Jono Ridler found peace after the panic.
Diving into the Waitematā Harbour for a 3km swim from Bayswater to the Viaduct in 2011, Ridler was looking to test himself.
Having returned to swimming as a way to rehabilitate a shoulder injury suffered while snowboarding in Canada, the idea of competing in an ocean swim appealed to his interest in endurance sport and seeing what he was capable of.
It was less than 200m into the swim when a panic attack stopped his progress.
“It was very short and sharp breathing. That was the main symptom that I remember and just a sense of like, you know, your brain kind of lights up in those situations,” Ridler recalls to the Herald, suggesting the tightness of his wetsuit probably didn’t help things.
“I had to stop because I felt like I couldn’t control my breathing while I was swimming ... I’ve heard it’s relatively common for people who are doing their first race as well. It’s like exhilaration and nerves and the fear of swimming across an open body of water and not knowing what’s going to happen, and it all came together.”
That effort is a long time removed from the present day as Ridler prepares to complete a record staged swim down the east coast of the North Island; a journey that will cover 1000 miles (1609km) and take about 90 days to complete.
Ridler’s relationship with open-water swimming has become one of challenging comfort since he completed that first effort, with swims across Cook Strait, Foveaux Strait and Lake Taupō, and a 33-hour non-stop effort from Great Barrier Island to Campbell’s Bay in Auckland in 2023.
For someone who admits he didn’t enjoy swimming in his youth, Ridler has done and seen things others can only dream of.
One such instance came during his swim of Foveaux Strait – the body of water between Bluff and Stewart Island – and an encounter with some of the local wildlife.
“I was swimming away and then under me, deep in the water below me, there was this group of sharks circling in the water, and there was one that was at the surface around the same time that I didn’t see. But the crew saw that.”
It’s an anecdote the 35-year-old delivers with a stunning nonchalance.
“There’s this saying in open-water swim communities that if you’ve seen a shark, you’ve been seen by a shark hundreds of times. They’re always there; we’re in their environment.”
For some, such stories from spending hours swimming in the open ocean would be enough to induce shudders. But the fear factor of his sport is something Ridler has learned to embrace and enjoy, and he has plenty of other examples of the beauty of nature from his travels.
“Like anything that may give you fear at some point, the more that you put yourself in a situation where you have to confront that, the more that edge gets removed, and what was uncomfortable becomes comfortable and then, over time, enjoyable as well.
“I think there’s still situations that I’m less comfortable with. Like I’ve done more night swimming than most people, but I wouldn’t say I’m as comfortable swimming during the night as I am during the day. It’s just a matter of exposure as much as anything.”
In the past few years, Ridler’s journey in ocean swimming has become more than just seeing what his body is capable of.
Instead, he now sees it as a way to raise awareness for the environment in which he operates.
For his 33-hour swim in 2023, Ridler hoped to motivate action on safeguarding and improving the health of the Hauraki Gulf. In October, the Hauraki Gulf Tīkapa Moana Marine Protection Bill passed its third reading in Parliament, extending two marine reserves where removing any marine life is prohibited, and establishing five sea-floor protection areas (SPAs), where the bottom of the ocean can’t be significantly disturbed.
The bill also established 12 high protection areas (HPAs) where a range of activities, including most commercial and recreational fishing, are prohibited.
This time, he wants to bring the commercial fishing practice of bottom trawling into the spotlight and encourage the conversation on what more environmentally friendly alternatives could be explored. As was the case with his 2023 effort, the swim will be supported by Peter Burling and Blair Tuke’s ocean conservation charity Live Ocean.
“[Bottom trawling] is where there’s use of heavy nets to drag across the sea floor. That’s an indiscriminate and destructive method of fishing. But a lot of New Zealand’s commercial take is through this method, right? So it’s recognising that and saying, well, what can we do to improve on that.”
Setting out from North Cape on January 5, Ridler will be making the 1609km swim to Wellington unassisted, meaning he is allowed to wear earplugs, goggles and a swim cap, but cannot wear a wetsuit. The World Open Water Swimming Association and Marathon Swimmers Federation have told Ridler’s team they’re not aware of any swims done anywhere in the world like this one. He will be supported by a team of six; two on land and four with him on the water.
Ridler has taken five months’ leave from his job as a general manager with DHL to properly prepare and complete the journey, which has been a little more than two years in the making.
“Something like this doesn’t just happen overnight. With the logistical complexities, what’s needed to make something like this happen, you can’t just decide to do it and then go for it. Let alone the physical preparation and all the rest of it that’s needed,” he says.
“I have had now, at this stage, about 10 years of building my body up through similar challenges, so I’ve kind of got the miles already in my arms to an extent, but I have built in more strength training this year, just to try and build my body up and make it more robust. Doing quite a bit of mileage in the pool at the moment, just to get my body used to that level of stress. Also, cross-training to still work on my aerobic fitness, but not overstress the swimming-specific muscles.”
Because this is a unique effort, figuring out the logistics of how it would work and how to get his body in the right shape has been a challenge in itself.
Ridler says he and his team have been looking at the likes of British athlete Ross Edgley’s swim around Great Britain in 2018 for inspiration. That particular swim took Edgley 157 days, swimming in six-hour shifts. He did not set foot on land during that time, resting and refuelling on a support boat.
“The North Island’s east coast is very diverse. So, we would have been able to do that for probably two-thirds of the swim. But there’s a good chunk, about 600km, that is not as hospitable and there’s not a lot of safe harbours.
“So we had to think about, well, what would be the best model that we could do? Is it using a big catamaran and then changing that out for a fishing vessel and staying at sea for weeks or, you know, what are the different options we had? And eventually, we came to a land-based and water-based model, which is where we’re doing these stages, up to 15km at a time, and then coming into land and having crew on land and the motorhomes so we can come in, eat, rest and then go out go back out to sea.”
Along the journey, six of Ridler’s non-swimming shifts will have him get into local communities. After all, it is a journey that has been devised with the intention of people being able to get involved and follow along.
People will also be able to track his progress via a live tracker on the event website, provided by New Zealand forecaster PredictWind.
“We’ve got a pretty specific call to action, but it’s also just around getting people excited about the ocean again and wanting to do what they can for a healthier ocean and recognising that we can as a country can be better with that,” he says.
“It’s something that takes a lot of people to get behind and the more people that get behind a cause and a mission, the harder it is to ignore that kind of thing as well.”
As for how he finds the motivation to keep pushing himself forward in a challenge like this?
“Ask me at the end of it,” he says with a laugh.
“There’s a couple of things for me, as I’ve asked myself similar questions to this as well. One is that I’ve really fully committed to this. I’ve burned the boats, so to speak, by taking five months’ leave, which is a big financial sacrifice and other sacrifices that there have been along the way.
“To create that kind of situation where I have a lot of pressure, where there is something on the line and so I have to kind of face up to that. The other big motivator will be coming back to that purpose piece as well, which is ‘well, if we’re not successful with this, then neither is the mission and the purpose that we’re representing either’ and that’s huge too, right? The reason for doing something like this is to achieve a specific purpose. I think I’ll be coming back to those two things quite a lot.”
Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.