Sara Wolf Completes First Known North-South Swim of Mobile Bay

Sara Wolf was three and a half hours into her swim of Mobile Bay when the wind shifted.

Exhaust from her assist boat blew right into her face and, because it was the middle of the night, no one on the boat could see what was happening. The exhaust blew in her face for almost an hour and when the wind shifted again, Wolf vomited the contents of her stomach.

Despite this setback, Wolf said over the phone Tuesday after she completed her swim that it went “better than [she] thought it would.” She explained that it’s very common to throw up during open water swims, and how you just have to let it happen instead of fighting the feeling.

Wolf overcame her one major obstacle during her nighttime swim of Mobile Bay, a 36.4-km swim which took her 15:49. She had spent a lot of time preparing for other factors of the swim she’d thought could be potential issues: swimming in the dark and in colder water than she’s used to, as well as the non-stinging jellyfish that reside in the bay.

courtesy of Sara Wolf

However, none of these factors became problems for her as she became the first known person to complete a north-south swim of Mobile Bay in Alabama. She was able to find documentation of swims east-west in the 1930s and as recently as 2016. The picture shows those routes, as well as the one Wolf took.

A diver in college, Wolf didn’t begin swimming until her mid-30s, when she joined a local masters’ team. Later, she was visiting a friend in Vermont and joined them for a Swim the Kingdom race, which was her first experience with open water swimming. She was hooked.

She began training for this swim last year, practicing in the pool four times a week and doing a longer lake swim on the weekend. However, an injury derailed her, and from last October to this February, she was only able to kick. In that time, she says she did 65k of just kick. Though the extended timeline was frustrating, she says that becoming a better kicker was beneficial for her swimming in the long run.

Wolf’s final preparation for this effort was the Three Rivers marathon swim. That was her first time doing a swim longer than 12 hours, and it gave her the chance to fine tune her feeding cycle. The one major difference between that race and the one in Mobile Bay was that at Three Rivers, there was a time limit.

Her Mobile Bay swim was self-organized, giving her the ability to swim at her own pace. Not having that time limit meant that she redefined what success was. It wasn’t how fast she swam — it was just about accomplishing her goal. That was what motivated her, even in the last two miles of the swim, which “annoyingly” took her three hours.

Wolf recalled that in addition to her drive to finish, what kept her going was the thought of the meatloaf and mashed potatoes. This swim was the third time in her life that meal has pulled her to the end, the other times being at the end of a Grand Canyon hike and during a Century Ride.

Post-race, she found out that her one of her friend’s kids had stayed up all night to watch her blinking light on the online tracker.

“That was really surprising and really humbling,” she said.

Asked what’s next, Wolf laughed and responded that she’s forbidden from answering that question for another 10 days. However, she does admit that she’s got her eye on an English Channel swim.

Hopeful crossers have to book years in advance, so she thinks that would be a good goal to work towards as she crosses other swims off her to-do list. If she does cross the channel, she says that she’s already planning to bring her mom, who’s agreed to make the meatloaf and mashed potatoes that will be waiting for her at the end.