Newtown Man Swims His Way Into The Record Books

By Steve Bigham

Newtown resident Jim Bayles this week became the first person in history to have completed the task of swimming under all 25 major New York City bridges. The final bridge was the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, under which he swam on his way from Sandy Hook, New Jersey, to Manhattan Wednesday.

The healthy 48-year-old long-distance swimmer completed the 18-mile swim as part of his annual iron-man fundraiser for the fight against Juvenile Diabetes, from which his father suffered for nearly 60 years. He expects to raise more than $10,000 for this week’s swim, upping his total to nearly $100,000 in funds raised.

Jim Bayles finished the swim in just over nine hours, arriving in Manhattan’s Battery Park (near Wall Street) at 4:30 pm, just as the stock market was closing and the tide was turning.

Mr Bayles, who last year raised money by swimming the 28 miles around Manhattan, became the first man to swim from Sandy Hook to the Big Apple since the 1960s. He remains the only man to ever swim from Greenwich to Manhattan – a feat he accomplished two years ago.

This week’s swim turned out to be a little tougher than Mr Bayles had expected. He found himself having to deal with waves as high as nine feet as he swam his away through the Atlantic Ocean. Fortunately, a boat full of friends traveled alongside the swimmer.

“Luckily they were coming from the west. If they were coming from the east, they would have been a lot higher,” Mr Bayles said. “It was some of the hardest swimming I’ve had to do. On a calm day it’s an easy swim.”

The Newtown resident pushed off the Sandy Hook shore (just south of Staten Island) at about 7:15 am Wednesday. After four grueling hours in the Atlantic, he made his way into the lower bay of New York City. There, he swam under the Verrazano Narrows – one of the longest suspension bridges in the world. Racing time and the tides, Mr Bayles crossed the shipping lanes from west to east, managing to stay out of the way of some rather large freighters, who also did their part to stay out of his way.

Swimming toward the Brooklyn side of Manhattan, Mr Bayles was forced to curve slightly around Governor’s Island near the Statue of Liberty. Finally, he arrived in Battery Park to the delight of the large crowd assembled there to greet him.

“The current was just beginning to change. If I had been any later, I would have started going backwards,” Mr Bayles explained.

The swimmer said next year he would swim from Bridgeport across Long Island Sound to Port Jefferson. That swim will benefit research in the fight against epilepsy, from which his 15-year-old daughter, Kate, suffers.

“There’s some history there. My ancestors owned a shipyard in Port Jefferson. My great, great, great grandfather rode across Long Island Sound to Bridgeport to become a ship building apprentice. Then he started his own business in Port Jefferson around 1820. I’m going to swim into Bayles Dock in Port Jefferson,” Mr Bayles said.

In two years, Mr Bayles plans to celebrate his 50th birthday by swimming across the English Channel.

Inspired By His Father

Mr Bayles’ father suffered from juvenile diabetes from age 19 until the day he died at age 75. Like his son, the senior Mr Bayles managed to keep himself in shape and, at his death, was believed to be the healthiest diabetic in the United States in terms of complications caused by the disease.

Inspired by his father’s determination to be healthy, Mr Bayles wakes up each morning at 3:30 and makes his way to New Canaan’s YMCA to train.

For Jim Bayles, swimming has been a lifelong passion. He began swimming competitively at age five and recalls charting his “extra” laps using a map of Manhattan. “We used it as a chart to determine how far we had gone. It took me all summer to make it around,” Mr Bayles recalled.

Mr Bayles went to the nationals while at Dartmouth College where he excelled in the 400 individual medley and barely missed qualifying for the 1972 Olympic trials.

Jim and Trina Bayles moved to Butterfield Road in Newtown four years ago along with their three daughters, Jen, Brooke, and Katie.

For more information on the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, call 203/972-1729.