Relay across Port Susan Bay benefits cystic fibrosis

Brad Hering paces his son, Zeb, as Zeb swims the first section of a benefit relay across Port Susan Bay. Inset, members of the team pose before the race. PHOTO BY JEREMIAH O In the shallow waters off Warm Beach, 9-year-old Zeb Hering splashed in the surf. Legs kicking, arms churning, he looked like any other kid enjoying a sunny day at the beach.

Except for the wetsuit.

But, Zeb was not up to “any-other-kid” activities, and he needed the wetsuit to keep him warm during his section of a six-person relay benefit swim across Port Susan Bay, from Warm Beach to Camano Island, a distance of more than five miles.

Brad Hering, Zeb’s dad and the pastor of River of Life Community Church on Camano, organized the event to raise funds and awareness for cystic fibrosis.

A person doesn’t have to look far to see people struggling, to see people suffering, Hering said. Hering didn’t even have to look past his own congregation to find Maranda Hansen, a senior at Stanwood High School, who lives with the illness.

Hering’s question, then, was “What can we do?”

Hering can swim. He nearly made it to the Olympics as a young man, and he has coached swim teams for 25 years. In fact, he was hosting a swim camp last week.

“I looked around and thought, ‘well, we’re doing the camp, we have five swimmers here’ and the rest kinda fell into place,” Hering said.

One of those swimmers was Robby Haynes, a senior at Marysville- Pilchuck High School.

The way Haynes tells the story, it seems like serendipity.

He was waiting at the Department of Motor Vehicles to get his drivers permit when he met Hering. Both were wearing swim t-shirts, and in their chosen sport, that alone is enough to begin a conversation. Pretty soon, Haynes had agreed that Hering’s swim camp sounded cool. He signed up.

“And, I guess this is our workout today,” Haynes said. Also attending the camp were three international swimmers: Juan Flores and Patricio Centeno from Mexico, and Kristian Thalin from Sweden.

They, too, were up for the challenge.

So, last Tuesday, while the incoming tide refracted late summer sunlight, the guys prepared to swim. They studied the conditions — calm water and a slight breeze. They stretched, and donned wetsuits. They took pictures and laughed.

Accompanied by two kayaks, one canoe, and a powerboat, they planned to trade off stages of the swim, finishing the final 500 meters together.

Hering pointed across the water, at a strip of beach barely visible on Camano.

“We’ll end over there for a barbecue, hopefully. If not, they’ll eat our food,” he joked.

He needn’t have worried. Two and a half hours later, the six swimmers touched bottom on Camano Island, greeted by Maranda Hansen and 50 pairs of clapping hands.

“When we reached about halfway, it got colder and the waves and wind picked up, so it made the second half more challenging,” Hering said.

The swimmers relied on Hering’s wife, Traci, and her friend Kyli, in the kayaks, to guide their course, a line that included “one jelly fish, two seals, many hungry seagulls, a bit of seaweed in the face and plenty of saltwater to gurgle.”

Hering said the event has raised over $1,500 so far, and he expects more to trickle in. The event was posted on Facebook in Mexico, Sweden and locally.

“It’s really about awareness, though,” Hering said. “We just put this together, but we’re already planning to do it again.”

So far, swimmers from Germany, Holland, South Africa and Canada want to join the relay in 2011.

This year proved it’s as simple as swimming: 12 pairs of arms and legs, 12 breast strokes, all unspooling in a long, single lap of kindness.

Staff Reporter Jeremiah O’Hagan: 629-8066 ext. 125 or ohagan@scnews.com.