He had a fear of water. Now he swims marathons to champion water safety in Malaysia

LANG TENGAH, Terengganu – “Maybe I should swim backstroke?” asks Mr Ridzwan Rahim, as he treads water in the South China Sea off Terengganu, on Malaysia’s east coast.

It is a couple of hours before dawn on July 14, and he is ahead of schedule, even though the waves have rocked him more than 3km off his intended swimming course – a 10km straight-line path from Redang island to Lang Tengah island.

Yet, this would be considered good conditions overall. He ends up treading water in the dark for an hour before landing safely at Lang Tengah in the morning light with his support boats.

The swim took him six hours, seven minutes and 21 seconds.

This was the easiest of what the technical writer by day has coined the Wonderful Terengganu Four Swims (WTF Swims), a marathon linking up the mainland of the east coast state with three of its most popular island getaways – Perhentian, Lang Tengah and Redang.

He is the first person to complete these routes.

But beyond this personal achievement, Mr Ridzwan, 47, also has two long-term objectives – to promote Terengganu as an open-water swimming destination and to raise awareness of water survival skills in Malaysia.

Despite all 13 states having a shoreline and innumerable inland water features, learning to swim is not part of Malaysia’s school syllabus.

This is a key factor leading to hundreds of drowning cases being recorded nationwide each year at sea, in rivers and waterfalls, lakes and mining ponds, and even swimming pools at hotels and theme parks.

In contrast, swimming lessons are mandatory in Australia, Germany, France and even landlocked Austria.

In Singapore, the Ministry of Education strongly encourages schools to include the SwimSafer programme at the Primary 3 level.

For Malaysia, it was only in 2023 that the Youth and Sports Ministry

piloted a programme

offering free swimming classes to schoolchildren, on the back of statistics that about 500 children drown each year. Malaysia includes non-fatal cases in drowning statistics.

Including adults, there have been an average of 700 drowning cases recorded in Malaysia resulting in 270 deaths annually since 2018.

Drowning

is the second-highest cause of death among Malaysians below the age of 15, with a four-year-old the latest reported victim on Aug 11, at a resort in Terengganu despite his family being nearby.

Having started formal swimming lessons only at the age of 32, after growing up with a fear of water, Mr Ridzwan and his exploits bear the message of “if I can survive in water, then anyone can”.

The first leg, a 17km (19km in real distance covered) swim from Perhentian to the mainland, which took nearly nine hours, was completed in March 2021.

His team of observers, medics, paddlers in support kayaks, feeders and coaches was thus named Perhentian Channel Swim (PCS).

In June 2023, he swam for nearly 21 hours from Redang to the mainland.

Mr Ridzwan is by no measure an elite swimmer, with a pool pace of about 2min 5sec per 100m. In comparison, elite competitors clock under 1min 30sec per 100m over a 10km course.

“It’s difficult enough for someone who’s spent half their life in the pool,” said former swim queen Tania Bugo, who joined PCS as an observer for the July 14 event.

“But to have someone who’s not from a swimming background do this for fun is something I’m still wrapping my head around,” added the winner of 13 golds at the 1990 Malaysia Games.

PCS has partnered Project Life Aquatic, a water survival programme under the auspices of the Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, to spread awareness and also equip Malaysians with water survival techniques.

Project Life Aquatic director Rahayu Tasnim told The Straits Times that nearly half of the 600 participants who trained in the Swim & Survive, Malaysia programme since 2021 had experienced drowning situations.

She cited an incident in the Belum Forest of Perak, where a 54-year-old trainee survived but saw six others perish despite wearing life jackets, after their boat capsized in a placid lake.

Dr Rahayu believes that anyone who swims or is engaged in aquatic activities “should be able to swim unassisted and float unassisted... regardless of whether you can swim fast in the pool or in open water”.

She pointed out that the ability to swim does not always mean the person knows how to survive in a water emergency.

A recent example is triathlete Muhaini Mahmud, 44, who died in hospital after having to be rescued from nearly drowning at the October 2023 Langkawi Ironman race.

Mr Ridzwan conquered his childhood fear of water by going on an assignment as a journalist for the New Straits Times that involved scuba diving in Perhentian. In 2009, he became a certified scuba diver, but his instructor insisted he also learn how to swim properly.

“It’s about how you can adapt to whatever the sea throws at you,” he said.

“We don’t have to be (Olympic champion) Michael Phelps to do these swims.”