Report courtesy of Phil White; photos courtesy of Kathleene Marcil.
Marathon swimming is one of those rare athletic fields where after a swimmer is inducted in a Hall of Fame, they just keep going, getting better, and doing more impressive feats.
Paula Yankauskas, who was inducted in the Vermont Open Water Swimming Hall of Fame in its inaugural Class of 2017, is one of those special athletes.
Starting on a Saturday evening and finishing on Sunday afternoon on August 28th, 69-year-old Yankauskas, 69, of Hyde Park, Vermont, swam the 25-mile cross-border In Search of Memphre across Lake Memphremagog from Newport, Vermont, USA to Plage de Magog in Magog, Quebec, Canada, swimming for a total of 21 hours 50 minutes.
White who escorted her in the Kingdom Games’ pontoon boat with Charlotte Brynn, Charlie Booher, and Sue-Ellen Booher reported, “She stopped only to feed, which she did every 45 minutes.
Paula became the oldest person to complete The Search in bioprene, just besting the oldest swimmer record of 68-year-ol Pat Gallant-Charrette when she swam across Lake Memphremagog in 2019.
Paula had planned on attempting a 50-mile double crossing. She started out swimming at a rate of about 1.5 miles per hour. But she got cold in the middle of the night, started shivering, and was getting ready in her mind to call the swim off, when at a feed, Sue-Ellen shouted to her, ‘You are rocking this swim.’
That was just enough for Paula to decide to keep on going.
At day break, shortly after 5 am, we were hoping that the sun would bring its warmth and re-energize her swim. Instead we were met with dense fog which made it difficult to see the shores on each side of the lake. Paula’s swimming slowed considerably.
At one point, we were traveling so slowly that the Navionics would not indicate the direction of our travel. We started heading in the opposite direction. Charlie took out his compass app on his cell phone and righted our direction to Northeast. The fog lasted until 11 am.
When it burned off, we were welcomed to a glorious, sunny day, with light tail winds. But, Paula’s speed never picked up and she decided, shortly after passing Lord’s Island, to finish her swim in Magog.“
Yankauskas got her competitive start in Lake Memphremagog in 2009 and has been doing dozens of marathon swims, channel swims, and ice swims ever since – as while serving her community as a veterinarian.
The Triple Crowner had her sights set on a two-way crossing, but the wisdom of her years led her to call her attempt after a successful single crossing.
White summed up her achievement, “Her single crossing was a bookend of sorts for her 60’s. With two Searches completed, one at the age of 60 and another one at the age of 69.”
