Adverse Current Impacts Jono’s First Swim

The swim schedule didn’t go as planned for Jono and the Swim4TheOcean team supporting him yesterday and the intention to clock up to nine or ten hours of swimming was curtailed. The ultra distance swimmer, on a mission to Wellington with a powerful message, faced adverse current and instead spent six hours in the ocean. 

Still, he added more than 16km to his growing tally – which now stands at 586.89km total distance swum. Swim4TheOcean calls for an end to bottom trawling and signatures on the call for action are up above 11,400.  

Overnight base was at Murphy’s Holiday Camp – a stunning spot on the coast between Maketu and Whakatāne – just to the north of Matatā. 

Leaving from there in the early morning Jono’s first swim was cut short when it became apparent that current was working against him and the Swim4TheOcean support crew let him know he was fighting against the flow.  

Speaking from the StabiX support boat after the swim Jono said; “We’re headed back to camp at the moment which is unplanned.” 

“The guys pulled me out – I felt like I was making progress, but it was only about a kilometre over the course of an hour, so it was very slow progress. The tide check showed that there was strong current moving against me – much stronger than anticipated and it was directionally out too. 

The live tracker showed he’d covered 1.6km in the hour – still well down on his usual average pace.  

“We’re going to come back and do a tide check in a couple of hours and try to get some more swimming done today. The plan was to do four hours this morning and we’re massively short of that. This is all part of it, and we’ve just got to roll with it.” 

When they went back out in the afternoon the current had swung and Jono put in a five-hour stint with a good average pace of 3km/h clocking around 15km. Overnight camp Thornton Beach just to the north of Whakatāne. 

The Swim4TheOcean support team are constantly working to ensure that Jono’s effort is rewarded by good gains by monitoring current models and taking tide readings on the water and Tuesday’s swim schedule may be impacted by adverse current again.  

Up ahead land logistics are looking tricky – road closures and remote locations are on the horizon. From here they head towards Whakatāne and Ōhope. 

Total distance covered: 586.89km 

Yesterday’s swims – at a glance 

Swim 1  

Time: 1 hour 

Distance: 1.67km 

Average speed: 1.7km/h 

Swim 2  

Time: 5 hours  

Distance: 14.9km 

Average speed: 3.0km/h