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in a semicircle around Ron, huddling against the morning chill, while Ron discussed the previous day’s workout. He made comments to each swimmer about his or her performance. That was important to me. He saw each swimmer as an individual, and this was how he ensured I would know exactly how I was doing.
    “Oh, hello, Lynne.” Ron was in his thirties and had a youthful face, wavy dark brown hair, brown eyes, and thin gold-rimmed glasses. He motioned for me to join them, and suggested that my mother join the other mothers on the pier. In a few minutes he would be going up there, where they could watch us swim together.
    Ron went around the circle making introductions: “This is Stacey Fresonske, Nancy Dale, Dennis Sullivan, Dale O’Connor, and Andy Taylor. Andy is the youngest one here—he’s twelve. Everyone else is the same age as you, fourteen.” They each said hello and immediately made me feel welcome.
    “This is Lynne’s first time working out in the ocean,” Ron said, “so I want you to help her, teach her what you have learned. Okay, you’re going to start with a mile warm-up. Stretch it out and stay together. Lynne, you swim between Stacey and Dale. Okay, let’s get started.”
    At 5:00 a.m. the Pacific Ocean was onyx black, illuminated only by the small globe lights along the pier.
    Stacey led the way into the water, advising, “Make sure to slide your feet along the bottom. There are lots of stingrays here. They look like small bat rays, but they have a long tail with a stinger at the very tip, and they’ll zap you if you step on them. It’s just a defensive mechanism—they don’t attack—but if you get stung, your foot will become as large as a football. If you slide your feet, you’ll stir up the bottom sand and scare them away.”
    We moved under one of the lights on the pier as Stacey tucked her short blond hair into a thick white bathing cap. She was tall and lean. Dale was walking beside me. She was a medium-built girl with long, dark brown hair, brown eyes, and a cheerful face. She showed me how to slide my feet, but the water was pitch-black and I couldn’t see a thing. “If you’re allergic to the sting you can go into shock,” she said.
    Something fluttered against my foot, and I instinctively jumped, wondering if it was a fish or a stingray. “What do you do if you get stung?”
    “Put your foot in water as hot as you can stand. That draws the venom out,” Dale said.
    “You’re doing fine,” Nancy Dale said once we were swimming, her voice high and childlike. Nancy had long blond hair that she wound up and stuffed into her bathing cap. She was a lot thinner than the other girls. “When you dive through the waves make sure to extend your arms over your head; that way if there’s a sandbar or something under the water, you won’t hit it with your head. You’ll want to do the same thing when you come back to shore,” Nancy instructed.
    A white line of bubbling water surrounded us like skirts of lace. It felt as if we were swimming through New Year’s Eve champagne. The bubbles tickled, and the chill made me draw in a breath, and I laughed. This was a great adventure, nothing like swimming backand forth in a heated pool, following a black line and going nowhere. This was so much fun. When a large wave rose above the horizon Stacey shouted, “We’ve got to dive under this one or we’re going to get crunched.”
    I dove into the deep black water with my arms extended over my head. And when I surfaced I could hear the others swimming but couldn’t see them. Listening for the sound of their hands hitting the water, I swam in that direction. And then I could see just the outlines of their bodies. We were swimming in the early morning because the water was calmer and it would give us a feeling for what it would be like to swim across the Catalina Channel at night.
    We lined up side by side, making sure the lifeguard tower on the pier was behind us. We aimed for the flashing