As we approach the end of January…already! Chris and I are working hard towards our plans for 2012.

We have our website being overhauled, I’m so looking forward to seeing the ‘new jazzed up version’ next month thanks to Mojito Solutions and I’m excited about my photo shoot at our local beach this morning…I can’t wait to see the new picts in a week or so’s time.

Today I’m going to share a little more info about my training; It‘s summertime here in Australia. We live on the North East coast of Queensland, in the tropics (19 degrees south of the equator) so it is very hot and humid.

At this time of the year our waters are infested by the Irukandji and Box Jellyfish (Chironex Fleckeri), which are both potentially deadly. So our open water training is done within the confines of a netted enclosure, 100 metres long by 70 metres off the beach. We call it the stinger net. It is fine to train in, but sometimes, salt water crocodiles (man-eaters) are sighted off the beach and we have to return to the pool.

For the next five months I’m planning on spending four hours per day training in the stinger net in preparation for this summer’s swimming challenges as well as an hour of land work five days a week which includes light weights, pilates, physio bands as well as an hour’s walking when my schedule allows.

When I’m not training I spend my time on the internet working on the logistics of my swims, liaising with sponsors, crew, pilots and a range of swimming related tasks including travel plans for myself and my team, such as booking charter boats, flights and accommodation. There is much to do!

I have two main challenges for 2012, firstly my swim from Cuba to Florida in the second half of June.

Wikipedia Commons Map

In early June just prior to my Cuba to Florida swim we’re going to Grand Cayman Island to enjoy the Flowers Annual Sea Swim (1 mile) which takes place on June 9th this year.

The Cayman Island waters are crystal clear; we are very excited about our return visit. Training in the Cayman Islands will be part of my final preparation before we head to Florida to meet my Cuba to Florida swim support team.

This is sure to be a very exciting time for all involved especially our many friends, sponsors, fans and swimming community around the world.

My Cuba to Florida swim of 103 mile / 168 kilometres is going to be a huge ask on my body and in hot tropical water.

After my swim we plan on returning to Australia in early July. Then just one month later…as my schedule would have it, I’ll be flying to Ireland to swim the North Channel!

Now we have a challenge…..recover from a 50+ hour swim in the tropics then line up one month later to swim another marathon, a cold water channel of 21 miles / 33 kilometres between Ireland and Scotland in 11 – 13C waters! The reason for this madness? To hopefully complete the Ocean Seven!

I haven’t mention Chris very much in today’s blog, unfortunately he’s still battling a shoulder injury, but he’s making the most of swimming less by doing plenty of walking up local hills and mountains, he’s also spending plenty of time in the gym building up the strength in the weakened areas of his sore shoulder and helping me with my Cuba to Florida plans and assisting with securing sponsors for the big event, though I wouldn’t rule out him organising some local swims from time to time.

And finally, in October we are very excited to have been invited to “Swim the Suck”, an annual 10 mile, river swim in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
This will be a fun swim for us to see out the year, many thanks to Karah Nazor Friberg.
Chris and I are looking forward to meeting lots of new friends at this event and thank all the swimmers who’ve contacted us and sent messages to say how much they’re looking forward to meeting us there!

Related links;
http://www.flowersseaswim.com
http://www.swimthesuck10mile.com

Best wishes to all, and happy swimming in 2012!
~ Penny

Paul Ellercamp from Ocean Swims writes;

Saw a poll on the telly this morning which claimed that punters regard Stra’a Day as the most important national day of the year, even more important than ANZAC Day. Funny that, since Stra’a Day is the national day. We can’t get out of our minds the ad on tv for a phone company that had the father explaining the importance of Stra’a Day to his innocent little son: “It means a day off,” he said. And after the son scored poorly in a school test based on the advice: “And it’s the cricket!” said dad. Something like that, anyway. Can’t help feeling that Stra’a Day is more of a day off than a true national day. It means a lot for all those recent arrivals who receive their citizenships at formal ceremonies around the nation, but not much more. We’ve never felt a community enthusiasm about it. Most of the atmosphere is contrived by gummints and commercial organisations to drum up patriotic support — “The last refuge of the scoundrel,” said Dr Johnson of patriotism — and to flog stuff.

