Straight across the Strait
Callum Eade
New Zealand
6:41:05
1.3.2023 Cook Strait (S-N)
Number 100 swimmer (11:40 8.8.2022 IRL – SCO ) was a powerful accolade to celebrate following his successful swim across the North Channel and with an English Channel success (10:56 23.08.2019) O7 was definitively on the cards.
Want to swim the Cook Strait Callum ? we asked.. ‘It was to be my homecoming 7th of the Oceans Seven on my home turf in a few years’ he replied but yes I’m in.
Intense training, chiselling off some of his NC ‘channel weight’ and excellent coaching with @ufitsingapore Steve commenced. Callum coordinated and completed ‘5 5 50’ a 50k swim challenge fundraiser in Singapore also in celebration of his 50th birthday and he swam a 30K + on the Amalfi Coast (awaiting ratification) both part of his approach to this his Ocean #3 #kiwi. All posed no challenge to him and his sights were firmly on Cook Strait.
Life events continued to surface keeping him, Sarah and their family all the more focused on their charity ChannelingACause.
As the days drew closer and the weather settled consultation with Joe Heberley gave a swim date as 1.3.2023. The earthquakes felt on the North and South Island NZ would be nothing to the magnitude of the one which shook Callum.
Richter scale readings
Fear 9 Positive goal focused 0
An IRONMAN, a channel swimmer – ‘this Channel’ge’ would test all his accolades. Some alternate thinking, timeout to recentre, recalculate and regroup was the ticket. Fear is often the biggest darkness. Reversing its values changed Callums mindset and it was game on.
Leaving Smokey Beach with a 06:22am start 1.3.2023 Callum received a glorious welcome to his home waters – a golden sunrise, calm sea state and pleasant air and water temperatures.
Progressing steadily South Easterly he found his groove and allayed his fears. Settling into a 53-54 spm rhythm feeding half hourly land became ever so close. With a swim line almost as straight as an arrow on target for a bullseye it was soon 2K to shore. Calm seas disappeared and NW winds picked up giving challenge to his smooth swim style and a few choice words at his half hourly feeds!
Tentatively the crew knew it was possible, least a curveball appear.
Callum, ever observant -seeing the landfall and headland fast approaching knew it was possible. Slipping into 5th gear and then 6th with a little NOS N20 for the last few hundred meters, he landed on the North Island – standing up to embracing his home shores.
Coming back to the boat his smiles beamed like sun rays. Surprised at his finish time – delighted at his success. In the words of Henry Ford ‘one of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do’
Callum Eade
New Zealand
Cook Strait (S-N)
1.3.2023
6:41:05
Average water temperature 14.5*C
Awaiting NZOWSA ratification
Skipper Grant Orchard
Crew Sarah Eade, Steve Corbett, Jacqueline McClelland
Observer NZOWSA John Scobie
infinity Channel Swimming
Katabatic Charters and Marine Ltd
ChannelingACause
#glorycomesfromdaringtobegin #teameade #makeithappen #nomessin #cookinit #cookinwithcallum
