Commander Vicki Fischbeck is one tough lady. A retired navy pilot, she flew numerous aircraft over her career, from the single-engine T-34 trainer to multi-engine transports, retiring with 4,600 flying hours and 250 (dangerous) aircraft carrier landings for United Airlines, the Embry-Riddle Center at Naval Air Station North Island and UPS. But she blushes over

Anna Wardley truly gets around, having lived and worked in London, New York, Buenos Aires, Australia and Hong Kong. Anna, former Head of Communications for Clipper Ventures, has done a variety of endurance challenges, including racing 36,000 miles around the globe in the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race in 2003, which had to be

At the 1-mile St. Croix Dolphins Sea Swim in mid-January, the athletes start by waiting for the sound of a conch shell and then jumping nearly 7 meters off the Frederiksted Pier into the warm waters of St. Croix. St. Croix, the largest of the United States Virgin Islands, is well-known for its beautifully clear

Paul McCoy, the visionary engine behind Pacific Swims originally from South Yorkshire, England, randomly hands out some of the most valuable prizes in the open water swimming world: all-expenses-paid trips to Fiji. That is, if you like tropical warm water, beautifully clear and scenic reef swimming. In 2009, by partnering with his airline and hotel

Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California. Lake and river swims throughout Argentina are very popular and include three FINA pro marathon swims in 2010: the 15 km Maraton Acuatico Internacional Ciudad Rosario, the 57K Maraton Acuatica Internactional Rio Coronda and the 88 km Hernandarias-Parana Maraton Acuatico. The pros always entertain the crowds with exciting finishes

The world’s foremost marathon swimming historian, Captain Tim Johnson, provided interesting historical background on the emergence of open water swimming on the national level in America. In August 1925, then-American President Calvin Coolidge sponsored the national open water swimming championship in the Potomac River over a 3-mile course. It was an annual event, called the

Swimming World Magazine made its annual open water swimming forecasts for 2010 in its January issue. Its predictions last year proved to be true with the global growth of invitational pro events (from the King of the Sea Challenge in Brazil to the King of Nelson Mandela Bay in South Africa) and the massive increase

The 6.5K International Bosphorus Swim (Boğazıçi) from Asia to Europe will hold its 22nd race in July 2010. Swimmers cross the Bosphorus (or Bosporus, Βόσπορος in Greek, İstanbul Boğazı in Turkish),from the north to the south. With the course so wide, the swimmer obviously decide to swim off in different directions. The Boğazıçi is a

The 2010 Oceania 5K and 10K Swimming Championships will be held in Faleausiu on the island of Upolu, a large volcano in Samoa in June. Less than a year after the population of Upolu was victimized by a massive 8.0 magnitude earthquake and a tsunami in September 2009, we are very happy to see Samoa