Keynote Address - Susie Maroney OAM
The Honorable Meredith Burgman, President and members of the
Catholic Women's League and Antonio.
I was very happy to be invited here today and hope that in a
small way my story of dreams and goals can show that it is
possible to achieve these, despite difficulties and
hurdles.
I can't think of a more worthy cause than one which involves
books which is one of the reasons for today's lunch. To bring
to the children of East Timor the magic of books and the magic
carpet of imagination and learning that they take you on.
I will always remember being ushered into President Castro's
office and the first thing I noticed were all the books that
lined the walls. The two most important areas for him in Cuba
have always been health and education for the Cuban people.
I guess everyone in life needs a kick - start to their dreams
and goals. I had the love of my family, the dedication of my
coach and the support of my friends.
If we can bring to these East Timorese children the gift of books
for example - I don't think we could wish for a better
venture.
My career in long distance swimming really began because I had
asthma as a child. So at the age of three my mum put me into
swimming lessons to help strengthen my lungs.
Right from the beginning I loved the water. Whether it was in
the pool or out in the ocean at Cronulla Beach. It became my
passion, my lifestyle and my career.
After years of pool competition I felt I needed a different
challenge. I had read in the paper that the biggest challenge for
an open water swimmer was to swim the English Channel. I talked
it over with my coach and my family. They kept throwing at me all
the difficulties that lay ahead like the cold water, the long
hours of training and all the people that had failed at their
attempts to swim from England to France. At that time there had
only been 320 successful swims across the channel out of 5,000
attempts. More people had climbed Mt Everest.
This only made me more determined. It became my dream and my
goal. I trained for 6 hours a day, 6 days a week in the pool and
then a 4 - hour swim out in the ocean. I even used to take cold
showers and not take my jumper to school during the winter
months, just to get used to the cold.
So at the age of 14, I arrived in Dover. Three days later I swam
over to France in a time of 8 hours and 11 minutes. The feeling
when I saw that lighthouse in Calais and the look on my mum's
face will stay with me forever. I was happy, excited and so
relieved that I had made it.
The day after I was relaxing on the beach in Dover and noticed
this German girl being carried over the pebbles towards the
water. She had no legs. Both had been amputated above the knee.
When she was six she fell off her father's tractor on their
farm and it crushed her legs. She spent the next few years in and
out of hospitals but set herself a goal of swimming the English
Channel. She thought if she could do that, then she could do
anything.
Her first attempt was unsuccessful and they pulled her out of the
water after 15 hours. A week later she tried again and was
successful in 18 hours. Her courage, focus and determination were
absolutely inspirational to everyone in Dover.
In the years following I swam down rivers in Brazil, lakes in
Italy and Switzerland, down the coast of California and across
the border of Canada.
An aunt of mine during this time sent me a newspaper article
about an American that had tried to swim from Cuba to the US. I
was fascinated and excited about one day trying to do this swim
which apparently even Tarzan, Johnny Weismuller had been
unsuccessful at.
There were many more dangers to this Caribbean swim. I had to use
a shark cage, there were Portuguese Man of War
jellyfish; the distance was four times that of the English
Channel and on top of all that we had to get the Cuban Coast
Guard and the American Coast Guard to communicate!
I finally achieved that dream at the age of 21 and became the
first person ever to swim from Cuba to the United States, land to
land in 39 hours. During all those hours in the water I had to
keep my mind busy and try to forget about the cold dark night,
the jellyfish stings and my ever - present sea sickness. I
thought of my favourite TV shows, I went through the Titanic
movie, scene by scene and sang Madonna songs to myself. Half way
across I was hallucinating and could see monkeys on the side of
my shark cage and even at one stage Santa Claus! But I locked
into my rhythm and concentrated on my breathing and just kept
going.
People often ask me "Why do I swim so far, why do I put my
body through the pain?" I guess it comes down to love. A
love of water and of setting goals and the wonderful satisfaction
of reaching these goals. There is also a love for my family, my
coach and friends who support me no matter what.
People probably think that my heroes are Olympians or iron men
or tennis players. But up on my wall are pictures of Christopher
Reeves and Nelson Mandela. In other words, people who have turned
a negative into a positive. They are my motivation. I am in awe
of them.
Because of my dreams and my goals I have been privileged to have
had dinner with Fidel Castro, morning tea with Governors, been a
guest on the David Letterman show and so on. But the highlights
and the honour to me have always been the local people that I
have met. People like the Cubans who all turned out at 3
o'clock in the morning just to farewell me at the start of my
swim and my boat captains who gave me the support and time that I
needed so much.
The three great essentials of happiness are:
Something to do
Someone to love and
Something to hope for.
If today's function can help with the hope then we can make a
difference.
Thank you
Susie Maroney
