From Block Island to Montauk Through Sharks, Currents and Cramps - The New York Times

Lori King had to swim in a looping U to get from Block Island to Montauk, so that strong currents would not push her off course.Credit...Drew Maloney

From Block Island to Montauk Through Sharks, Currents and Cramps - The New York Times

By Jesus Jiménez

Aug. 23, 2022Updated 11:49 a.m. ET

Lori King, 47, was swimming toward Long Island when a shark fin suddenly rose from the water.

King was about three-quarters of the way through a marathon swim on Aug. 3 from Block Island, R.I., to Montauk, N.Y. She didn’t see the shark, but her crew saw one of its fins. They knew that the shark could have endangered her and could have threatened her attempt at completing a trek that many had tried but no one had conquered.

Until then, King’s crew had been moving in a sort of diamond formation around her: one boat ahead of King, a kayaker on either side of her, and another boat behind her. Amanda Fenner, who organized King’s swim, said that had the shark gotten too close to King, the crew would have had to pull her from the water a few miles short of finishing the swim of nearly 24 miles.

“I did not want to be the one to make the call,” Fenner said, recalling one of King’s swims in Tampa, Fla., in 2013, when she was pulled at Mile 21 of a 24-mile swim because a shark started to encircle her. “That crushed her.”