A 16-year-old girl from New Jersey braved powerful currents, not to mention jellyfish stings, to swim the 20-mile distance from Catalina Island to the mainland last Monday.
Charlotte Samuels slipped into the dark, cool waters of Catalina just after midnight on Monday and reached the shores of the Palos Verdes Peninsula at 7:45 p.m. that evening. The crossing took a total of just under 20 hours to complete.
A 16-year-old girl from New Jersey braved powerful currents, not to mention jellyfish stings, to swim the 20-mile distance from Catalina Island to the mainland last Monday.
Charlotte Samuels slipped into the dark, cool waters of Catalina just after midnight on Monday and reached the shores of the Palos Verdes Peninsula at 7:45 p.m. that evening. The crossing took a total of just under 20 hours to complete.
While sharks were, of course, ever present on Samuels’ mind (she wore a bright-colored swimsuit as not to be mistaken for a seal or sea lion) it turned out that jellyfish were the most troublesome denizens of the deep, at least at the beginning of the swim. She was stung numerous times by the sea creatures and by the time she finished her swim her arms had become red and swollen.
Samuels is no stranger to this level of open-ocean swimming and is hoping to become the youngest swimmer to complete the “Triple Crown” of endurance swimming, which includes swimming around Manhattan Island, the Catalina to mainland trip and the English Channel.
Last June, she completed the around-Manhattan swim in 9 hours and 55 minutes, a distance of nearly 29 miles. Catalina Island was Step Two in her pursuit of the title, a swim which is now in the history books for her. The final step will be crossing the English Channel this fall or early next year.
Besides Manhattan and Catalina, she also swam a 15-mile course around Cape May, New Jersey, as well as the incredibly grueling 17.5 mile crossing from Manhattan to Sandy Hook, New Jersey.
Samuels’ exploits have been written up in Sports Illustrated magazine and she claims that her long-term goal is to swim “all of the world’s seven oceans.”
Samuels’ travels can be followed on her Tumblr blog at http://deepwaterswimmer.tumblr.com.
