An 80-year-old Carlsbad man has entered the record books as part of the oldest team to successfully swim the Catalina Channel.
Bill Spore is part of a relay team of six men, all in their 80s, who took hour-long shifts swimming the 22 miles from Catalina Island to the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
Their attempt began at 11 p.m. Wednesday night, and ended at about noon Thursday. The unofficial time of the relay was 12 hours and 15 minutes.
"The swim itself, I'm not too concerned about," said Spore, who has been swimming three days a week since 1997. "The nice thing about this is, it's not a race. I'm not swimming with someone I have to get ahead of."
Spore said the group made the attempt now because they had to wait for him to turn 80 years old. His birthday was in July.
Spore and lifelong friend Dave Radcliff swam together at San Diego High School. Spore achieved All American in the 100-yard freestyle event. The friends also swam and played water polo at Cal Berkeley. Radcliff later competed with the U.S. Olympic team at the 1956 games in Melbourne.
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"I'm looking forward to chatting with some of these guys," Spore said, "I'm looking forward to the camaraderie and the exchanging of war stories."
The group's website describes the journey as filled with "bone chilling temperatures, ocean swells, adverse tides, kelp beds, jellyfish, squid and the occasional barracuda and shark sighting."
The other team members are Graham Johnson, Bob Best, Robert Beach, Don Baker and Norm Stupfel. The plan is for six of the men to swim, with Stupfel as the alternate who will stay on the boat unless one of the other men needs to leave the rotation. They'll have a lot of support, including a doctor, nurse, kayakers and a paddle boarder.
Baker is the team's organizer, who first got the idea when he heard a fellow open water swimmer talking about being part of the first relay team of men older than 70 to swim the Catalina Channel.
They describe themselves by saying, "this band of brothers is not your average posse of patriarchs."
You can follow their progress at www.theoldmenandthesea.com.
