Making Daddy Proud : 4-Year-Old’s Swim Fulfills the Wishes of Terminally Ill Father

Her blond hair still wet with seawater, little Ariel Krespi, wrapped in a gray blanket, shivered in the ocean breeze, and examined the heavy wood and silver plaque her father had handed her.

At age 4, Ariel is too young to understand its meaning. But someday, her terminally ill father hopes, its words will speak to her of him.

To my daughter, Ariel S. Krespi --

My sun rises and sets with you.

You made me the proudest father in the world. I love you so much.

--Daddy Irv

Irv Krespi gave his only daughter the plaque Sunday, after she completed a nearly two-mile swim from the Balboa Pier to the Newport Pier. The swim, which Ariel made on a kick board alongside her father in 53 minutes, was a shared victory for father and daughter.

Krespi does not know how much more time he has with Ariel. He was found to have malignant melanoma in his left eye more than a year ago.

“I don’t have anything else to leave her, so this is my legacy to her,” said the veteran long-distance swimmer.

For nine weeks, Ariel trained with her dad six days a week for Sunday’s swim. And although the Costa Mesa child seemed thrilled with the clapping crowd that lined the piers and beach, she also said she was happy just to be with her father.

“Swimming is what I learned from my daddy,” Ariel said, clutching her father’s tanned arm afterward.

He finds it difficult to talk to her about his illness: “She doesn’t want to hear about it,” said Krespi, 61. Instead, they deal with it by being together as much as they can.

Ariel’s swim began shortly after 10 a.m. There was a slight current toward the Newport Pier and the water temperature was 70 degrees. The 4-year-old squeezed her 45-pound frame into a fluorescent yellow and purple wet suit and rode a dinghy out toward the pier.

Boats with television news crews circled. Krespi gave Ariel a gentle push and followed behind as Ariel clutched her kick board and kicked off.

Cheers rose from the roof of Ruby’s Diner at the end of the pier, where employees in red-and-white pin-stripes gathered to watch. “Go, Ariel! Come on!” yelled dozens of beach-goers, some tracking her progress with binoculars.

“See, she’s younger than you and she’s swimming all that way,” Joe Croom, 36, said to his 6-year-old son, Jacob. The Crooms drove from Redlands to watch Ariel swim.

As she swam, Krespi gave instructions: “Slow down,” he would bark at times, and at others, urged her to “pick it up.”

Krespi is no stranger to the ocean. The former international-level swimmer made his last rough-water swim--a 10-mile trek--four years ago. He introduced Ariel to the water when she was about a month old. Before she was a year old, she could hold her own in the water.

“It teaches discipline and devotion,” he said of the ocean swim--qualities that will remain with her long after he is gone.

Spectators on the Newport Beach Pier buzzed and clapped as Ariel approached the finish.

“I think it’s wonderful,” said Lorrie Tulga, 50, of Balboa Island. “It seems like she really wants to do it, and it’s touching because her father is leaving her something.

“I’ll bet she’ll be an Olympic star someday.”

On the pier in a toweled bundle, Ariel tried to answer reporters’ questions with her parents’ help. But the swim--and the attention--had tired her out.

“I’m so proud of her,” said her mother, Laurie Krespi, who is separated from Ariel’s father.

The Krespis’ tale has attracted worldwide attention. Representatives from the TV series “Baywatch” watched the swim, wondering whether Ariel might fit into an upcoming episode.

The two-mile swim is a challenge even for experienced lifeguards, said John Carpenter, a Newport Beach lifeguard. But Ariel’s training included speed workouts five days a week and one three-mile endurance swim.

The workouts mean she gets to spend time with her father.

“I love my daddy,” she said. “I want to be just like him.”