{"id":274552,"date":"2026-02-09T01:14:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T01:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/274552\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T01:14:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T01:14:11","slug":"sunlive-man-attempting-world-record-swim-joined-by-orca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/274552\/","title":{"rendered":"SunLive – Man attempting world-record swim joined by orca"},"content":{"rendered":"

A pod of orca has been filmed in the shallows of P\u0101p\u0101moa Beach \u2013 close to bathers and an awestruck ocean swimmer attempting to set a new world record.<\/p>\n

The pod was reportedly followed down the beach by lifeguards shortly after 2pm on Saturday to ensure the safety of public swimmers.<\/p>\n

Jono Ridler, swimming nearby in the midst of a world record attempt, remained in the water.<\/p>\n

He described the open-water encounter as \u201cpretty cool\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never seen orcas in person before, in real life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ridler is attempting to swim the entire eastern coastline of the North Island in a collaboration with Live Ocean, in a bid to stop the commercial fishing practice of bottom trawling in New Zealand.<\/p>\n

\"Orca

\nOrca close to P\u0101p\u0101moa Beach on Saturday.<\/p>\n

It would be a world record for the \u201clongest unassisted staged swim ever\u201d and has included some well-known guest swimmers joining him for short stints along the way. The orca were an unexpected but welcome addition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know we saw them from a distance, and it\u2019s a bit harder actually seeing them at sea level because you\u2019ve got a different vantage point, but I can see the big dorsal fins. Hard to miss that,\u201d Ridler said.<\/p>\n

The orca could be seen from the Swim 4 The Ocean drone, between Ridler and the shore.<\/p>\n

\"Orca

\nOrca cruising the P\u0101p\u0101moa Beach shallows. Ocean swimmer Jono Ridler and his crew can be seen in the top left of the picture. Photo \/ Live Ocean<\/p>\n

\u201cI was hoping I might be able to get a swim with them, but they were off chasing stingrays, I think, further down the shore,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The orca were filmed swimming through the waves and into the shallows of the shoreline.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I can somewhat tick that off the list, although I have to have a closer experience some other time,\u201d Ridler, who is making his way towards East Cape, said.<\/p>\n

With more than 820km left to swim, it may not be his last encounter with the mammals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pod of orca has been filmed in the shallows of P\u0101p\u0101moa Beach \u2013 close to bathers and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":{"0":"post-274552","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}