By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
OCEAN CITY – For a lot of the swimmers who came out to Saturday’s T. John Carey Master’s Swim, running off the beach and heading out into the open ocean together is being part of a community.
The 2021 one-mile swim started at the 42nd Street beach in Ocean City and finished at the 34th Street beach.
Swimmers started gathering at the starting line around 9 a.m. before the 10 a.m. start.
“I’ve grown up on 34th Street and when I was younger I would watch everyone come in and I wanted to do it and started training for it,” Amira Scaramella, 23, said as she waited for the race to begin. She lives in Moorestown and summers in Ocean City. “I’ve been doing it every year. It’s a tradition of mine. I just love it because everyone of all ages comes out and swims it,” said the University of Maryland graduate now doing an interim program at the University of Pennsylvania as she applies to medical school. “It’s nice to be in the water and just swim with everyone. I love it. It’s like a whole community.”
Tess Andres, 40, originally from New Jersey but now residing in Richmond, Va., said she has done the Master’s Swim “since I was like 18 and whenever I can get up here to do it, I do. I love open water. She is planning to do the Atlantic City Around-The-Island swim in a two-person relay Aug. 1. “This is good saltwater practice,” she said, compared to the 22.75-mile Atlantic City race. Asked if that makes the one-mile Master’s Swim more of a sprint for her, she laughed. “Kind of. I don’t really sprint.” Andres said as she’s gotten older she’s done more open water swimming. “There are new conditions each time,” she explained. “It is never the same race twice, which is kind of fun.” She also enjoys being around the other swimmers who take part.
Frank Kenny of Estell Manor has done the Master’s Swim seven or eight times simply because he “likes to.” He enjoys the competition, “not that I’m really competing,” the camaraderie and swimming in the ocean. “And you have lifeguards in case you get in trouble.” Kenny said he trains in a pool, but prefers the open water. “I’d rather be out here.”
John Szramiak of Seaville, who was chatting with Kenny as they waited for the race to begin, is an open-water swimmer who “takes every opportunity to get into an open-water event. This is one I’ve probably done the last 10 years. The water is a little cool today without a wetsuit, but I’ll manage.”
Szramiak said ocean racing is “obviously a challenge because you’re in different elements. You can’t watch the bottom of the pool so you have to swim a straight line. You’re dealing with the waves, you’re dealing with the current, you’re dealing with the people in front of you and around you banging you, so it all becomes a challenge.”
“It’s a personal challenge,” he added. “You’re not really racing against anyone else because you don’t really see them,” he laughed.
Andres, who finished seventh among the women, said the the race was good.
“I like it cold so it was really nice,” she said at the finish line. She said it was a “tricky start” with all the people at once – just more than 100 took part. “After that it was great,” she said.
Matt Jamieson, chief of the Ocean City Beach Patrol, which oversees the event and makes sure everyone competes safely, said “upholding the tradition of the T. John Carey Master’s Swim has been a big part of the fabric of the Ocean City Beach Patrol, long before I was even born.” He has been a competitor in the event himself many times.
The race fits well with Ocean City because it “acquaints people with a healthy lifestyle,” and gets them out into the ocean. “It’s a warm, welcoming event for people to get oriented to ocean swimming,” Jamieson said. “We have a lot of safety out there. It’s a highlight in everybody’s calendar that comes to participate, whether it’s their first time, their family member’s first time, or something they come back for every year.”
“Seeing the same family faces makes it a great event to host,” Jamieson noted.