Orcas, and an Olympian as Jono swims Pāpāmoa Beach

Orcas, an Olympian and bagpipes on the beach – Saturday, 7 February delivered a bit of everything for Jono and the Swim4TheOcean support team. 

Departing after a rest day from Omanu Beach where locals put on a warm welcome on Thursday, Jono swam off the beach with Moss Burmester, Olympian and ocean champion alongside him. A small crowd had gathered, and a spectacular sunrise set the scene for the day. 

Jono went on to complete two swims, tally close to nine hours in the water and make more than 27km progress in his attempt to swim all the way to Wellington.  

Moss Burmester commented after his stint as support swimmer; “It was nice of Jono to invite me along and let me jump in the water for a bit. I got to know him in the early days – in the pool. What he’s doing now is absolutely epic – I take my swim cap off to him and what he’s doing. 

He described what sets Jono’s attempt apart as extraordinary – “One of the big things is the water temperature – I’m used to the balmy pool. I think it’s one of the unique things of being an ocean swimmer, and especially this sort of calibre of open water swimming is getting used to the environment and what it’s like. 

 “People don’t realise the constant salt water – hammering your body – the saltwater tongue and things like that. It takes a real toll, it’s not easy at all.” 

He also talked about his connection to the ocean; “I’ve grown up around the ocean. The reason I learned to swim was because I was always out on boats with my parents, I’ve got two younger brothers, and our parents wanted to make sure that if we fell over the side, we’d be alright.  

“I do a lot of spear-fishing these days, so I’ve seen the change too in how hard it is to catch things like crayfish and find fish over the decades. The cause – trying to stop bottom trawling and the way that we catch fish at a commercial level is really important for the future of our oceans here and our fish stocks.”  

It was during the afternoon session that a pod of orcas come into view and passed inside Jono and the Swim4TheOcean support boats surfing waves, and displaying a whole range of incredible behaviours, including (successfully!) foraging for what appeared to be an eagle ray. 
 
Orca often forage for rays in the shallows, using a technique called benthic foraging. They chase these along the sea floor and muddy up the sediment, catching them when they least expect it, often flipping them upside down which puts them in a catatonic like state or powerfully flicking them up out of the water to immobilise them. They also engage in a lot of prey-sharing behaviours, particularly with rays, sharing them between members of the pod. In this case, between the adult and juvenile. 

Afterwards Jono said; “That was very cool.”  

“I’ve never seen orcas before in real life. We saw them from a distance and it’s a bit harder actually seeing them at sea level because you’ve got a different vantage point. But I could see the big dorsal fin- hard to miss that.  

“I was hoping I might be able to get a swim with them, but they were off chasing stingrays further down the shore.” 

Swimming adjacent and close to the beach as he tracked south, Jono and the team stopped in for a between swims break, then later made it to Maketu where the overnight base camp was ready and waiting at Pukahina. 

From here they head towards Matatā, Whakatane and Ōhope.  

Total distance covered: 545.66km 

Yesterday’s swims – at a glance 

Swim 1  

Started at 6:41am 

Time: 4 hours  

Distance: 10.72km 

Average speed: 2.7km/h 

Swim 2  

Started at 3:30pm 

Time: 4 hours 46 mins 

Distance: 16.72km 

Average speed: 3.5km/h