So it’s noice to see a movement developing over the last few years of Stra’a Day as a day for ocean swimming. After all, what could be a more Stra’an way to celebrate the national day than by swimming? In the ocean? Or in dams, rivers, etc? Swimming is ingrained in our national identity. If you wanted some motif to put up to represent the Stra’an way of life, what better than an ocean swimmer?

At last count, we had 12 swims listed around Stra’a on Stra’a Day-
NSW – Lake Glenbawn, Newcastle, Sydney Harbour, Wollongong
Queensland – Burleigh Heads (see pic above from last year’s event), Hervey Bay
Sou’ Stra’a – Henley-Grange
Tassie – Kingston Beach
Victoria – Brighton, Mt Martha, Williamstown
Wess’n Stra’a – Scarborough

Click here to read more… http://www.customercommunity.com.au/MyCommunity/Newsletter.aspx?issue_id=2649&template_id=3183&t=&article_id=5540

http://www.oceanswims.com/

It’s summer here in the land of Aus…Enjoy your swimming & Australia Day!

~ Penny

January 2011 came with a wet start for much of Queensland and parts of the southern states of Australia. Images of the Brisbane floods and the devastating flash flooding which occurred in many areas were being flashed on news broadcasts around the world with many, many people left homeless.

Before the big clean-up began we in North Queensland were also watching the skies as a huge weather system was building in the Coral Sea. Cyclone Yasi was more than huge it was massive! A system 5 cyclone which covered most of the North Queensland coast came bearing down on us in late January.

Much of Townsville was evacuated and many locals were left looking for places to shelter from the cyclone and its predicted storm surge. Some people who were initially evacuated were evacuated for a second time with a 6ft storm surge forecast to go through my sons new rental home and the homes of many Townsville residents.

Chris and I live out of town a little on elevated ground, we opened our home to family and colleagues with 11 people, 7 dogs and 9 cars at our place sheltering from the impending storm.

Townsville was lucky, we received the equivalent of a category 3 blow and the storm surge didn’t arrive as predicted. Our family and friends were able to return to their homes the following afternoon. Though we were not left unscathed with many trees down, the shed roof broken, fences down, shade cloth torn and we were without power for five days. Though we fared far better than our northern neighbours who felt the brunt of cyclone Yasi in the Cardwell and Mission Beach areas.

February 2011 was a pretty quiet month for us with the clean up in the aftermath of Yasi and heavy training underway and much excitement in the lead up to our Hawaii and Cayman Island swims.

March was a fun time with the latter half spent in Hawaii. We had a wonderful stay at the Waikiki Parc Hotel where during the following two weeks I swam three channels and Chris swam two. The first was Alalakiki which Chris and I swam together; the next was my Molokai Channel swim where we were evacuated from our hotel beds shortly after retiring for the evening and spent the night at the Molokai High School while all Hawaiian Islands were on tsunami alert after the dreadful earthquake in Japan. And the third Chris and I swam along with our friend Forrest Nelson from Kauai to Niihau. One of the highlights of this trip was meeting new friends from California fellow swimmers Barbara Held and Kevin Anderson who were escaping from their winter to enjoy some warmer water training.

April and May was spent at home with lots and lots of preparation for my ‘Bridging the Cayman Islands swim’ with big miles of swimming training, and many hours on the internet corresponding with the Cayman Islands, the media and my support crew.

During May Chris swam a couple of local ‘firsts’ including the 14 kilometre stretch between Saunders Beach to Rattlesnake Island and 17.5 kilometres from Orpheus Island to Saunders Beach.

June 2011 was probably one of the biggest WOW months of my life.

Early June we flew to the Cayman Islands and were greeted by Mr Flowers, his family and local politicians. There was a large “Welcome Penny” sign erected at the airport and plenty of media on hand to capture the moment.

My personal story about this 68 mile/108 kilometre swim between Little and Grand Cayman Island which took me 40 hours and 41 minutes to swim is still largely untold, I haven’t properly written about my experiences on this adventure yet.

