She’s Set to Swim the Whole 900-Mile California Coast — Sharks Allowing

Early one morning subsequent month, Catherine Breed, 33, will stroll into the ocean simply north of the California-Oregon border and begin swimming south. Between 80 and 126 days later — if issues go as deliberate — she is going to attain the California-Mexico border, turning into the primary particular person ever to swim the complete size of California.

To attain this audacious aim, she must swim about 900 miles alongside rugged shoreline within the open Pacific, weak to nice white sharks, elephant seals, venomous jellyfish, storms, currents, hypothermia and rhabdomyolysis, a harmful situation by which muscle tissues disintegrate from overexertion. Amy Gubser, one among Breed’s open water swimming mentors, stated of Breed’s plan, “It would be the equivalent of somebody running a marathon every day for months, only in a very remote area, with moose or polar bears.”

Like a lunar mission, Breed’s expedition, known as Swim California, has a versatile, weather-dependent launch date. Breed and a crew of 4 will eat, sleep and stay aboard a 52-foot sailboat, sheltering at evening in coves and harbors when doable. Except on periodic relaxation days, she is going to swim for 5 to eight hours every day, beginning the place she stopped the day past. On clear, calm days, with a impartial present, she’ll cowl 10 to fifteen miles, starting early to keep away from sturdy afternoon winds. To have the swim ratified by the World Open Water Swimming Association, the crew will add a each day observer’s log that information air and water temperature, wind pace and path, Breed’s stroke price, wildlife incidents and geotagged images for each half-hour she’s within the water.

I met Breed throughout her lunch break on a latest Wednesday exterior the Parnassus campus of the University of California, San Francisco. In her day job at Intuitive Surgical, which she is going to stop to make the swim, she trains medical doctors to make use of a robotic surgical system. One of those physicians is Dr. Jonathan Carter, who’s appearing as a consulting doctor for Swim California.

The three of us walked to one among Breed’s favourite lunch spots. Breed was drained, and as she advised us about her schedule, between bites from a steak-topped salad bowl, I may see why: Each week, she lifts weights 3 times, swims roughly 40,000 yards (greater than 22 miles), works a full-time job and spearheads the logistical planning for her expedition.

“Yeah, long days,” she stated. “I’m not having, like, any crazy meltdowns, but I definitely have moments.” She paused, trying to find the suitable phrases. “You know when you see a frayed power line? That’s how I feel on the inside sometimes.”

Breed likes to explain Swim California within the first-person plural: Not I’m swimming California, however we’re swimming California. In addition to Dr. Carter, her assist crew consists of an athletic coach, a nutritionist, a lawyer, a fund-raiser, a publicist, a logistics coordinator, a kayaker and a ship pilot who has circumnavigated the world. Her boyfriend, Dave Monachello, a ski patroller close to Lake Tahoe, will shadow the boat’s southward progress in a sprinter van, resupplying the crew at sea with contemporary greens, good paperbacks, pints of ice cream, spare boat-engine components and no matter else they want. At a dozen key areas, Breed will come ashore for public training occasions meant to lift cash for and consciousness of ocean conservation points, together with kelp forest well being, offshore oil drilling and collisions between whales and boats.

As we walked again to the hospital after lunch, Breed gave herself a type of pep discuss.

“When I get to think about it, it’s such a big, stressful thing,” she stated. “But I’m also like, I get to take four months where all I really have to do is put my face in the ocean for five hours a day and then hang out on a boat — like, that’s not the worst way to spend four months.”

That night, Breed held a fund-raising occasion on the personal, 166-year-old Olympic Club in downtown San Francisco. Those current had been from a variety of ages, together with seniors and elementary schoolers who had written about her for a faculty mission

Wearing an extended white costume with a maritime sample of corals, starfish, mussels and nautiluses, Breed walked the viewers by way of some fundamentals of her biography. She was born and raised within the Bay Area, and her childhood was filled with crusing and swimming (“Water is my happy place”). She bought a scholarship to swim on the University of California, Berkeley, the place she was a pre-med main, a two-time all-American swimmer and a member of the U.S. nationwide crew.

After graduating in 2015, mates launched her to the Dolphin Club, an open water swimming and boating membership in San Francisco. It quickly grew to become clear that she may preserve the pace she had honed in faculty for a lot of miles. In 2017, she accomplished her first lengthy swim try, 21.3 miles throughout the lengthy axis of Lake Tahoe, in 8 hours and 56 minutes, breaking a document set by a person that had stood since 1987.

