Almost three-quarters of our planet’s surface is water. Forty percent of the world’s population lives within 60 miles of a coastline. Water is a universal human experience and we seem to be drawn to it despite the many inherent risks and dangers. Beyond mere survival value, the element that can manifest as floods and tsunamis, that houses sharks and yet-unknown creatures in its depths, is also a place of play. Bonnie Tsui travels the world to unfurl some of the paradoxes of our love-hate relationship with water.

In 1984, off the coast of the small Icelandic island of Heimaey, a fishing vessel capsized and sank, leaving all five fisherman to fend for themselves in frigid northern Atlantic waters. Four of five drowned quickly as the shock of the cold ate away at their core internal temperatures. But the fifth managed to swim three miles over the course of six hours, until he found an accessible way to get onto the rocky island. Unfortunately, his journey involved traversing a section of Heimaey comprised of sharp volcanic rock, then walking another mile into town and banging on the first door in which there was a light. He was taken to the hospital and miraculously survived the ordeal.

The story raised the obvious question of how he managed to survive hours in freezing waters, while his fellow fisherman perished in a matter of minutes. Doctors ran tests and discovered that his body was covered in a layer of fat far thicker than average. It kept him buoyant and enabled his body to maintain its core temperature much longer.

In a land where there are myths about people who are half seal-half human, word of this amazing feat spread across the nation, and then the world. A humble fisherman had become a living legend. 

A unique combination of culture and biology saved the fisherman’s life. His extra thick layer of fat would not have done him much good if he couldn’t swim well. On that particular island, where the fishing industry is the lifeblood of the town, drowning is an occupational hazard for many of its citizens. The severity of this risk for the local population is memorialized at a local museum that houses a record of drowning victims extending back to the thirteenth century. The town has embraced the importance of training to prevent drowning deaths. For more than a century, swimming lessons have been an essential part of life in this town. Everyone in Heimaey knows how to swim—including that intrepid fisherman, who has now come to embody the Icelandic ethos of grit and fortitude in the face of challenges.

Kim Chambers is probably the best swimmer the world has never heard of. And she only started swimming as an adult. It all began in 2009, when she broke her leg tumbling down the stairs of her apartment in San Francisco. Doctors decided against amputation, but informed her that she may never walk again.

Two years later, Kim was on her feet again. But in the time after her fall, she had discovered a love of swimming. And not just any type of swimming: marathon swimming. About half a year after her fall, Kim swam between Alcatraz and San Francisco. Since then, she’s set a number of world records. In 2015, she became the first woman to swim through the great-white-shark-infested Red Triangle, a 30-mile swim between the Farallon Islands and the Golden Gate Bridge.

She became the sixth person ever to finish the Oceans Seven—which consists of grueling, long-distance swims all over the world, including the Cook Strait in New Zealand, the English Channel and the Strait of Gibraltar between Morocco and Spain.

For Kim, swimming has become a source of healing and community. Since breaking her leg, she’s developed a passion she never knew she had. She’s joined the prestigious Dolphin Club, home to world-class swimming and rowing groups since its founding in the late 1800s. She reports that running into fellow members of the club on the street is a bizarre experience because they have clothes on—not the usual attire for swimming around the Bay.

San Francisco Bay’s chilly waters have become something of a sanctuary to her, one she associates with healing. It’s not a good day when Kim doesn’t get in the water. She’s so at home in the water, that she can identify its temperature within one degree, just based on her body’s response. The swimming was wonderfully reconditioning after her accident, and she’s slowly found sensation returning to her leg. Kim is convinced that the nerve damage in her leg would not have healed had she chosen a sedentary lifestyle, or even opted for land-based physical therapy. Kim’s doctors find her speculation about the reparative impact of oxygen-rich blood rushing back to her limbs after a cold swim to be a plausible theory.

Swimming can be a meditative time, an exercise in solitude. The author once wrote a piece for the New York Times describing the water as one of the last places where someone can disconnect from others (in response to the sometimes unhealthy electronic forms of connection). One person who offered a friendly rebuttal was Coach Jay. Jay argued that swimming encourages true connection. As it turns out, Jay’s letter sprang from a wealth of experience in using swimming as a community-builder.

While serving as a diplomatic attaché in Baghdad, Iraq, tasked with recruiting capable young Iraqis to seek advanced degrees in the United States, Coach Jay inadvertently began teaching swim lessons. He’d grown up a swimming enthusiast, and began to put those skills to work teaching a young man from Madagascar, and then a girl from Bulgaria. Where did they do this? The heavily-guarded “Green Zone,” which had become a secure international headquarters in Baghdad where politicians, ambassadors, and humanitarians conducted operations. Inside the Green Zone was a grand palace where Saddam Hussein had lived and worked. It had an elegant Olympic-sized swimming pool, as did the opulent so-called “little palace,” just down the road.

