Ocean’s Seven (22.04.2011)

The unresting Christof Wandratsch started a new project. He is on the way to become the first human to cross the Ocean’s Seven successfully.

At the age of 4 Christof explored the element water. Since that time swimming pools are his second home. Many victories at swimming competitions especially as a long distance open water swimmer are on his resume. After almost 40 years he is still not tired of swimming. Just a few days ago his newest project began – the Ocean’s Seven.

The Ocean’s Seven is the swim counterpart of the Seven Summits (the seven highest mountains of each continent). Christof wants to be the first human who had crossed the Ocean’s Seven. That are 7 channels which are all difficult to cross: the Irish Channel (between England and Ireland, 35km), the Cook Strait (between the northern and southern island of New Zealand, 23km), the Molokai Channel (between the Hawaiian islands Molokai and Oahu, 42km), the English Channel (between France and England, 34km), the Catalina Channel (between Los Angeles and the Santa Catalina Island, 34km), the Tsugaru Strait (between Honshu and Hokkaido north of Japan, 19,5km) and the Strait of Gibraltar (between Spain and Morocco, 14,3km). Christof crossed already 2 of these seven - the English Channel in the year 2005 where he set a new record and the Strait of Gibraltar.

At the moment Christof is on Hawaii where he wants to add another crossing – the Molokai Channel which is longer than 40 km and needs more that 10 hours to be fulfilled. He spends a few days in Honolulu, Oahu, to acclimate before he took a ship to Molokai. So he could inspect the swimming course he will try to do in the next days. The plan is to start in the darkness at 3 am to have enough time to reach Oahu. If he would be too late he would have to swim a longer course as the current turns in the afternoon but that is not Christof’s goal: “The route is long enough so I do not want to swim more than that. But I look forward to swim under these great conditions. The water is perfect compared to other regions of this planet. The only thing which concern me a little bit are sharks. My local guides told me that there is a part of the course where usually are a lot of these scary fishes. But I trust those guys to bring me safe to the other island.”