More profitable marathon swims adopted: 20.8 miles throughout the English Channel, 21.7 miles within the North Channel between Scotland and Ireland (in 50-degree water and not using a moist swimsuit), the 28.5-mile 20 Bridges Swim Around Manhattan. Soon, she started listening to from strangers who had been impressed by her feats, together with a person who advised her that he began swimming once more and had misplaced 50 kilos.

Instead of pursuing medical college, she determined she would make her affect as a swimmer.

When individuals be taught what Breed is doing, they wish to know the expedition’s price (round $500,000, from particular person donors and company sponsors), what she is going to she eat for breakfast (chia pudding, in a single day oats), whether or not they can be a part of her for a part of the swim (no), and if she will probably be posting and livestreaming any of the swim (sure, on Instagram and YouTube.)

But maybe the 2 commonest questions are: Why are you doing this? And what in regards to the sharks?

Pacing the Olympic Club stage, with two massive screens projecting scenic pictures from her completely different swims, Breed described a number of motives: to advertise ocean conservation, to encourage others, to set a document, to have a rare journey. “I’m getting to experience parts of the coast that have never been experienced in this way before. No one goes slowly down the California coast,” she stated.

Breed offered her marathon swims not simply as bodily feats, however as phases in an unfinished journey of self-knowledge. After her record-smashing swim at Lake Tahoe, she anticipated to set a document in the course of the North Channel crossing. Instead, windy circumstances slowed her down, and it took far longer than she anticipated.

“A really important lesson on this swim was, you cannot bring hubris to the ocean,” she stated. “You can’t bring your plan to the ocean, because she’s going to be like, ‘Ha-ha, that’s funny.’”

Her longest swims have typically blended the chic and the terrifying. While crossing Monterey Bay, every stroke agitated bioluminescent algae, creating an otherworldly blue glow. Passing {a partially} submerged shipwreck by the pier at Sea Cliff state seashore, a identified sizzling spot for excellent whites, she felt a transcendent worry. “I’ve never been as scared as I was swimming past the sharky waters in Aptos,” she advised the gang.

Shortly earlier than the Monterey crossing, whereas swimming close to Aptos with a paddle boarder, she felt an awesome sense that one thing was close to her within the water. She appeared over and noticed the paddle boarder pointing to a spot lower than 10 toes away from his board. The fin of an incredible white shark was gliding alongside beside them. They made it safely again to shore, however a graph of her coronary heart price and stroke price afterward, she knew precisely the second the shark appeared: each strains had shot upward.

Just earlier than the discuss that evening, I chatted with Catherine’s mother, Robin Breed. While she stated she nervous about Swim California, she advised that folks typically take into consideration threat in a gendered method. “When boys climb trees, everybody goes, ‘Oh, look how high they are,’” she stated. “And when a girl climbs a tree, it’s ‘Oh, be careful now, don’t fall, don’t scrape yourself.’”

Near the tip of her discuss, Breed drew a distinction between threat takers and threat “technicians.” The former act on impulse and hope to get fortunate; the latter strategize to attenuate dangers. During Swim California, Breed will put on a small gadget that creates a magnetic subject meant to confuse a shark’s sensory system. Someone in a kayak or a small boat will all the time be close to her, and at identified sizzling spots, a number of scanners will look ahead to sharks and sea life. “So I promise I’m not going to get bit by a great white shark,” she stated at one level, upsetting nervous laughs.

But even threat technicians can get unfortunate.

One of Breed’s worst swimming experiences occurred in 2025, when she was making an attempt a crossing of about 30 miles between the Farallon Islands and the Golden Gate Bridge. She began at 10:45 p.m., swimming by way of the evening to keep away from ships and catch an help from the tides.

She swam by way of plenty of jellyfish so dense they bought inside her swimsuit, forcing her to vary fits midswim. She spent hours in a “bait ball,” a cluster of small fish that may entice birds from above and predators from under. With her arms hitting creatures on almost each stroke, she started to think about issues, even complicated the mushy inside a moon jelly with the center of a seal freshly killed by a shark — an actual, terrifying risk.

Near the Golden Gate Bridge, having already swum over 25 miles with no moist swimsuit in 56 diploma water, she was shivering, depressing and borderline hypothermic. There, she bought caught in a reverse present and barely made progress for nearly 90 minutes.

She talked together with her assist crew solely in the course of the “feeds” that marathon swimmers are allowed every half-hour by the World Open Water Swimming Association. She couldn’t contact the boat, however her assist crew may toss her liquid vitamins and discuss briefly. On the boat was Amy Gubser, who in 2024 grew to become the primary particular person to swim the identical crossing in the other way. Gubser was unfazed by the depth of Breed’s feelings throughout her feeds.

