\u201cOne shark was swimming next to me, not too long after starting. <\/p>\n
\u201cI swam myself to the IRB, and we had a shark break for 20 minutes then I got back in the water.\u201d <\/p>\n
Though Ridler couldn\u2019t make out what type of shark it was, or its size, he said it was \u201cbig enough\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cI had an immediate intuition; I got enough of a visual. <\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t feel threatened because it was cruising past me, but your instincts take over, and you want to be out of there.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ridler is swimming the length of the North Island\u2019s eastern coastline in a bid to end destructive bottom trawling and shine a light on ocean health. <\/p>\n
Called Swim4TheOcean, the mission will involve swimming in long, rotating shifts over roughly 90 days.<\/p>\n
He is hoping to get to Wellington around April. <\/p>\n
If he is successful, Ridler\u2019s swim will be the longest unassisted staged swim in history. <\/p>\n
The 35-year-old Aucklander said the first couple of days of his world-record attempt were \u201cpretty tough\u201d, with swells and wind. <\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t make a whole lot of ground over the first two days. <\/p>\n
\u201cOther tough conditions were near the Karikari peninsula with 20-knot winds. <\/p>\n
\u201cSwimming in that for six hours was mental and physically challenging and I swallowed lots of seawater.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ocean swimmer Jono Ridler (centre) with the Swim4TheOcean operations team at the Bay of Islands Yacht Club.<\/p>\n
Ridler has taken five months\u2019 leave from his job as a general manager with DHL to properly prepare and complete the journey, which has been two years in the making. <\/p>\n
He is doing the swim in collaboration with marine conservation charity Live Ocean and is being supported by a team of six; two on land and four with him on the water. <\/p>\n
His plan is to swim about 30km a day \u2013 about 150km a week \u2013 for about 12 weeks to meet his goal. <\/p>\n
Ridler said so far, his body was adapting well to the challenge.<\/p>\n
However, he has experienced \u201csalt mouth\u201d, where prolonged contact with saltwater causes the tongue to become raw and swollen, ulcers on his lips from salt exposure, sunburn, muscle soreness and fatigue. <\/p>\n
Over the weekend, when Northland and the rest of New Zealand was cloaked under a heatwave, he \u201cabsolutely cooked\u201d even though he slathered on zinc sunscreen. <\/p>\n
But Ridler said he\u2019s been buoyed by the locals he met along the way. <\/p>\n
He\u2019s had \u201cmeaningful chats\u201d with children and grandmothers, and locals he\u2019s met at campgrounds and when launching the boat. <\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are really getting behind us which is amazing. <\/p>\n
\u201cA common occurrence is people sending us off when we\u2019re launching the boat. <\/p>\n
\u201cAt Tapuaetahi they were waving a flag and cheering us on for that leg. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn Taup\u014d Bay there were guys out on a boat anchored in the bay, and they all did manus off the side of the boat.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ridler will spend time talking with the community about his mission to end bottom trawling, a destructive fishing method where heavy, weighted nets are dragged across the ocean floor, damaging habitats like coral reefs and seamounts. <\/p>\n
Then he will take a straight line towards Cape Brett as he pushes south, stopping at Northland beaches and coastal communities along the way, before swimming to Goat Island and Auckland, then tackling the rest of the coastline. <\/p>\n
Follow his journey at Swim4TheOcean.org and on Live Ocean\u2019s channels @itsliveocean. <\/p>\n
Jenny Ling is a senior journalist at the Northern Advocate. She has a special interest in covering human interest stories, along with finance, roading, and social issues. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cOne shark was swimming next to me, not too long after starting. \u201cI swam myself to the IRB,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[218788,64,63,110963,8118,15454,30169,61999,37756,43553,218789,27930,10957,218787,161302,218790,61397,5036,1787,2652,218786,128,2269,1042,51778,180399,155136,1928,126881,338],"class_list":["post-413912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-1600km","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boats","tag-curious","tag-during","tag-encounter","tag-epic","tag-everything","tag-experienced","tag-exuberant","tag-including","tag-jono","tag-leg","tag-locals","tag-manuing","tag-northland","tag-ocean","tag-of","tag-on","tag-ridler","tag-science","tag-shark","tag-sharks","tag-swim","tag-swimmer","tag-tells","tag-their","tag-ultramarathon","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}