Courtesy of Jessica Kieras, PhD (44, USA, MSF bio here).

What doing a swim-a-thon for Save the Manatee Club taught me about connection, cooperation and compassion.

You can always read this at your leisure, but first— if you’ve been meaning to support this fundraiser, please visit: More Miles for Manatees. The swim starts Friday morning. You can track me on ultraswimming.com here: Swim Tracking Map

Join the WhatsApp group for live updates during the swim here: WhatsApp Swim Updates. In a world of increasing divisiveness, ruthless conquest, and rapidly increasing appetite for violence, manatees are a shining reminder that it doesn’t have to be that way. Sometimes winning is just being.

Competitive sports offer humans an important outlet for our natural drive to conquer, outcompete others and exercise our survival instincts. But when the need to dominate overtakes good sportsmanship such as adhering to established rules, giving credit to other athletes, and giving back to the sport as a whole, it means the competition has gone too far.

Outside of sports, “in the real world”, people are still competing, often for the benefit of creativity, innovation, and advancement. But when the drive to dominate goes too far, people lose respect for basic ethics, are willing to strip others of human rights, disregard laws, and even resort to gratuitous violence.

I love a good challenge and I love to see where my long swims stack up alongside other outstanding, long swims in history. I n my teenage years, my coach described my approach to racing as a “killer instinct”. I’m proud to say I did well, making finals at USA Swimming Senior National Championships and earning an athletic scholarship to Texas A&M University.

In contrast, I had a deep longing to just have the feeling of “good enough”. In the liner notes to one of my favorite bands at the time, the lead singer ended his musings with, “thanks for being.” It stuck with me then and it sticks with me now. Sometimes just being is winning. If people were more content to “be” and more willing to let others do the same, the world would be a better place than when people over-indulge the drive toward dominance and development at the expense of everything else. So I will be “being”, while moving my arms around in circles, floating in the ocean, for as long as is reasonable for a good challenge.

Me nowadays, trying to make bubbles that look like manatees during swim practice.

I designed this swim as a swim-a-thon because I was inspired by my nephew (read more about that on the fundraising page here). But I wanted to do something that could truly balance my desire for an extreme challenge with my desire to simply be with whatever “is” at any given time, devoid of the obsession with reaching any particular outcome.

Manatees are a semi-social species. This means that they don’t need to travel or live in groups, but they do display some social behaviors such as nuzzling each other after surfing the outflow from dams. As a solo swimmer, I can relate. I do most of my swimming alone, although there are other swimmers around doing their own laps. A brief hello or “how was your swim today?” is the extent of my social behavior at the pool most days.

When I first decided to do this fundraiser, I did not know if anyone would participate. It’s been incredibly heart warming to see the amount of support my family, friends and total strangers have contributed. I’ve never before felt so cared about and connected with my fellow humans. So many people have contributed financially. Others have supported the fundraiser by writing articles, reposting social media posts, and talking about the swim and Save the Manatee Club to their friends and family. Local Florida swimmers have reached out offering words of encouragement, insights into the route and even hard-to-travel-with gear.

My sister (Amelia Kieras Paper Arts) donated a beautifully done swim cap design. (Caps available on the fundraising page, just choose the pledge by-the-mile option).

I have an outstanding crew supporting me who have flown from all over the country to volunteer their support for me and Save the Manatee Club. They include:

• Captain Oleg Ponomaryov
• Captain Alina Ponomarova
• Captain Kevin Bell
• Roxanne Hipolito
• Sue Phillips
• Lisa Hollister

Everyone I’ve worked with including Eternal Summer Sailing, Good Vibes Kayak Rentals, and Marathon Swimmers Federation have been incredibly accommodating and enthusiastic about this adventure.

I chose Save the Manatee Club for several reasons. What impressed me first was the variety of projects they are involved with, from helping injured or ill manatees to conducting research. Manatees are a keystone species which means that when they are thriving, other species around them thrive as well. Conversely, if they disappear from the ecosystem, it would have terrible effects on every other species. The Save the Manatee Club invests resources in helping the ecosystem that manatees depend on, such as replanting seagrass and advocating for less pollution and trash going into the water, which in turn benefits all other species as well, including us humans.

Second, I noticed that they offer a variety of ways people can contribute. You can “adopt a manatee” and then get updates on when this manatee is seen and how they are doing. You can sign petitions. You can volunteer to educate people locally on the importance of picking up trash, following boating speed limits and reducing use of lawn fertilizers that run off into the sea. They even have a 5k run that you can do in person or virtually as a fundraiser anywhere in the world!

Another great feature is the amount of factual information they offer on their website. If you want to know something about manatees— they probably have an article about it. Sometimes people disagree about how many laws we should have protecting the environment and how those laws are enforced, but almost everyone agrees that educating people is a good thing to do. I appreciate that the Save the Manatee Club advocates on both the legislative level and on the individual level through education.

Finally, there isn’t an ounce of shaming in any of their messaging. They advocate with kindness and compassion. They frequently acknowledge the contributions of their partners and cooperate with anyone intent on helping manatees.

Save the Manatee Club, thanks for being.

Donate to the swim fundraiser here: https://go.rallyup.com/moremilesformanateesswim.

Visit Save the Manatee Club here: https://savethemanatee.org.

Courtesy of Oregon Lake Bagging.