Jono Ridler, in partnership with Live Ocean, will swim from North Cape to Wellington to raise awareness for healthy oceans and call for an end to bottom trawling.
Jono Ridler and his team have felt strong support from New Zealanders on his world-record swim attempt despite recent online threats over his mission to end bottom trawling in New Zealand waters.
The 36-year-old ocean swimmer wanted to swim the length of the North Island with the aim ofexploring more environmentally friendly alternatives to commercial fishers who use the industrial fishing method to harvest catch.
After 1325 km, 455 hours of swimming and 87 days at sea, the finish line is now in sight.
“Cook Strait’s notorious for a lot of current and that’s certainly playing tough with the operations as they try and get the best route for Jono‚” sailor and member of Ridler’s team Blair Tuke told the Herald.
“That’s slowed down progress a little bit in general over these last few days, but on track for Saturday afternoon and nice to have that time locked in and now we can try and plan for this big moment when he arrives.”
However, some people had made threats towards the mission on social media, something the team was quick to address.
Jono Ridler is close to completing his record breaking swim. photo / Joahua McCormack
“We were made aware a couple days ago of some social media posts and quite a number of them in closed Facebook groups with people saying some pretty nasty things about Jono and about the mission in general,” Tuke said.
“They were passed on to us by concerned members of the public, which meant we went out and I guess just made people aware that we had seen them.
“I think it’s a small number of people and they’re quite loud behind their keyboards and for the most part New Zealanders are right behind Jono and what he is standing for and calling for an end to bottom trawling in this country.”
Tuke said Ridler has received an outpouring of support at every stop so far, while more than 55,000 people have signed the mission’s petition to end bottom trawling.
“I think there is a real opportunity here to create meaningful long-term change for our country.
“It’s not straightforward, however, this form of fishing and the destructive nature of it shouldn’t be happening in our country.
Jono Ridler and his team plan to walk to Parliament after arriving at Whairepo Lagoon. Photo / Joshua McCormack
“It should be part of our history, not our future.”
Ridler is expected to arrive at Whairepo Lagoon at midday on Saturday and will have a moment of celebration before walking to Parliament and meeting Conservation Minister Tama Potaka 90 days after starting his journey at Waikuku Beach on the North Cape.
There are still some other challenges the team has to navigate, including the sewage in the water around Wellington.
“We’ve been in regular communication with authorities there, we’ve been shared the most up-to-date current models of where those heat maps of sewage are and we’re confident we can get Jono in safely to Wellington Harbour.”
