Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California.
The most famous resident of San Nicolas Island was Juana Maria, a native American from the Nicoleños tribe.
Scott O’Dell’s 1960 novel Island of the Blue Dolphins described her real-life story when she was left behind on the island when the rest of the Nicoleños were forcibly moved to the California mainland. She resided on the island alone for 18 years before she was found by Captain George Nidever and his crew in 1853 and brought back to Santa Barbara. She died seven weeks later.
The Deep Enders accomplished today what Juana Maria must have long dreamed about during her lone existence over 18 years – traverse 70.1 miles (112.8 km) from San Nicolas to the California shore.
The sextet (64-year-old Jim McConica, 55-year-old Tom Ball, 45-year-old Dr. John Chung, 34-year-old Zach Jirkovsky, 42-year-old Tamie Stewart, and 59-year-old Stacey Warmuth) took 33 hours 37 minutes to swim from San Nicholas Island escorted by Greg Elliot on the Bottom Scratcher.
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