Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

It will be a long wa­tery haul.

But the leg­end of a slave of who es­caped a To­ba­go plan­ta­tion by swim­ming to Trinidad has prompt­ed con­ser­va­tion­ist John Pro­cope to swim the chan­nel from To­ba­go to Trinidad to raise aware­ness of cli­mate change dam­age, and sup­port his call for lo­cal gov­ern­ment to be in­stru­men­tal in ex­pand­ing swim­ming class­es for cit­i­zens.

“I in­tend mak­ing the ef­fort,” said Pro­cope of his planned ‘Big Swim’ on Au­gust 10. I would like to en­cour­age the Gov­ern­ment and re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions to sup­port our young ath­letes es­pe­cial­ly in Learn to Swim pro­grammes and in rep­re­sent­ing T&T in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

“Plus, I would like to raise aware­ness of the dev­as­tat­ing im­pact of cli­mate change, pol­lu­tion and over-fish­ing on our wa­ters. We see the ill ef­fects of cli­mate change every­where in T&T,”

Pro­cope, the son of late King’s Coun­sel Bruce Pro­cope and late Pamela “Nurse Pam” Pro­cope plans do­ing the 15-20 hour Big Swim—as it has been dubbed—on Au­gust 10, con­di­tions per­mit­ting.

He plans start­ing ten­ta­tive­ly from 11 pm at Ba­co­let, To­ba­go, and head­ing with the tides, south/west to Trinidad. And it will be wa­ter all the way. No jet-ski or boats to hop a ride on.

Pro­cope will be in his el­e­ment. His in­tro­duc­tion to the wa­ter came be­fore he could walk in the form of week­ends at the beach, out­ings to rivers and wa­ter­falls and swim­ming pools.

“My par­ents told me I was taught to swim at home by a com­bi­na­tion of fam­i­ly mem­bers who en­sured I could float ef­fort­less­ly by age one,” he said.

“Grad­u­al­ly, and with very reg­u­lar prac­tice, I was able to swim con­fi­dent­ly by two years old. Lat­er, I tried all four strokes and play­ing games like wa­ter po­lo and rac­ing. I have now tak­en up swim­ming at mas­ter’s lev­el, train­ing at the YM­CA, al­so be­com­ing in­volved in triathlons with To­ba­go Aqua War­riors.”

Wa­ter in­tro­duced Pro­cope to his oth­er pas­sion, en­vi­ron­men­tal ad­vo­ca­cy, and has seen first-hand the hor­ror cli­mate change can wreak on the beau­ty of ma­rine flo­ral and fau­na.

He said, “This swim is par­tic­u­lar­ly spe­cial since I de­cid­ed to do it based on a leg­end that a slave had es­caped from a To­ba­go plan­ta­tion by swim­ming to Trinidad. Some al­so say he float­ed on a raft of co­conut leaves. But whichev­er, he made it across on bare strength.

“We haven’t heard of any­one else cross­ing by swim­ming. There has been claims man made sev­er­al at­tempts, but no sup­port­ing ev­i­dence. My en­deav­our will be filmed.”

Pro­cope had at­tempt­ed the cross­ing last year with William Carr, Patrick Lee Loy and Ro­get Watts. But he chose a Sep­tem­ber date, the day on which hur­ri­cane Fiona passed by, and the swim was post­poned due to un­favourable con­di­tions

He said the Au­gust 10 date was al­so flex­i­ble ac­cord­ing to the con­di­tions and tide. With the pro­ject­ed 11 pm start time, Pro­cope would be in the wa­ter for ap­prox­i­mate­ly five hours by the time the sun ris­es.

“It’s best to be­gin when there’s no sun. When there’s sun there’s al­so wind and that in­creas­es the tides.”

Pro­cope will be ac­com­pa­nied over the 45-60km cir­cuit by guide boats giv­ing him re­fresh­ments every 45 min­utes. Carr will join him in the wa­ter in­ter­mit­tent­ly for sup­port.

Pro­cope added, “It will be worth it. T&T is a beau­ti­ful is­land na­tion. It’s es­sen­tial our peo­ple know how to swim and han­dle them­selves in the wa­ter and this is an area that lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form can be ap­plied to help­ing teach cit­i­zens to swim. “Hope­ful­ly, this will help more peo­ple see first-hand how T&T is be­ing dam­aged by cli­mate change now so they can pre­serve it for gen­er­a­tions ahead.”

Where he will be land­ing in Trinidad is still to be de­ter­mined. Sup­port­ers can find more in­for­ma­tion on Pro­cope’s Big Swim at his Go­FundMe page or 377-7908.