As a 23-year-old, Carina Bruwer (46, South Africa, MSF bio here) started swimming around False Bay in her native South Africa, completing a 3 hour 12 minute for her initial 10 km coastal swim in Simonstown. A year later, she repeated the same 10 km course, but swam much faster in 2 hours 46 minutes. Then she attempted a full crossing of False Bay in 2005, but aborted due to hypothermia. Halfway across False Bay, she lost consciousness after five hours in a dense fog and 14°C water.
But her tenacity brought her back the next year when she succeeded in crossing from Rooi Els to Miller’s Point in 2006, swimming the 32.7 km distance in 10 hours 58 minutes.
Last week, exactly 20 years after her initial success, the 46-year-old returned to False Bay to test herself again. What began as a swim planned for speed turned into a far tougher test as winter winds arrived early and swells hindered her progress. A brief 20-minute spot of sunshine helped her – a wee bit – during her 9 hour 48 minute crossing.
“False Bay has never quite let me go,” Bruwer said. “Twenty years later I found myself looking across that water again.”
Starting on the Western side at Millers Point and swimming towards Rooi Els on the eastern side, Bruwer set out with the hope of a fast crossing, targeting an 8-hour finish based on favorable wind and water forecasts.
But False Bay is often unpredictable: winter winds arrived earlier and stronger than expected while bluebottle and jellyfish stings added to nature’s obstacles. “As the conditions deteriorated the goal changed,” Bruwer said. “I stopped chasing a time and started focusing on what I could do in each moment to simply get to the other side.”
The final approach proved particularly difficult when strong waves pushed the team past their intended beach landing, forcing a rocky finish while Bruwer was showing signs of hypothermia. With guidance from her support crew and safety team from BigBay Events, she successfully completed the swim. “False Bay has been both a joy and a nemesis in my life – a dream that began when I was five years old standing on Strand beach and staring across the water. Twenty years later it reminded me again that the ocean always sets the terms, but that we always have the choice to either blame our circumstances or rise above them.”
© 2026 Daily News of Open Water Swimming
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