Welcome to my 2016 swim website. For those of you who don't know me, I swam Lake Ontario the easy way in 1983 and the hard way in 1984. I “came out of retirement" to swim the English Channel (oldest Canadian woman) in 2011. In 2013, I was the oldest Canadian to swim the Catalina strait in California. After swimming around Manhattan Island (oldest Canadian) in 2014, I became the first Canadian to complete the Triple Crown of open water swimming (English Channel, Catalina Strait and Manhattan.) Last year I was the first to swim between three provinces: from Nova Scotia north to New Brunswick and across the Northumberland Strait to Prince Edward Island (34 kms). This year on March 18, I became the first Canadian and the oldest woman ever to swim the icy and turbulent Cook Strait between the south and north islands in New Zealand. (See links below for more detail.)

On August 11, 2016, I hope to become the first Canadian to swim from Plymouth to Provincetown, Massachusetts, across Cape Cod Bay. This “P2P” swim has only been accomplished by 6 people (all American), although the swim has been attempted numerous times since 1915. The swim from Manomet Beach in Plymouth to Herring Cove Beach in Provincetown is about 32 kilometers. The biggest challenge is the current which circulates in a counter-clockwise direction around the relatively shallow bay. The water temperature is expected to be between 16 and 21 degrees Celsius. The swim is officiated by the Massachusetts Open Water Swimming Association (MOWSA), whose rules are based on the English Channel rules. https://massopenwaterswimming.com/

I am pleased to be able to use this opportunity to raise money for Sashbear, an organization founded by Lynn Courey, whose daughter, Sasha, a swimmer with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), died by suicide in 2011. Sashbear funds education programs for therapists, families and in schools. I have dedicated my psychiatric career to the treatment and research of BPD, which has a suicide rate of 10%. More treatment programs and support for families are desperately needed in Canada. Please support my swim by donating to Sashbear. Thank you. http://sashbear.org/en/

Across Cape Cod Bay:

Across Cape Cod Bay:
Across Cape Cod Bay: Plymouth to Provincetown

Thursday, 10 March 2016

Looking at the Cook Strait

  After a very long and winding drive, we are safely moved into our condo in Wellington. We can see the Cook Strait out the window. We meet with Philip Rush tomorrow.
  The Cook Strait between the north and south islands in New Zealand - This 30 km swim is one of the toughest in the world, probably more difficult than the English Channel. Winds and waves from the Tasman Sea on the northwest and the South Pacific Ocean on the southeast funnel through the treacherous strait. The water temperature is a chilly 15–18 degrees Celsius. But the biggest challenge will be making progress against the immense tidal flow and avoiding the violent eddies. Tides are so unpredictable, they can flow in opposite directions in the strait simultaneously. Finally, about one in 10 swims see sharks. Since 1962, only 84 individuals have successfully crossed the Cook Strait.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)