Earlier this month, recreational open-water swimmer Paige Nuzzolillo swam the length of Penn Cove on Central Whidbey. It’s a distance of about 3.2 miles from Mueller Beach Access to Long Point. No trophies are awarded, and no competitors faced in these distance swims she tasks herself with — the Coupeville resident’s only opponent is herself.

“Swimming gets me through life’s really difficult moments,” she explained.

Competition is not Nuzzolillo’s thing. She considers herself athletic but never played sports in her youth, opting instead for solo activities like yoga, hiking and trail running. Growing up in Connecticut, Nuzzolillo and her dad spent summers on the beach and at water slides in Rhode Island, instilling within her a passion for swimming.

“I spent a lot of time being comfortable in the water and also spending a lot of time alone in the water just because I’m an only child,” Nuzzolillo said. “In the pool growing up, I spent a lot of time having it be a place of solace for me.”

Nuzzolillo dipped her toes into open-water swimming in 2018, shortly before her mom’s sudden, tragic passing. She details her swimming adventures on her blog, Wetsuit Weekender, including swimming 6.2 miles from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, 4.8 miles around West Seattle and 4 miles across Lake Wenatchee. Since moving to Whidbey in 2023, she frequents the chilly waters of Ebey’s Landing to get her mileage in.

Swimming is a means of processing grief for Nuzzolillo, and traversing such great distances is a testament to her tenacity.

“It’s really about reminding myself of my own strength and my body’s strength,” Nuzzolillo said. “And also just my own mental and emotional fortitude to really persevere and be resilient and take challenges as they come.”

Inspiration to swim the length of Penn Cove struck when she took a lesson in wing foiling — a wind-propelled sport — there earlier this summer.

Little physical preparation — aside from cold water acclimation — went into Nuzzolillo’s Penn Cove plans. Endurance was not a concern for her, only whether her shoulder, a source of pain for years, would hold up for her first long swim in a while. Nuzzolillo deals with chronic bursitis, the inflammation of a sac of fluid meant to ease friction around the joints, and uses acupuncture and strength training to calm the pain.

“That repetitive motion is what really starts to flare up my shoulder a lot, so I have to be really mindful of how much I’m (swimming),” Nuzzolillo said. “That’s why I was so cautious, I really thought it could potentially have been the thing that stopped me from finishing.”

Regardless of the obstacles potentially awaiting her — namely pain and large predators like orcas — Nuzzolillo’s determination won out.

“I have to do things that scare me in order to grow,” she said.

On the morning of Sept. 7, Nuzzolillo slipped on her fins, headed to Mueller Beach Access and hopped into the water, a fairly mild 58 degrees, flanked by her husband Evan in a kayak and her friend Paul, sailing his trimaran.

As it turned out, the tides and visibility were ideal; dodging hoards of egg yolk jellyfish stood as her biggest obstacle. Her wet suit absorbed most of the stings, and she altered her swim stroke to avoid the creatures fairly well. Regardless, the jellyfish stung Nuzzolillo so heavily in her face and mouth that, by the halfway point of her odyssey, she had to fight nausea, too.

“It was annoying, and it definitely sucked,” she said. “But I felt like I just really wanted to do the swim.”

Thankfully, she eventually found better company — a seal tagged along for about a mile. Nuzzolillo affirmed that part of the thrill of open-water swimming is having no idea of the oceanic encounters in store.

“That’s where I’m reminded of my own strength,” she said. “Even for someone that’s really used to the water and comfortable in the water, it takes a lot of bravery to go out there, especially by yourself.”

As she cut through the water, Nuzzolillo said she slipped into a “flow state,” wherein her mind is completely clear, her thoughts focused exclusively on reaching her goal. Swimming great distances like that of Penn Cove is an exercise in self-soothing and practicing encouraging self-talk, she added.

Surmounting her anxiety with these practices reminded Nuzzolillo of something her mom said to her when she began swimming right before her passing.

“She said to me, ‘Just keep swimming. It’s good for you,’” she recalled. “It’s such simple words, but it’s so true.”

Nuzzolillo’s Penn Cove swim truly was good for her. At about the 2.5-mile mark her shoulder began to ache, but the pain disappeared after pausing to massage it. Nuzzolillo finished her swim successfully, crossing her finish line in two hours and 15 minutes.

“It was just really cool to be able to say like, ‘Damn, that was an accomplishment and that was a serious adventure,’” Nuzzolillo recalled. “And then I was also very hungry. I just wanted to eat.”

Read about Nuzzolillo’s other adventures in her swim blog at wetsuitweekender.com.

(Photo provided by Sailing with Paul Porter) Nuzzolillo said the conditions were “really good” the morning she plunged into Penn Cove.

(Photo provided by Sailing with Paul Porter) Nuzzolillo completed her swim flanked by her husband, Evan, and her friend, Paul.

(Photo provided by Sailing with Paul Porter) Paige Nuzzolillo embarks on long distance solo swims, often armed with nothing but a buoy and fins.