Nurse’s epic swim one for record books
And after recuperating with dinner and a drink, she’s ready for another challenge
Northland mental health nurse Kristy Fisher has smashed the existing record in completing a 22km ocean swim from the Poor Knights Islands to Matapouri on Saturday.
Fisher clocked a time of seven hours and 53 minutes and raised a total of $3270 for the charity Voices of Hope. The previous record was 8 hours, 10 minutes.
While she was relieved to have completed the feat, she was keen to start planning her next swim.
After months of training and organisation, she said it was only “about 10 seconds before” she jumped in the water that the reality of what she was about to do came crashing in.
Despite some initial concerns about the cold, Fisher was surprised to find the water to be a pleasant 19C.
“Halfway I started to feel the cold a bit, so I asked them [her team] to warm my drinks up a bit more.”
She said it was the support of the team trailing her on a boat that kept her pushing forward during the tough sections, their encouraging words written upon a whiteboard.
“They would pull funny faces at me and do stuff to make me laugh. That was what I needed. I couldn’t have done it without them.”
Fisher said there were two challenging parts that required a lot of mental strength to push through.
“The halfway mark was mentally challenging because I knew I had to do everything I had already done, basically.”
The last 3 kilometres of the swim were also mentally and physically draining, she said.
“I was so tired and sore.” “You’re so close to the end . . . you know you’re nearly finished . . . and all that pain comes out.”
She said pushing through the difficult moments required her to motivate herself with “positive talk”, such as by repeating encouraging mantras.
At the end of her swim, Fisher was met by a group of friends, family and curious onlookers.
“It was a pretty good feeling knowing all those people were there to see and support me,” she said.
Fisher celebrated the completion of her swim with dinner and a cocktail with family and friends at Schnappa Rock restaurant in Tutukaka.