On June 15th, the Spirit Orcas started, as planned at 8:00 am, to swim 23 km around North Pender Island in British Columbia, Canada.

Drew Sabourin, Aly White, Maria Sharock, Dixon McGowan, Meliah Motchman and Lisa Newell swam in that order in the 11°C water. Sabourin swam for an hour until White took over at 9:00 am. Then Sharock got in the water at 10:37 am and McGowan entered the water at 11:00 am with Motchman and Newell finishing up the unprecedented open water course.

The on-the-water support crew for the six-member team of intellectual and physical disabled swimmers included Sandor Csepregi-thereal, Corey Teramura, Reg and Kristina Vanlierop, Jasmine and Peter Kremer, and Richard Motchman who guided them from Thieves Bay, just outside the Orca Interim Sanctuary Zone, and around the island to Poet’s Cove on the South Pender.

Coach Susan Simmons explained, “The Spirit Orcas have opted to exclude the orca Interim Sanctuary Zone on the North Island as they do not want to interfere with the orcas’ feeding patterns and wish to leave them at peace.

They swam about 23 km leaving out the Interim Orca Sanctuary Zone in 10 hours 30 minutes. The RCMP (police) joined us on the water at one point and clocked Drew going 1.7 knots. I think he went even faster later. Between about 1 and 4 pm, they had a fairly good push which was quite nice. Maria did some great swimming too, although it took me quite a bit of time to convince her to jump from the boat. She is usually very timid in the water and stops at every ripple. This year she motored through significant ferry wake. Nice to see the improvements.”

The Spirit Orcas face a number of challenges not common in the open water swimming community including autism, Downs syndrome, anxiety disorders, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, epilepsy, and blindness. But these have not stopped them. To date, they have completed relay swims in Lake Cowichan (35 km), Gunboat Pass and Hunter Channel in the Great Bear Rainforest (25 km and 20 km), and an 80 km staged swim from Brentwood Bay to Colwood.”

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