Where Are They Now? Micha Burden

Besides working modeling assignments and recently getting married, Micha Burden, one of America's top open water swimmers, will represent the Los Angeles County Lifeguards in its annual competition against Victorian State Surf Life Saving Association of Australia in The Wieland Shield in January.

Lifeguards - who are an abundant source of local knowledge of the waterways around the world - are often open water swimmers' best friends.

At The Wieland Shield the Californian and Australian lifeguards will continue to exchange ocean lifesaving knowledge, skills and techniques that they have done over the past five decades. Micha and her California lifeguards (Jeff Barrett, Micah Carlson, Danny Ching, Maggie Hogan, Pat Jacobson, Renee Locarnini, Brian Murphy, Mike Murphy, Alison Riddle and Shane Scoggins) will continue the tradition.

It's Epic In New Zealand

The inaugural Epic Swim Festival in New Zealand will kick-off its first year in the majestic Lake Taupo, the largest lake in New Zealand, in January 2010.

The Epic Swim Festival showcase New Zealand best with the New Zealand 5K and 10K Open Water Championships and the New Zealand Masters 2.5K Open Water Championships.

Additionally, as the Festival looks toward the future, it will include recreational swims of varying distances 100-300 meters for children between the ages of 5-12 and 12-16 years, plus a 2K and 5K for open and age group swimmers.

It will be another one of New Zealand's great open water swimming events, capitalizing on the country's natural resources.

Power Swimming In The Open Water

In the November 2007 issue of Popular Mechanics, Erik Sofge writes about the Pentagon's PowerSwim for military applications. More powerful than a blueseventy pointZero 3, faster than a Speedo LZR, able to go underwater where no swimmer has gone before, the dolphin-like PowerSwim device has its advantages and disadvantages, but it would be a really cool device in the open water.

The Tradition Continues In Cold Waters

According to Dr. Jolie Bookspan, cold acclimatization is a well-documented process of gradually increasing your resistance to cold through regular cold exposure.

In Acclimatization to Diving in Cold Water, Dr. Bookspan noted examples of cold acclimatization: the native peoples of the African Kalahari, the Australian desert, and Tierra del Fuego in Chile.

In Chile, the truly hardy Yaghan people reportedly wore no clothes at all despite temperatures that were cold most of the time and cool at best.

The Yaghan women often dove into icy waters to retrieve the shellfish for the Yahgan men never learned to swim. They went to sea in all kinds of weather to look for thick kelp beds where shellfish and smaller fish hide.

Very strong women whose contemporary female counterparts in the modern marathon swimming world continue their tradition of swimming in the cold.

Copyright © 2011 by Open Water Source

One Man, Five Continents, Many Voices

Marcos Diaz of the Dominican Republic is set to go on his greatest adventure. This time, his feat will truly be on the world's stage with the United Nations at his back.

With an impressive news conference held at the UN Building in New York, Marcos announced his One Man - Five Continents - Many Voices initiative.

Between May and August 2010, Marcos will connect the five continents of the world with four tough swims, touching eight countries, called the Swim Across The Continents with the United Nations:

The first swim will unite Oceania to Asia when Marcos swims 18K from Wutung Village in Papua New Guinea to Mabo, Jayapura, Indonesia. The second swim will unite Asia to Africa with a 26K swim from Perim Island in Mayyun, Yemen to Fagal in Djibouti. The third swim will unite Africa to Europe, 18K from Marruecos, Morocco to Tarifa, Spain across the Strait of Gibraltar.

The final swim - a really tough one in extremely cold and treacherous waters - will unite Europe to the Americas when Marcos replicates Lynne Cox's famous 1987 4K swim between Big Diomedes Island in Russia to Little Diomedes Island in Alaska.

The logistical challenge in getting to these locations is only one obstacle. In the first swim in Papua New Guinea-to-Indonesia in May, Marcus will avoid the rainy season and large ocean swells, but the expedition to the start area will take some time. In the second swim from Yemen-to-Djibouti in Juen, the primary obstacle include travel to the starting point as well as currents, sea life and security (against Somalia pirates). The third swim in July across the Gibraltar Strait will be relatively easy to accomplish relative to the other swims. The final swim across the Diomedes Islands will be in late August where logistics and water temperature will be the primary obstacles (Marcos will wear a wetsuit on this swim).

Marcos' initiative is to call attention to the UN's Millennium Development Goals, "The poverty gap is still much too wide around the world. With this initiative I hope that all of us, rich and poor, government and business, men and women will come together to realize how far we are still from complying with the Millennium Development Goals agreed by the United Nations almost 10 years ago."

Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, welcomed Marcos' athletic and political initiative as did Wilfried Lemke, Special US Adviser on Sport for Development and Peace, "[His swim] has inspiring symbolic power. It demonstrates how interconnected we are in this world and that objectives and efforts to promote development and peace are truly global."

At his press conference, Kiyo Akasaka, UN Under Secretary-General for Public Information, Felipe Payano, Minister of Sports of the Dominican Republic, Ambassador Federico Cuello Camilo, Representative of the Dominican Republic, Sering Falu Njie, Deputy Director of the UN Millennium Campaign, and the UN Representatives of Djibouti, Indonesia and Senegal were in attendance as well as representatives from Papua New Guinea, Yemen, Morocco, Spain, Russia and the USA.

Marcos describes his project as "a swim across all the continents, raising the voices of the world to show that, after all, we are not far apart. To inspire us, to view all countries as one, to stand up and act, to make a difference and demand real changes to humanity."

A bold inititiave with a powerful message by an ambitious ambassador of swimming who will touch the hearts of many as he crosses the world's waterways.

In Spanish, Marcos said, "Este proyecto motivará a las personas a levantarse y ser tomados en cuenta. Este no es mi nado sino el de todos." UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said in Spanish, "Dada la necesidad de mantener vigentes los Objetivos del Milenio, me gustaría dar la bienvenida a esta iniciativa."

Trailblazing Swim Leads To A New Adventure In Alaska

Claudia Rose of San Diego blazed a new aquatic trail by becoming the first person to swim across the majestic Sitka Sound in Alaska this summer.

True to her words ("I am much more interested in things people have not done"), her success has led to a new 10K swim in Sitka next August, called the Sitka Sound Adventure Race.

The creation of this new race enables cold-water swimmers to enjoy two back-to-back races now in Alaska with the more established 8.2-mile Pennock Island Challenge expected to continue its constant growth in its seventh year in August 2010.

With nature galore, the race is bound to be a success.

Like Claudia's initial 4 hour and 36 minute traverse from Kruzof Island to Halibut Point in 54˚F (12.2˚C) waters, athletes will need to be well-prepared for a tough 10K swim. But the raw, unspoiled nature of Sitka Sound and Pennock Island Challenge will be an unbeatable treat for those who dare.