“There were tears, some cursing, but she was never really disrespectful,” Gubser recalled. What distinguished Breed was not the absence of doubt, worry and frustration, however her capability to proceed regardless of these feelings. “We’re just like, all right, that’s how you feel,” Gubser stated. “In half an hour, we’ll talk about it again.”

Breed lastly escaped the present, however by her subsequent feed, she felt able to stop. She appeared on the Golden Gate Bridge, a number of miles away, and thought of Swim California. If she couldn’t full this swim, individuals would have questions on a vastly longer one. Suddenly, she dove under the water, and as she resurfaced, screamed.

She accomplished the swim, breaking the earlier document by three minutes.

In late April, Breed let me be a part of her on a coaching swim.

We met simply after dawn on the boat ramp of Horseshoe Bay, close to the bottom of the Golden Gate Bridge. Along with three support-boat volunteers, we climbed right into a crimson 14-foot Zodiac — a inflexible inflatable boat with an outboard motor. Life jackets, thermoses of espresso and water, dry luggage, bananas, towels and different gear had been piled at our toes. I’d need assistance protecting tempo with Breed, so I introduced fins to spice up the ability of my kick.

I’ve been an open-water swimmer for a number of years, dipping into the Bay a number of occasions a month close to Berkeley within the East Bay. But I’d by no means swum past the Golden Gate Bridge. Where the Bay meets the open ocean, the waves get bigger, the currents stronger and the wildlife extra ample.

We motored out of Horseshoe Bay simply after 6:30 a.m., because the solar rose behind us over Alcatraz Island, casting a mellow glow over the sleek water. Shadows nonetheless lined the western slopes of the inexperienced and brown hills within the Marin Headlands. Across the water, daylight was hitting the cliffs and homes of Pacific Heights. Our boat’s hand-held radio crackled with updates on the areas of cargo ships and oil tankers.

Soon Breed slipped off her parka and donned goggles and a customized swim cap that includes a blue California-shaped strip down which a slender determine dives. She wore a black-and-purple moist swimsuit, one among six she is going to deliver on the expedition to be used as wanted.

Breed swung her toes over the sting of the bobbing Zodiac, stretched each arms overhead and dropped into the water.

“Swimmer in!” known as Radha Tomassetti, one of many volunteers.

Breed swims for hours at a tempo sooner than most individuals may handle for the size of a pool. Sachi Cunningham, a good friend who helped train her big-wave browsing, advised me that when she first noticed Breed within the water, she was amazed. “I had never seen anyone move through the water like that, with such grace and strength,” she stated. Watching Breed swim away from the Zodiac, I noticed what Cunningham meant. Her stroke is clean, quick and seemingly easy.

A kayaker stayed close to Breed, whereas we watched for different vessels within the Zodiac, typically looping fast circles round her so fishing boats seen us. Tomassetti had piloted assist boats for a lot of marathon swimmers, however escorting Breed felt completely different.

“Most of the time with swimmers, you’re just sort of bobbing beside them waiting,” she stated. “With Cat, we actually have to use the motor.”

Just a few moments later, we noticed two whale spouts — shimmering columns of exhaled air and water — dissolving within the daylight a few half-mile away. Much nearer to the boat, the dorsal fins of dolphins arced above the water.

I slipped on fins, goggles and swim cap simply over a thousand yards exterior the Golden Gate Bridge and dropped over the facet of the boat to affix Breed within the water.

It’s one factor to note, from the security of a ship, simply how small a human swimmer appears to be like in opposition to a backdrop of whales, cargo ships, sea lions and an infinite horizon of water. It’s one other to plunge your self into a chilly and huge realm by which you’re sluggish, small and weak.

Even with the Zodiac and the kayak close by, I felt way more uncovered within the ocean than within the Bay. The currents had been unpredictable and robust, and it was onerous not to consider the creatures throughout us. Swimming in wild, chilly water isn’t just a bodily problem; it’s additionally a psychological immersion in your personal fears and doubts — some idiosyncratic and private, others historical and common.

Just earlier than we reached the Golden Gate Bridge, Breed advised we swap from freestyle to backstroke. So we flipped over and swam beneath the bridge whereas trying up at its intricate lattice of giant orange girders.

After roughly a mile and a half of swimming, about an eighth of the space she plans to cowl almost day-after-day for months, we bought again to the boat launch at Horseshoe Bay. After dropping me on the cove, Breed swam out once more, planning to loop round Angel Island. She would have preferred to swim longer, however she nonetheless had a full workday forward of her in San Francisco.