Strokes of genius
Durban woman’s Hawaii challenge
KWAZULU-NATAL open water swimmers are showing their maritime mettle far from home.
Durban North physiotherapist Sarah Ferguson recently became the first woman from Africa to swim the 46km Kai’wi Channel between the Hawaiian islands of Oahu and Molokai.
She arrived back home last week having completed the challenge, to promote awareness in marine conservation.
In another of the seven seas, Richmond-born Simon Bruce, who now lives in London, will swim the 100km, fourday Balaeric Island swim in the Mediterranean at the end of the month to raise funds for Guild Cottage, a centre for abused children in Gauteng.
Ferguson’s swim last month saw her conquer the longest of the “big seven” ocean swims in the world, already swum by her male fellow Africans, Botswana-born Michael Ventre and Cape Town-born Cameron Bellamy. The others are the North Channel, between Scotland and Ireland; the English Channel; the Strait of Gibraltar; the Cook Strait in New Zealand; the Catalina Channel in the US and the Tsugaru Strait in Japan.
“I ended up doing 63.7km. I hit bad currents,” she said of the challenge she took 17 hours and 54 minutes to complete.
Beside her, on a kayak,was seconder John McCarthy, also from Durban. A boat also followed with coach Sarah Houston on board, who had the job of feeding her every half hour.
Always a competitive swimmer, 35-year-old Ferguson visited Hawaii five years ago, fell in love with the place and came home to perform open ocean swims in KwaZulu-Natal as well as the Robben Island Swim in preparation for her return.
“I was the first person to swim 20km to Aliwal Shoal,” she said.
Back home, she plans to promote more awareness of marine conservation and development and through the non-profit organisation, Breath Ocean Conservation, and will give a series of talks.
In a blog, McCarthy said: “It became known as The Channel of Bones because of the number of people who have perished in it. If you get the timing wrong, you enter at your peril, an unwitting contributor to the growing pile of bones that lie at the bottom of the channel.”
Ferguson did much of her swim at night and in the rain.
“Somehow Sarah managed to swim across into a kind of aquatic no man’s land. She wasn’t out of the main north current, but she wasn’t making any real progress either,” wrote McCarthy.
Ferguson recalled: “Being in the open ocean there was no sense of direction, of whether I was moving forward or not.”
She said touching the sand and being in one piece was a huge relief.
On the other side of the world, Bruce said he had been inspired to do the Balearic Island swim after hearing a motivational talk by Jean Craven, founder of Madswimmer, which organises open water swims in aid of children’s charities.
Donations can be made through https://www.backabuddy.co.za/champion/project/balearic-island-4-dayswim.