Between these two locations, Coach Jay began running swimming drills—informally at first. It began when he critiqued a young man from Madagascar who thrashing his way across the pool with the most energy-inefficient form possible. Jay began training him and another girl from Bulgaria. Class sizes tripled, then doubled, then tripled again, it became a more formalized endeavor to which Jay dedicated much of his free time.

Word spread fast. In its heyday, there were regularly between two and three dozen people attending swim classes. These people were from all over the world, and were doing work of one kind or another in Baghdad: cooks, translators, soldiers, and pilots. Some Iraqi women who came for swim lessons had never swum before and didn’t have any kind of gear. Coach Jay referred them to his female Bangladeshi colleague in the city, to help them find modest swimsuits that they’d be comfortable wearing. Because many people could not afford to pay for suits or goggles, Coach Jay often footed the bill to outfit the swim team. All were welcomed, and, regardless of skill levels, Coach Jay had tailored advice to help each individual improve his or her swimming.

The Green Zone was heavily fortified, but it still had its risks. Insurgents firing mortar rounds were common. There was no question that the Green Zone was a war zone. One of Coach Jay’s students from Madagascar recalls an incident when the sirens began blaring, alerting those in the Green Zone to take cover. The knockback from a mortar explosion had flung Jay against a wall and Jay’s student had to pull him inside, out of harm’s way. These kinds of risks and stresses had a unifying effect on the Baghdad Swim Team, as they called themselves.

Years later, US efforts in Iraq have now receded into the background of history and media coverage. Hussein’s once-majestic swimming pools are as dry as the surrounding terrain. Still, there are some who fondly remember the camaraderie that developed among the swimmers from all nations, and the man who dedicated his time and resources to creating a sense of community in the middle of a war zone, at the poolside of a deposed dictator.

Martial arts are not just confined to land. In Japan, there are numerous swimming martial art schools that trace their roots back to the samurais, who sought to master the techniques of fighting in the water, fording lakes and rivers undetected by the enemy, and staying gracefully afloat for extended periods of time.

What we call the breaststroke can be traced back to one samurai technique called hira-oyogi, a technique the samurai employed to swim long distances across open waters. When Yoshiyuki Tsuruta won the gold for the 200-meter breaststroke in the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, he was very vocal in attributing his success to centuries-old swimming martial arts techniques. Because of its ties to samurais, the breaststroke was the pride and joy of Japanese swimming, and Tsuruta began a long and proud tradition of Japanese Olympic excellence in the stroke.

To this day, swimming martial arts are still practiced in Japan. There are levels of mastery and rites of passage involved in moving from one tier to the next, just as in judo or aikido. There are samurai-inspired competitions that draw fans from across Asia and Europe. Some of the competitions are televised. There are numerous events, like full armor swimming, which involves traversing the pool with heads above water while wearing 40 pounds of armor. Another event is called “gray mullet jumping,” in which swimmers propel themselves straight up out of the water, throwing arms back while putting heads forward. The samurais used this motion to throw off seaweed or to spring on to the boat.

Perhaps the most vital skill for the samurai was tachi-oyogi—or standing swimming. The swimmer keeps his head and upper body above the water line, moving the legs in a circular motion for upward propulsion. Water polo players use similar techniques. This technique, too, is centuries old. It dates back to the 1500s. If you can keep your upper body still and out of the water, you’ve freed yourself to perform any number of tasks: writing poetry, sword fighting, loading a gun or firing an arrow.

A major emphasis within the tradition of swimming martial arts is working with the water, rather than against it. This aligns with the thinking of other people who live along the world’s coastlines. The Dutch, who live in a country mostly below sea level, have also found it more helpful to view water as a friend rather than a nemesis. Knowing how to work with water helps people see it as less threatening.

The tradition of swimming martial arts is declining in popularity, but the techniques they use maintain a proud warrior tradition. The handful of faithful proponents maintaining a link to Japan’s aquatic fighting heritage also submit that there’s a strong connection between the ancient techniques and Japan’s achievements in modern swimming competitions.

Almost 400,000 people drown every year—that’s over 40 drownings every hour of every day. Even swim lessons are no guarantor of survival. A nasty current, a capsized boat, a slip-and-fall by the poolside can complicate life even for an able swimmer.  Most drownings take place in developing countries along coasts and waterways—either adults whose occupation revolves around water or children sent to draw water. Just because water is nearby doesn’t mean local inhabitants are apt swimmers. On the island of Madagascar, for example, swimming is a skill that many don’t possess. 

Despite the risks, people are constantly near water and many feel the need to conquer it or at least become comfortable in it. We swim for survival; we swim for community; we swim for competition; we swim for religious reasons; we swim for healing. Such is our paradoxical relationship with water: It poses dangers, but we need it and the opportunities it affords for commerce, connection, enjoyment, and meaning.