Here is an email I received from my buddy down the street…21 miles, just crazy! GO GREG!!! Link will not be live until Thursday Hi Everybody,
I will be attempting to swim the Catalina Channel tomorrow night. The plan is to start swimming from Catalina Island at about 11:30 PM on Thursday, July 24th and land just south of the Point Vicente Light house in San Pedro sometime the next day. The fastest anyone has ever swam the channel is just under 8 hours and the longest is about 33 hours. If I am successful, I hope to be in the 10-15 hour range. Hopefully the water temp, wind and ocean conditions will be in our favor. If you would like to monitor the progress of my swim you can use the link below. The satellite beacon will display our location as we cross. (Nate: could you please forward this to some of the guys at North Beach for me ~ thanks). See ya on the other side!
====================================
Catalina Channel Swim
Online (Greg Farrier)
Friday, July 25th
NOTE: This link updates every 10 - 20 minutes and records the most
recent 24 hours of data points. If clicking the link did not take
you to the web page, copy and paste the link into your browser to
view our progress on the web. Greg is scheduled to swim between
11:00 P.M. - 12:00 A.M. from Catalina Island to the mainland (21
miles).
LOL ok and where would i find this account cuz its not on her website…
I think it is one of the earlier chapters in the book, she was quite young when she did it (1971). Her time was 12:36, three years later(1974) she set a record of 8:48. I’m assuming this is the same Catalina Island Channel crossing.
yea i read the short paragraph on her site but was hoping for a detailed story of what she encountered lol… From the little i have heard about that swim is its Great White Haven…
Awesome, someday I’d love to do that crossing but alone? Maybe as a relay. Read about Cox getting lost from her kayak and boat in the fog. THAT would creep me out big time
Actually, the bigger danger out there is it’s right through the north/south shipping lanes. Better have a really good guide boat.
GWs don’t congregate at Catalina, like a convention, nor is it GW haven, but they live there. Haven is up at the Farallones. There’s a few roaming around out there
I did a relay swim across the Catalina Channel a few years ago. Five of us rotating through, swimming an hour at a time. We started at midnight too. I know there’s a reason for that, but I’m not sure what it is. During the time it was still dark, everyone swam with a glo-stick attached to the back of their swim suit, but even with that, we managed to briefly lose sight of a guy right after one of the swimmer change-overs. THAT was pretty scary! It was probably only a minute or so, but all sorts of horrible thoughts go through your mind–not sharks so much as trying to figure out how you would every find someone.
The biggest issue for me was being on a boat at swimmer speed for nine hours. The only time I wasn’t throwing up was when I was swimming. I’d like to do it as a solo swim, but I couldn’t stand to subject someone else to the misery of sitting on that boat!
Hopefully HeidiC or someone that’s done it can respond, but my understanding (and experience living here) is that the midnight start is to allow a daylight finish before the winds kick up. Generally the winds are calm overnight and will start blowing in the afternoon. Makes for a calmer swim
This is correct - the wind is usually light or nil in the evening and morning so the water surface is smoother and it’s easier going.
And can we stop with the ridiculous shark BS already! I wonder if he’ll get struck by lightening during swim? I wonder if he’ll win the lottery during the swim? I wonder if he’ll be elected president during the swim? There are so many legitimate and frequent difficulties that channel swimmers encounter that jumping to an ultra rare horror is a waste of time (even if that rare one does, for some reason, hold a very special place for most humans).