43-year-old Brazilian swimmer Mayra Santos was the first woman to swim down the River Zêzere in Portugal a few years ago.

Then she shifted gears, temporarily, as she focused on establishing SwimMadeira.

But she now has her sites on completing one more unprecedented swim between the lights go out in 2023.

She will pioneer a 32 km circumnavigation swim around Porto Santo, the smallest inhabited Portuguese island in the Madeira Islands, popularly nicknamed the Golden Island. It is located 90 minutes by airplane from Lisbon, Portugal in the extreme southwest of Europe, 500 km from the African coast and 1,000 km from the European continent.

Santos explains her motivation and goals, “This year has been particularly challenging to dive headfirst into the project of creating SwimMadeira where we offer swimming vacations and an open water school in Madeira. I wanted to harness the tourist potential that Madeira offers, combined with my passion for this discipline. To support this change, I took various courses, highlighting that I recently became an open water coach through the OceanMan program.”

Although she swam less this year than in previous years, Santos still had the time to complete the Ultra OceanMan 30k for the fifth consecutive time in 9 hours 37 minutes and pioneered a 20 km competition hosted by the Swim Challenge Cascais organization between Lisbon and Cascais in 4 hours 58 minutes.

“But I want to do something more. I secured authorization for a challenge that I have been anticipating for over two years. The swim has been never attempted by another swimmer. It will be 32 km under challenging winter sea conditions where tumultuous and unpredictable waters will add an additional dimension to my journey.“

Her swimming window around Porto Santo is between December 3rd and 9th.

© 2023 Daily News of Open Water Swimming

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