by Jessica Kieras
On July 1, 2024, Kamilla Boross became the first woman to circumnavigate the island of Gozo, pending ratification by the MSF swim review team. She faced difficult currents, winds up to 10 kph and over twelve and a half hours of swimming. Her main method of coping: an unwavering mental commitment to accept the environment as is and appreciate everything the sea has to offer.
Swimming with Gratitude
As I read through her swim documentation, I marveled at the abundance and variety of experiences she found to appreciate during her tour around the island. She adored the bioluminescence, the fish, the dramatic cliffs, and the movement of the water flowing around her body. She embraced memories of her first swim in Gozo, diving over shipwrecks, hiking with her dog, Alfie, and her favorite seafood restaurants as she stroked by these landmarks. She briefly entertained the possibility of exploring a cave mid-swim but decided against it, hoped to see a blue shark, took photos of funny patterns on the cliffs and floated on the surface, “thinking how grateful I am that I’m living here and I can swim around this island.”
This woman is truly an expert-level appreciator of the sea.
Positive Self-Talk
As the swim continued on, she hit some difficult currents and was tempted by some tricky thoughts. “Let’s not waste energy for negativity,” she coached herself. “My best memories are coming from when the sea is a little bit choppy, a little bit rough, ‘imchafchaf’ in Maltese.” As she picked up the pace and her adrenaline increased, the pain faded away, she found herself in the flow again and enjoyed the swim even more than before. “I realized that swimming without my smartwatch makes my swimming much more enjoyable. I don’t care about my pace, the time,” she wrote in her swim narrative.
She finished in a time of 12:31:48 to a crowd of supporters cheering for her as she climbed out of the water. Her swim was part of the “Ocean Festival” event organized by the legendary, Neil Agius. She said Neil was there, greeting and congratulating each finisher.
Learning to Accept and Appreciate what Comes
I asked Kamilla if appreciating and enjoying swimming in the ocean had come naturally to her or if it was something she had cultivated over time.
A Hungarian now living in Malta, she saw the sea for the very first time in 2012 and noted that ocean swimming was initially not quite natural. She was encouraged by her coach to explore open water swimming and moved to Malta in 2016. Since then, she has gradually built a love and comfort with ocean swimming. She has found herself in the positive company of the local swim community and their regular weekend swims in the sea.
During her first marathon swim in Greece, she found herself grouchy and frustrated with things that didn’t go according to plan. But she reasoned with herself that she was there for enjoyment. “Let your expectations go, then accept the environment and be grateful that you are here and you have a strong body,” she said. “I am not going to get out, so only option is to swim, so do it with a smile.” From then on, she says things have been different and no matter what comes, she embraces it.
“So this is absolutely learnable,” she said. “And I believe, learning this can give us a peace of mind and helps us to get out of many life situations. When life hits very hard, then it takes longer and more work.”
I asked if she had any advice for other swimmers on how to develop this mental fortitude. “As soon as the negative thoughts or pain is coming, accept it and start positive self-talk, and visualize how you will get out of the water at the finish, this will help to push it through,” she said. “I am also using visualization before my swims. It includes the start and the finish of the swim. While visualizing 12 hours is a challenging task, instead of visualizing the whole swim, I focus on the possible challenges I can encounter during the swim both physically and mentally and I imagine how I will handle them.”
Kamilla is not sure what is next yet, but she would like to continue to “level up”, and you can pretty much guarantee she will find a way to enjoy it.
