Huffman said. "You cannot see what lurks in the dark water below. Although sharks are not common in the channel, jellyfish are common, along with their stings. Although I did see jellyfish, I was fortunate not to get stung on my crossing."
Then came the mental fortitude required near the end of the swim, after hours of physical anguish.
"I was pretty sure that if the weather conditions allowed him to get in, which wasn't certain at all, he would be able to do it," Mike Daley said. "I had no doubt he would be able to do the mileage. He was fit and had a good spirit. The part that is pretty incredible is that he swam 37 miles. He did it in 12 hours (and) 19 minutes. He stopped every half hour or so, but not for too long because the tides would push him back. It is really pretty incredible that he was able to get through in that time."
Especially with more than two hours of nausea that nearly put an end to the trek.
"Swimming the channel is formidable," Huffman said. "It is common to get near the end of the swim only for the currents to push one past the protruding point of France. If you miss the point, the geography and currents cause the shore to get farther away faster than one can swim.
"Swimmers can spend hours swimming only to find land farther away than it had been a few hours before. I was fortunate to hit the point, but suffered from significant nausea for the middle two-and-a-half hours of my swim. Whether seasickness, problems with my feedings, or salt water-induced nausea, I was so sick I was absolutely sure I would not be able to finish."
But Huffman was able to finish, after all.
"My goal was to finish," he said. "I was really happy with the time I got, but the goal was to get across. Most people don't make it. ... I knew I had a lot of people following me and I didn't really figure this was how I was going to fail. I didn't want to go back and tell people I quit. That would suck way worse than being sick. Make one more feeding stop and reassess. Then one more. Then I started feeling better."
Huffman was the 78th successful swim of 2022, one of 10 Americans. In the past 150 years, 1,827 people have completed solo swims across the channel.
Huffman is proud to have his name on that list. He signed his name on the wall in the nearby bar, something only official crossers can do.
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"That was really cool to sign right by people I had read about," he said. "It was pretty amazing."
— Contact sports editor Dan D’Addona at dan.d’addona@hollandsentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanDAddona or Facebook @HollandSentinelSports.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Holland's Bryan Huffman completes historic English Channel crossing
