Everything looked good for Eduardo Collazos Valle-Guayo (53, Peru, MSF bio here, @eduardo_collazos_) as he set off from Aomori and headed towards Hokkaido on the seventh leg of his Oceans Seven.

With his support team of Luiggi Fujioka, brother  Daniel Collazos, wife Rocío Gómez, and coach Nora Toledano looking on, the conditions were right for Collazos’ 19.5 km Tsugaru Channel crossing from Aomori to Hokkaido in northern Japan.

The water was flat, the winds were minimal, the sun was rising, and the water and air temperatures were warm (20°C water, 28°C air).

Stroke by stroke, kilometer by kilometer, the 53-year-old Peruvian was steadily making his way to Hokkaido.

Everything was going to schedule as Mother Nature smiled down on Peru’s first Oceans Seven swimmer.

And then it wasn’t.

Mother Nature was not about to make Collazos’ final channel easy. In fact, She threw in some obstacles that made Collazos dig very deeply into his psyche. The water temperature suddenly dropped from 20°C to 16°C. The sunny skies turned white with fog. The tranquil surface turned choppy. The famed Tsugaru Current – that runs from west to east and creates eddies that frustrates swimmers – churned up a notch.

But Collazos was successful on all his first attempts at the English Channel, Catalina Channel, North Channel, Molokai Channel, Strait of Gibraltar, and the Cook Strait for a reason. He is just flat-out mentally tough and physically strong enough to keep his arm stroke going until he reaches the other shore.

And so he did across the Tsugaru Channel.

After 12 hours 11 minutes, Collazos became the first man from South America and second South American swimmer overall (after Bárbara Hernández Huerta of Chile) to achieve the Oceans Seven.

• September 2019: 33.5 km English Channel crossing from England to France in 11 hours 16 minutes
• July 2021: 32.3 km Catalina Channel crossing from Catalina Island to the Southern California mainland in 9 hours 56 minutes
• August 2022: 35 km North Channel crossing from Northern Ireland to Scotland in 12 hours 29 minutes
• June 2023: 45 km Molokai Channel crossing from Molokai Island to Oahu in Hawaii in 14 hours 18 minutes
• July 2024: 14.4 km Strait of Gibraltar crossing from Spain to Morocco in 4 hours 6 minutes
• January 2025: 23 km Cook Strait crossing from North Island to South Island in New Zealand in 9 hours 44 minutes
• June 20th 2025: 19.5 km Tsugaru Channel crossing from Aomori to Hokkaido in northern Japan in 12 hours 11 minutes

Coach Nora Toledano was on her fifth visit to Aomori for a Tsugaru Channel attempt (with Antonio Argüelles of Mexico on his 2015 crossing, Mexico’s Mariel Hawley Dávila on her 2016 attempt, her own channel crossing in a tandem swim with Hawley in 2018, and with Barbara Hernandez Huerta of Chile on her 2024 crossing.

Oceans Seven Club

1. Stephen Redmond (Ireland)
2. Anna Carin Nordin (Sweden)
3. Michelle Macy (USA)
4. Darren Miller (USA)
5. Adam Walker (UK)
6. Kimberley Chambers (New Zealand)
7. Antonio Argüelles (Mexico)
8. Ion Lazarenco Tiron (Moldavia and Ireland)
9. Rohan Dattatrey More (India)
10. Abhejali Bernardová (Czech Republic)
11. Cameron Bellamy (South Africa)
12. Lynton Mortensen (Australia)
13. Thomas Pembroke (Australia)
14. Nora Toledano Cadena (Mexico)
15. Mariel Hawley Dávila (Mexico)
16. André Wiersig (Germany)
17. Elizabeth Fry (USA)
18. Attila Mányoki (Hungary)
19. Jonathan Ratcliffe (UK)
20. Jorge Crivilles Villanueva (Spain)
21. Adrian Sarchet (Guernsey)
22. Prabhat Koli (India at 23 years 7 months 5 days, shown below on right)
23. Dina Levačić (Croatia)
24. Herman van der Westhuizen (South Africa)
25. Andy Donaldson (Scotland in 354 days)
26. Stephen Junk (Australia)
27. Kieron Palframan (South Africa)
28. Bárbara Hernández Huerta (Chile)
29. Mark Sowerby (Australia)
30. Paul Georgescu (Romania)
31. Zach Margolis (USA)
32. Petar Stoychev (Bulgaria in 173 days)
33. Nathalie Pohl (Germany)
34. Caitlin O’Reilly (New Zealand at the age of 20 years 7 months 15 days)
35. Ryan Utsumi (USA)
36. Marcia Cleveland (USA)
37. Eduardo Collazos Valle-Guayo (Peru)

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