Swimming: Swim record entices veteran back

By Suzanne McFadden

Here is a woman who is petrified of sharks, who swells in salt water, who is attacked by jellyfish - and who is about to tackle a record for swimming in the sea for over 50 hours.

Who wants to call Sandra Blewett crazy? It's more polite to use words like driven and focused.

Blewett, aged 49, wants to have a go next week at swimming from Great Barrier Island to Takapuna.

It's 50 miles in a straight line, but it's more likely she will have to swim up to 100 miles to make it across.

"If I swim for 51 hours, I'd break the women's endurance record," she says proudly.

But who would want to be in the water that long with things that can sting and bite you, huge waves that sneak up on you and swirling currents?

Blewett admits she doesn't care for any of the above. She will never venture further than waist-deep as she swims between four and eight hours a day along Auckland's eastern beaches.

"I was chased out of the water, literally, by a shark at Bucklands Beach," she said.

"I insist on having someone on the boat watching me every minute of the time I'm swimming," she said. "Then I feel perfectly safe."

Last week she was stung on the face by a jellyfish, which split her lip. A school of stingers forced her to quit her first Great Barrier-Takapuna attempt seven years ago, she was stung so badly.

"Saltwater dries out my mouth and makes it swell up," she says. Sometimes her hands blow up and her legs, which don't kick, go numb.

Swimming in the pitch black of night doesn't bother her.

"Some swimmers get quite spooked by it. But it's quite beautiful - the phosphorescence on the water, and the only sound is the flop of my arms."
You have to ask her if she gets bored, though. But her answer is, of course, no, that she has conditioned herself to think of nothing most of the time her arms are rolling over.

"I switch off and go into a trance. Or I plan my next holiday, sing a couple of songs," she said. "And I eat something every half an hour."

Blewett loves being back in the water. After swimming the English Channel, Foveaux and Cook straits, and a double crossing of Lake Taupo, she took almost three years off. Her last big swim was from Marsden Pt to Tiri - 44 hours - in 1993.

"I hadn't had a job in 10 years - I was just swimming all the time. Then I was given an opportunity to work as the chief executive for the Special Olympics.

"For three years, that was it. Working 17-hour days. I loved it, and I needed a mental break from swimming."

But the urge came flooding back. She slipped quietly back into the pool.

"I'm a bit bigger than I was before, but that's good because I seem to float better - I can't sink. I saw a $2 coin on the bottom of the Parnell pool the other day, but do you think I could get down and get it?"

She decided to make an attempt on the swim across the Hauraki Gulf, after unsuccessful assaults in 1992 and 1994. Blewett was going to have a go at the swim in late 1998, but a vicious Alsatian got in the way.

"I got attacked by a dog in a carpark and I needed a skin graft. I had to stay out of the water for five weeks."

Today, Blewett heads to the island mentally preparing for the marathon swim.

She has left herself a window between January 8 and 18 when the tides are right.
She won't swim in winds over 15 knots; she checks the weather forecast every six hours.

Last week she had a practice run, swimming up and down the East Coast Bays beaches for 30km.

She has a team of around 13 who will drive alongside during her attempt - eight of them Army personnel. She has the sponsorship of Auckland Airport on her side as well.

"If it doesn't work out I'll still have a couple of months this summer where the conditions are okay to try again," Blewett said. "In every swim that I have attempted, I have achieved. The English Channel may have taken me 10 years and eight attempts to conquer, but I did it.

"I've been doing this for 30 years now. I'm probably the only person in the world swimming as long as I have. I'll probably still be doing it when I'm 80. I really don't believe I've found my potential yet."

Pictured: Sandra Blewett. HERALD PICTURE / RUSSELL SMITH