Vancouver’s Harewicz swims the English Channel
Jessi Harewicz, who set out at midnight from Dover, England, completed her swim across the English Channel around 8 p.m. in France on Tuesday, almost 20 hours after she began the 32-kilometre challenge.
“I just went and swum the English Channel,” Harewicz posted on her Facebook page shortly after noon Vancouver time, adding the hashtag #beautifultough.
Congratulations quickly poured in, including from former Channel swimmer Marilyn Grace, the first person to swim across Lake Ontario in 1954 and the youngest to cross the Channel in 1955. Grace retired after crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca in 1956 at age 19.
Harewicz, 34, trained by swimming the 30-kilometre Georgia Strait from Sechelt to Nanaimo, which she completed in 11 hours and 20 minutes last summer.
But the English Channel, known as the Everest of marathon swims, is much saltier, is windy open ocean and forces swimmers to cross strong currents.
Harewicz followed the pilot boat Louise Jane. She wasn’t allowed to touch the boat, and she had food tossed to her from the boat.
Harewicz becomes the second B.C. swimmer to successfully cross the Channel, following 17-year-old Emily Epp of Kelowna last month.