The Challenge of the Southern California Eight Is Announced

SANTA BARBARA, California. January 2. SCOTT Zornig of the Santa Barbara Channel Swimming Association announced the Southern California EightSouthern California Eight.

The Southern California Eight becomes another destination goal for the growing channel swimming community in addition to the existing Ocean's Seven, Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming, the Still Water 8, the Five Oceans and the Triple Crown of Prison Island Swims.

The Southern California Eight (alternatively, the Southland Eight or Crazy Eight) includes swims between each of the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California and the mainland. In order of distance, the swims include the 12.4-mile Anacapa Channel, the 19.0-mile Santa Cruz Channel, the 20.4-mile Catalina Channel, the 25.9-mile San Miguel Channel, the 27.5-mile Santa Rosa Channel, the 37.7-mile Santa Barbara Channel, the 54.4-mile San Clemente swim, and the 69.3-mile San Nicolas Island swim.

Scott explains the difficulty in this achievement. "The San Nicolas Island swim is 61.2 – 69.3 miles in distance, depending on your course. It could go down as the greatest single solo marathon swim in history. But no one will lay claim to the Southern California Eight soon. Only two people have completed swims from three of the islands and just 17 have completed swims from two of these eight islands. Due to the varying distances of each island and the fact that two of the islands have never had a successful solo swim, this series may remain unconquered for several years. Some marathon swimming experts feel it could 40 to 50+ years before all eight islands are conquered by one person.

The Southern California Eight series was created to provide marathon swimmers an opportunity to do something challenging, unique and very special in the western United States. For those living in the area, it provides unique and challenging marathon swims without the costs of travel to swims around the world. But the Santa Barbara Channel Swimming Association believes that with the soaring popularity of marathon swimming, this incredible achievement will likely happen sooner rather than later."

David Yudovin (Anacapa, Santa Cruz, Catalina) and Penny Palfrey (Santa Barbara, San Miguel, Catalina) are the only two swimmers to date who have completed three of the eight swims to do.

Cindy Cleveland, Jim Neitz, Marc Lewis, Jim McConica, Lynn Kubasek, Forrest Nelson, Tina Neill, Peter Urrea, Claudia Rose, Stanley Leventhal, Paul Lewis, Marcia Cleveland, Rendy Lynn Opdycke, Kathleen Wilson, Kevin Murphy and Scott Zornig have completed two of the eight.

Courtesy of Open Water Source

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