Lorelei Schmidt Travels Cross Country to Cross Molokai in 19 Hours 38 Minutes

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Lorelei Schmidt (USA, 16, MSF bio here) owns a SCAR Buckle [shown above with SCAR Swim race director Kent Nicholas and overall 2024 winner Nikko Price]. Over her emerging career, she has swum across Lake Tahoe, around Manhattan Island, and across the Catalina Channel, and handled herself very well as she crossed the 45 km Molokai Channel this morning.

After fellow channel swimmers Paul Leonard (Great Britain, 52, MSF bio here) and Joanne Norman (Australia, 54, MSF bio here) were bitten by cookiecutter sharks over the last week, the youngster from North Carolina flew over 7,600 kilometers to South Pāpōhaku Beach on Molokai. But unlike Leonard and Norman who swam through the night, Schmidt set off from Molokai in the morning hours at 6:05 am as the sun was rising over the horizon and escort pilot Michael Twigg-Smith at the helm.

But even swimming across Molokai in the daylight hours had to take uncommon courage by the teenager.

She took a near beeline from Pāpōhaku Beach on Molokai to Sandy Beach on Oahu, landing during this morning’s darkness at 1:43 am…a 19 hour 38 minute adventure.

Long, arduous, grueling…but the high schooler got it done.