Record-breaking swimmers arrive at Point Loma beach. (Screen capture from 10News)
Six swimmers swam ashore at a beach along Point Loma on Monday, August 26th – with quite a story to tell. They were finishing up a relay swim from Santa Barbara to San Diego.
And in the process, broke a world record for open water relay swim.
They began up north on Friday, the 23rd, at 6 in the morning. A friend raced along the land with them – and he ended up running a full 265 miles to the end. And it was all for charity – for the Monarch Schools for homeless children and the Navy SEAL Foundation.
One of them, Zach Jirkovsky, told local media: “This is going to sound crazy, but it was fun.”
The runner on land, Mike Trevino, said: “The personal challenge of something like that I found interesting.”
Biggest challenge for the swimmers? Not sharks – but jellyfish. They all put on jellyfish repellant, swimmer Phil Cutti, said, “Instead of hundreds of stings, we got maybe 50 a day.”
That’s quite a sacrifice in order to raise funds; their goal is $228,000 for the schools and foundation. Swimmer Grace Van Der Byl explained:
“They do so much for us and with everything our country goes through right now it’s so nice to be able to give a little bit back. And then I was thinking, it’s so appropriate, if you’re going to do something for the Navy SEALs then you got to have tough conditions. It can’t be easy.”
News source: 10News
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