Cold Tahoe wears out swimmer
A California man took a cold, pre-dawn plunge in Lake Tahoe on Saturday, hoping to swim across the scenic mountain lake to raise awareness of the strife plaguing the African nation of Congo.
After more than 11 hours in the water, Keris Dahlkamp, 36, changed course and came up a little short of his quest to swim 22 miles from South Lake Tahoe to Kings Beach on the north shore.
Struggling with fatigue and nausea, the YMCA program director from Pleasant Hill, Calif., veered to the southeast about midway through his journey and ended up at Dead Man's Point in Glenbrook Bay on Tahoe's east shore.
His overall distance was calculated at 20.75 miles, said his wife, Rena Myers-Dahlkamp.
"He did so great!" she said in a telephone interview about two hours after her husband reached dry land.
"He was really afraid he'd have to get pulled out of the water," she said, explaining his decision to change course and head for a shore that didn't seem so distant. "But he almost did the exact same length he set out to do.
"It was double anything he's ever done before," she said.
Through an online campaign and word of mouth, she said his efforts raised about $5,000 for the Congo Connect Youth Initiative Project in the country, which has been ravaged by civil war over minerals found in Congo's eastern region. The fighting has raged for years, leaving as many as 5 million dead and thousands of people struggling to survive in crude refugee camps.
When he finally made shore, Dahlkamp was greeted by family and friends, then promptly went to take a well-deserved nap. Also there to meet him was Kambale Musavuli, who fled Congo and came to the United States with his family in 1998.
"My family was fortunate enough to get out," said Musavuli, now a spokesman for Friends of the Congo.
"I did not realize how long was the swim," Musavuli told a reporter. "That reminded me I cannot be hopeless."
