Susan Berg has spent 30 years fiercely avoiding her three biggest fears: open water, boats and sharks. In heatwaves and on long summer afternoons, there have been no swimming pool dips, relaxed beach swims and lake trips for the Melburnian, with tragic reason.
At 15, she became the sole survivor of a catastrophic boating accident that claimed the lives of three members of her family.
When their boat took on water then sank in Melbourne's Western Port Bay, the Berg family began swimming, but struggled. Berg pushed ahead, ploughing through shark-infested, freezing water in the darkness, birds circling her every stroke on the long, terrifying swim, until she reached semi-deserted French Island to raise the alarm.
At sunrise, the bodies of her mother, father and 16-year-old brother, Bill, were found floating in the bay. Her two sisters had not accompanied the family on their outing.
Three decades later, the mother-of-one and private investigator will plunge into ocean waters not far from the site of the life-changing incident to race 1.2 kilometres in next week's Lorne Pier to Pub, the world's largest open water swim.
It is, says the 46-year-old, a confrontation of a "massive, excessive fear" and a commitment that has taken 14 months of preparation. It would never have come about had her mentor and friend not challenged her to sign up for the event.
"Initially, I thought it was great idea, but then I stopped and thought 'How am I going to do this?'" she says from her home in Victoria.
While near-expert on a motorbike and with a skydive – a way to smite her fear of heights – to her name, Berg was floored by the idea of even one lap of her local pool. The sound of waves was enough to make her anxious.
On her own, she would attempt to swim a lap then freeze, unable to move, consumed by the terror of putting her head under water.
"After four months I wasn't getting anywhere and went to my doctor and asked her if I could take Valium before I swam. She said no," says Berg.
Determined to see the challenge through, she found a local open water swimming group at Black Rock's Half Moon Bay, where she met coach, Peter Hendriks.
Daily coaching sessions began at 6:45am whatever the season or weather. Mr Hendriks shadowed her as she swam then suddenly halted, treading water in the deep.
"I'd simply stop. I could feel the anxiety increasing and I would force myself to swim 25 strokes. I'd stop and tread water then try to do another 25 strokes," she recalls.
Initially keeping her past to herself – "[the other swimmers] won't understand the emotional difficulty of it. I didn't want to come across as a victim to other people, I was just another slow swimmer" – she slowly shared her trauma with the group.
There have been tears out of the water and away from her peers, and there have been many moments of procrastinating and wanting to quit, she says. Every dolphin or stingray she sees as a potential shark and something as small as a bird flying above her while training brings the experience of the accident, all those years ago, straight to the surface.
But it is that night and her family at its centre that is keeping Berg motivated. She credits her coach with keeping her calm in the water, and, on his advice, sees the race and its preparation as a way to be close to her lost parents and brother, who was a strong swimmer who died, she believes, only because he stayed back help to his father.
"My coach suggested it's a nice way to be reunited with Mum, Dad and Bill," she says. "God only knows I've done so many things in my life that they wouldn't be proud of, but I know they would be proud of me."
They might be proud for other reasons, too. Berg is addressing another trauma from her past by fundraising for the McAuley Community Services to Women, which runs Victoria's only purpose-built 24-hour domestic abuse and homeless shelter for women. The father of her son, William, now 25, was abusive towards Berg, and the swim is a way, she says, to face her fears in a way that can help others.
Berg hopes to continue ocean swimming and, if she completes a strong enough finishing time in January, will enter the Rip race at the entrance to Port Phillip Bay in February.
"This is massive to me," she says of the challenge. "Swimming has not been a joy, it's a massive, excessive fear that I've been able to overcome but I think will now be a joy into my future.
"I think when I die myself I'd like to have my ashes scattered in the water down at Half Moon Bay, it has been such a significant thing for me."
And, through the swimming group, she has begun to tackle her remaining phobia, boats, by sailing on a weekly basis – a process that she knows will be slow and emotional, but that will cut loose a deadweight that she has resolved to commit to the past.
"I [am] so fearful, but I will keep going with it," she says of sailing. "I don't want to have things in my life that I'm afraid of."
The 37th Lorne Pier to Pub is on Saturday, January 7.