Immediately after my swim I was completely overwhelmed by the whole experience, the hospitality, the swim, the amazing team who supported me, the fabulous people of the Cayman Islands, my experiences during the swim, pushing my body beyond anything I could have ever imagined and then the days following my swim.

There are so many experiences and emotions I don’t think a simple blog could ever do it justice. It was truly incredible physically, mentally and emotionally in many, many ways. Perhaps that’s one for my book someday.

July saw Chris and I head back to Townsville where it was back to training and Chris’ busiest time at work for all of July and August.

One of the highlights for me was being special guest and invited to ride in the leading truck of the V8 convoy through the streets of Townsville. It was really good fun sitting up there in a huge semi-trailer and being allowed to toot the horn as much as I wanted to, indeed as much as I possibly could!

We also took part in the annual Magnetic Island to Townsville swim a distance of 8 kilometres clocking up our 18th and 21st crossings for Chris and I respectively.

September came with the excitement of a trip to Japan, a booking which we’d made over twelve months before for us both to attempt to swim the Tsugaru Strait.

I had the opportunity to blog extensively on this trip and my diary of our trip to Japan can be found on the ‘swims’ page of this website.

All in all we had a wonderful trip with many new experiences in a land which is very different to the lifestyle and cultures we’re accustomed to here in Australia.

The Tsugaru Strait turned out to be far more challenging than Chris and I had anticipated. We expected the water would be cold but it was not, which was a nice surprise. However swimming with two typhoons in the general area was not such a welcome surprise, which led to unexpected flows in the currents and for me what I’d hoped would be a 12 hour double crossing turned out to be a 14 ½ hour single crossing, with Chris abandoning his swim after around 7 hours having swum on the spot for many of them.

2011 certainly turned out to be the year of the weather for us, with Cyclone Yasi at home, the tsunami in Hawaii and typhoons in Japan.

October and November was back to the grindstone for me, though I had my mind on returning to Hawaii for a second crossing of the Molokai Channel.

With the unwavering support of my dear friend Jeff Kozlovich who put a local support team together for my swim, I was back in Hawaii at the end of November and swam for another 12 hours and 7 minutes in particularly lumpy conditions between the islands of Molokai and Oahu.

This trip turned out to be great fun, where I made some fabulous new friends, which to me is what it’s all about.

Meanwhile Chris enjoyed two more local swims this time in the Whitsunday Islands with his friend Christie Leet where in October they swim 15.2 kilometres from South Molle Island to Airlie Beach and a fortnight later swam 21 kilometres from Hamilton Island to Shute Harbour.

Finally I was nominated as one of 12 women in the World Open Water Swimming Associations, Open Water Swimmer of the Year Awards.

With the winner decided with the highest number of votes, I was not only delighted to receive second place, but humbled and grateful for the wonderful support and fantastic sportsmanship displayed towards me by my peers.

Chris and I thank all those who’ve supported us during 2011, in particular the many people who’ve given up their time to assist us with our swims.

We’ve enjoyed a challenging and successful year of open water swimming clocking up a total of 13 crossings between us, as well as our swims between Magnetic Island and Townsville.

We look forward to sharing more open water swimming adventures with you in 2012!

Ok so here we have it, the WOWSA results for 2011

OW man of the year – http://dailynews.openwaterswimming.com/2012/01/jamie-patrick-is-2011-world-open-water.html

OW woman of the year – http://dailynews.openwaterswimming.com/2012/01/pilar-geijo-is-2011-world-open-water.html

OW performance of the year – http://dailynews.openwaterswimming.com/2012/01/nejib-belhedis-swim-across-tunisia-wins.html

Congratulations Jamie Patrick, Pilar Geijo and Swim Across Tunisia, for the men’s, woman’s and the performance of the year.

Thank you to the 1887 people who voted for me, your support has been overwhelming, amazing and so very much appreciated.

Now it’s time to move on and focus on 2012 – HAPPY NEW YEAR and best wishes to all, thank you for your support in 2011!

~Penny