Expand<\/a><\/p>\nIn San Francisco Bay, the \u201cEscape from Alcatraz\u201d route from the onetime prison island to the mainland is a well-known quest for triathletes and other open-water swimmers.<\/p>\n
For one Petaluma swimmer, however, the bay offers a less-traveled challenge that she finds herself returning to time and time again.<\/p>\n
Kathie Hewko has been swimming beneath the Golden Gate Bridge since 1976. This fall, at the age of 79, she completed her 95th swim below the iconic span.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people would call me crazy, but I do it because I love it,\u201d Hewko said. \u201cIt\u2019s spiritual for me and very magical. There\u2019s usually a harbor seal or a harbor porpoise next to me, and there are almost always pelicans flying above, so it\u2019s kind of like a good luck symbol for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Kathie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1763413337_655_image0.jpeg\")
Kathie Hewko of Petaluma completes her 95th Golden Gate Bridge swim in October 2025. (Courtesy of Kathie Hewko)<\/p>\n
A Michigan native, Hewko moved to San Francisco in the spring of 1976 and began swimming at the Jewish Community Center on California Street. One of the lifeguards there let her know about a women\u2019s-only swim beneath the Golden Gate scheduled for that fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, \u2018Are you crazy? The water\u2019s freezing and there are sharks out there,\u2019\u201d Hewko recalled with a chuckle.<\/p>\n
But she ended up joining the group and eventually agreed to take part in the bridge swim that September. She took other swimmers\u2019 advice to load up beforehand on carbohydrates, which for her at that time was two chocolate-covered donuts. But that breakfast, along with the one- to two-foot swells, didn\u2019t have her feeling too great at the halfway mark of the swim.<\/p>\n
She put her hand up to summon one of the support boats and divulged that she didn\u2019t feel well. The person on the boat replied, \u201cShut up and count your strokes!\u201d<\/p>\n
Hewko stuck it out and finished \u2014 with no idea it would be the first of nearly 100 such swims during her life.<\/p>\n
For Hewko, it became more than a once-a-year challenge. At one point, when she was nearing her 50th swim, she completed the route nine times in one summer.<\/p>\n
Her impressive run wasn\u2019t without hurdles. In 1986, a bite from a tick left her seriously ill, forcing her to stop swimming for a couple of years. And as she\u2019s gotten older, it\u2019s become harder to build up the energy to train, Hewko said. In fact, October\u2019s swim was her first in three years.<\/p>\n
She was joined by a friend in the water and watched closely by a support boat during the journey.<\/p>\n
\u201cI honestly wasn\u2019t sure if I would have been able to do it this year, but I really wanted to,\u201d Hewko said. \u201cI wanted to at least reach 95.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Petaluma's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/image3.jpeg\")
Petaluma’s Kathie Hewko, left, and Barton Smith during their Golden Gate Bridge swim in October 2025. (Photo courtesy of Kathie Hewko)<\/p>\n
Not every one of those 95 crossings has started at the same place. Eventually, Hewko and her fellow bridge swimmers learned the best way is to start at the San Francisco end and swim toward Marin County.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve done it both ways, but they\u2019ve found the easiest way to deal with the tides is south to north,\u201d Hewko said. \u201cFor years, we used to start at the beach behind Fort Point, but after 9\/11 they wouldn\u2019t allow us to do that. We now go out in boats and jump off into the water, going north.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Petaluma resident, who has also completed swims around the globe in places like Scotland and Mexico, now faces an obvious question about her Golden Gate crossings:<\/p>\n
Stop at 95, or go for an even 100?<\/p>\n
Hewko has an answer, but she also dipped her toe into the possibility of changing her mind.<\/p>\n
My goal many, many years ago was 100, and my husband still thinks that to be the case,\u201d Hewko said. \u201cAs of right now, I think I\u2019m OK with 95.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kathie Hewko, 79, swims at Active Wellness Center in Petaluma Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025. (Beth Schlanker \/ The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[35258,35257,22667,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-57320","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-golden-gate-bridge-swimmer","9":"tag-kathie-hewko","10":"tag-petaluma","11":"tag-san-francisco","12":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","13":"tag-san-francisco-news","14":"tag-sf","15":"tag-sf-headlines","16":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Kathie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/TPD-L-BS-SWIMMER-1105253.jpg\")
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