Swimming To Antarctica

American Swimmer Spends 30 Minutes In Water Cold Enough To Kill

(CBS)  In a sense, everything that Cox has done in 30 years comes down to this. Her goal is one mile - and that will take nearly half an hour.

She begins her swim to Antactica as doctors watch for signs of trouble.

Just minutes after it begins, it seems over. Cox is calling for shore and the water seems much too cold. It's been 11 minutes but it feels like an hour.

Four minutes later, maybe out of sheer hope, Cox badly misjudges how far she has traveled. She asks if she’s done a mile, but she's only gone half that far.

But just when her team is prepared to take her in, she gets something like a second wind, perhaps a second warmth, and tries to go the distance.

She's about 21 minutes into the swim. Penguins are coming down from the glacier down to the beach. It almost looks like a welcoming party.

But she's done it. In all of 25 minutes, she's done it. And she's done better than she hoped. Measured by a navigation satellite she’s covered 1.22 miles.

They get her back in the Zodiac and race to the ship, lying on top of her for warmth. On board, her temperature rises, and so does her sense of triumph.

There's no gold medal for swimming the first Antarctic mile, just the warm satisfaction that your place in the world is unique and that your record is certainly safe.