It took 16 hours and 46 minutes and although Joseph Fowler is a little waterlogged, he did it.

The 17-year-old Farmington endurance swimmer made the 32.4-mile traverse of the length of Moosehead Lake on Sunday, becoming the second swimmer on record to complete the swim and the fastest swimmer by more than five hours.

Overall weather, including 5-foot swells and water temperatures that slid as low as 61 degrees, as well as a broken-down boat due to a flooded engine set off a flurry of early reports that Fowler had failed in his attempt.

“It’s nice to know the boat flooded before I did,” an exhausted Fowler said Monday morning by phone.

Fowler, who also suffers from asthma, was in the water by 6:30 a.m. when the air temperature was 40 degrees and swam onto the shore in Greenville just after 11 p.m. Sunday night.

“It was like swimming out in the galaxy, you don’t know where you are going,” he joked of his after-dark swim.

“It was just a matter of hanging in there,” said his mother, Fran, who watched as her son averaged 70 strokes per minute, a steady clip considering sprinters skim over the water around 80 strokes per minute. “Our job was to keep feeding him, keep him going and keep him alert. There were a few hairy moments in there though.”

Fowler’s body temperature dropped to 90 degrees by the end of the swim, well below hypothermic level.

His support crew, including his father, Fenwick, his sister Mattie, 15, coach Craig Taylor and Fran kept him going with a carbohydrate-loaded drink that was heated to 102 degrees to keep his body temperature up. At times, ground up Advil and salt were mixed into the drink, which was dangled over the water on a piece of PVC piping three meters long.

Also a critical member of the support team was Dan DeLuca, the only person ever on record to have also completed the swim. DeLuca, who did the swim in just over 22 hours in 2000, was still gushing about Fowler’s character and determination on Monday.

DeLuca gave Fowler a pep talk the night before the big swim and warned him, “At times, it’s going to suck and you’re going to want to quit.” He was impressed that Fowler never even mentioned the q-word.

Determination

“The conditions were unfavorable to say the least,” DeLuca admitted. “Joseph surprised me, and everyone really. I really admire his determination and his fortitude and his ability to stick to his goal. At times, it was painful to watch him battling those big waves.”

Taylor, who coached both DeLuca and Fowler, said he was awed by the level of mental maturity the Farmington teen displayed on Sunday. “He totally conquered that lake and Mother Nature,” the coach said.

“His determination against all odds was just incredible. He was superman. He had it set in his mind that he was going to do this swim for himself and for his grandfather’s memory no matter what. And he did.”

When Fowler reached the shore, DeLuca said the teen had full-blown hypothermia and his skin was ashen and pale. During the Moosehead swim, which DeLuca noted was the largest physical accomplishment in his own life, he said a swimmer can begin to hallucinate, and go “a bit daffy.”

Fowler was no exception and admitted that at times, he forget where he was and what he was doing. “I was dozing in and out of it. I just kept telling myself, ‘You’re going to regret it if you stop,'” he said.

After the fifth hour though, Fowler convinced himself that he was going to finish the 32.4-mile trek no matter what. “I think I fared better than I thought I would. It was horrible conditions, horrendous even. It was rough but it’s done and I don’t want to go through that again though.”

Future plans

Admittedly proud of his accomplishment and still a little blown away by it all, a still exhausted Fowler says he will stay away from the water, at least until this weekend when he will swim a half mile in a team triathlon in Camden.

As for the future, he plans to tackle some other open water challenges, for example, the English Channel, which is considered one of the toughest crossings in the world due to frigid water temperatures, sharks and jelly fish, although it is considerably shorter than Moosehead in distance.

“But I am not on my way to England any time soon,” he said with a laugh. “I’ll put it on the list of things to do in this lifetime though.”

The swim was done as both a personal challenge and as a fund-raiser for a pulmonary fibrosis, a lung disease that killed Fowler’s grandfather. Donations for the Pulmonary Fibrosis Center are still being accepted and can be sent to Fowler at 260 Perham St., Farmington, ME, 04938.

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