Mollymawks and a Major Landmark As Weather Closes In

A close encounter with mollymawks and another major stretch of coastline behind him marked Jono Ridler’s latest day on the water (Thursday, 12 March), before a southerly front forced the team back into shelter.

Jono swam from 7.36am to 1.36pm, logging close to 13km and pushing past Te Kauwae-a-Māui Cape Kidnappers – a significant landmark on the Swim4TheOcean journey south towards Wellington. After the long open crossing of Hawke Bay, where the team had been tracking well offshore at times, they are now back within clear view of the coastline. 

The swim leg finished just north of Ocean Beach and Waimārama, with the weather window closing quickly behind them. 

At 12.45pm, with an hour left in the swim, On-Water Operations Lead Andy Tuke said the priority was simply to make the most of the conditions before the wind arrived. 

“We’re five hours into the six-hour swim and he’s covered 10.7km, so not Jono’s highest total,” he said. “But as I said to him this morning, we’ve just got to get out there and beat this wind. It’s still quite pleasant out here right now, the sea’s not too big and the wind hasn’t come up yet – but it’s going to be really windy by 3pm, so we’re going to finish the swim in one hour and get back into some shelter.” 

Back ashore, Jono described it as a solid but fairly uneventful day in the water, aside from a couple of memorable wildlife encounters. 

“We had a six-hour swim out on the water and have just recently got back into port,” he said. 

“The conditions were okay. There was a little bit of sea state, nothing massive, and we ended up cutting it to one swim only for the day because the wind has come up quite considerably, which was forecast as well. 

“So, one six-hour block for today. From a swim perspective it was pretty unremarkable and a bit of a grind to be honest. 

“But we did have a couple of cool things happen. We had two fly-bys from dolphins on two separate occasions, which was cool. And some mollymawks came by. I decided to stop when they were in the water and see if I could have a bit of a moment with them. I just floated there and got really close. I was looking straight into the eyes of one mollymawk, and it was looking straight at me.” 

The team is now expected to remain out of the water for the next couple of days while the weather moves through, before aiming to resume on Sunday. 

Public support for the mission continues to build, with more than 28,000 people now having signed the Swim4TheOcean call for action to asking for a move away from destructive bottom trawling. 

Follow Jono’s progress on the live tracker and sign the call for action at Swim4TheOcean. 

Projected distance to go: 359.3km

Total distance covered: 1028.3km 

Swim at a glance – 12 March 

Swim 1

Time: 6 hours  
Distance: 12.96km 
Average speed: 2.2km/h