The Golden Gate Bridge is one of the world’s most famous and most photographed bridges. When it opened in 1937, it was the longest and tallest suspension bridge in the world.

My three kids, (then ages eleven, thirteen and fifteen), and I set a goal to swim the Golden Gate, from San Francisco to Marin. For months, we trained together, swimming lap after lap in our local pool. I enjoyed seeing how dedicated they were to the project.

For safety reasons, the Coast Guard requires swimmers to have a small boat trail Golden Gate open water swimmers. Shark sightings are rare inside the bay, but we did have a plan if our boat captain saw one. He’d blow an air horn and we’d swim like hell toward the boat.

That Sunday morning, the sun was shining bright when we dove into the icy cold fifty-four-degree water. My body tensed with shock. Man, it was cold. Our sleeveless wetsuits let the frigid water run from our necks down to our toes. We put our heads in the water, stroked with our arms and I hoped I’d warm up, but I never did. As we swam, I often lifted my head to make sure we stayed in line toward the distant tower of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Swimming under the bridge was eerie. I could hear the hum of wheels and see vehicles passing hundreds of feet above me. After about twenty minutes, we’d traveled halfway. I was frozen to my core, but it was so peaceful, I thought it was crazy that the Coast Guard required us to have a boat follow us. However, in a matter of two minutes, the weather changed. The sun vanished, clouds rolled in and the calm sea became violent.

Swells of almost ten feet rocked us up and down. My youngest son was only eleven and I was worried he was too small to handle the big waves. But he didn’t let up. He kept churning his arms. We all did. The waves were so large, out stomachs were doing flips and we were feeling sea-sick with nausea, but we kept swimming toward the Marin shore.

Finally, we made it and with teeth chattering and blue lips, climbed into the Zodiac boat and headed back to the San Francisco shore. When we landed on the sandy beach, we were tired with blue lips, shivering from the cold. The cold water, the powerful swells had given us a fresh reminder of the power of nature.

We also had the thrill of success. We’d accomplished our goal. We did it! We swam the Golden Gate.