Over 900 miles, Californian swimmer Catherine Breed battled El Niño

Mill Valley resident Catherine Breed completed her approximately 900-mile swim along the entire California coast. To achieve the unprecedented feat, the 33-year-old swam in open water for around five to eight hours a day – and faced an unexpected foe.

Since leaving the Oregon border in July, Breed has experienced this year’s historic El Niño that changed the Pacific Ocean in real time. She shared what she witnessed and how El Niño complicated her team’s trip with SFGATE on Saturday afternoon, two days before the arrival ceremony.

During this conversation, Breed expressed concern about a surprising current, which appeared to be flowing north as she attempted to move south. Josh Willis, a senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told SFGATE that El Niño didn’t change the offshore California Current, which flows north to south, but he had another theory. “Nearshore there is a small coastal jet that also runs north-south most summers, actually pushed by upwelling and nearshore winds,” Willis wrote by email. “But during an El Niño year, those upwelling winds tend to reverse and the coastal jet can also stop or reverse. That’s probably what Catherine experienced.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

SFGATE: What happened during your swim today?

Breed Catherine: I swam from Point Loma to Mission Bay, about 8 miles. When we got back into San Diego Harbor, there was so much trash – more than I had seen on the entire trip. There were a lot of plastic bags.

SF DOOR: What do you think of the final step towards the California-Mexico border?

Breed: The Tijuana River is a global, national and California crisis. Essentially, raw sewage comes out of the river and into the ocean. The pollution zone is about 1.5 miles offshore, so I will finish about 3 miles offshore, crossing the border at sea. That’s why no one will see me finish. The strategy to avoid the pollution crisis is to 1) avoid, and 2) I started taking prophylactic antibiotics under the guidance of my medical team. Thank goodness it’s at the end.

SFGATE: How do you feel so close to the end?

Breed: Physically and emotionally, I feel good. We had a really fun day in the ocean today. My body is resisting very well. I think mentally I’m ready to be done with it. I’m ready to go home. I’m a little overwhelmed by the attention that will come at the end.

SFGATE: What should Californians know about your underwater observations?

Breed: I want to emphasize how difficult it was during the super El Niño. I chose this year as 2023 and I had no crystal ball telling me it would be a great El Niño. It really forced us to work with Mother Nature every day. This proved extremely difficult for swimming… My message to people would be to get involved in local ocean conservation to understand what is happening in your backyard. I believe this year is a wake-up call for us.

SF DOOR: What signs of El Niño have you noticed?

Breed: We definitely felt the water warmer. We started to notice it way up in San Francisco, where it was warmer than other years. The fact that there was such activity, in the form of hurricanes and tropical storms in the Pacific, was also very visible. We were in Hurricane Rachel and we were definitely pumped up from the other storms. Having a lot of big swell from the west or south sometimes made anchoring difficult.

The other thing we noticed was the change in current. It seems to be going in the opposite direction than usual, but I need to do some research on that… Current and hurricanes and tropical storms have forced me to reverse direction at times. Instead of swimming all of my sections from north to south, I did a few segments where I swam from south to north. This doubles our time spent in the ocean. This doubles the transit time. It forces us to really think about our day very strategically.

SFGATE: What types of marine life have you seen?

Breed: We saw lots of manta rays, which I thought was pretty unique. We’ve seen them as far north as Malibu. They are a tropical species, so having them this far north was interesting. We definitely saw tuna and marlin. We also saw many sea lions affected by domoic acid in Monterey.

And there were many, many, many whales – hundreds of them. I had a whale swim underneath me in Humboldt County, and then I had dolphins swim right next to me in Mendocino. The Santa Barbara bottlenose dolphins played with me for about 10 minutes which was so amazing. Around Morro Bay on the Central Coast, a baby humpback and its mother humpback swam about 15-20 feet from me, and it was probably the coolest experience of my life.

We saw between 10 and 20 whales a day. And then, all of a sudden, in the Santa Barbara area, we didn’t see any more whales. It could also be because it was hot.

SFGATE: What about shark sightings?!

Breed: They took place without incident. The crew is still on the lookout and I swim very close to the boat. If the crew sees a fin, they just say to me: “Cat, shark!” » I’m out in about 5 seconds. If we see it again, we evaluate whether we should get back in the water or just get it over with for the day. One day we decided to do it. But most of the time I get back to my swimming, and that’s it.

SFGATE: After this incredible accomplishment, what’s next for you?

Breed: I’m going to a wedding in Central America, so I’m going to enjoy a little vacation. And then I’m really just going to focus on my next step in professional life. I want to see how I can use this swim to share a story that not only inspires ocean conservation, but also more people to pursue big goals and excel.