Today was the first ocean swim race in a series of six ocean swims. This was the Harbour swim, across the Waitemate harbour, from Bayswater on Auckland’s North Shore to the Viaduct Harbour in Auckland city. That’s a distance of 2.9 km. Nearly 1700 swimmers took part this morning. They were divided into 6 groups, depending on how fast they could swim. Each group wore a different coloured cap. Swimmers with a yellow cap were the fastest and they started first. Then the next colour started 1 minute later and so on. This gave the fastest swimmers a chance to stay in front. For these people, it was a race. For other swimmers, they just wanted to compete and try to swim as fast as possible. It is a great experience to swim across the harbour.
The next ocean swim is in the Bay of Islands from Russell to Paihia on December 7th. It is 3.3km. Every summer month, there is another ocean swim: Wellington in January, then Akaroa in February, Tauranga in March and the final swim is again in Auckland on the North Shore between two beaches. Each of these places has a long ocean swim, a 1km swim, a 300m swim, and a 200 swim for children between 6 and 10 years of age.
Vocabulary
- series – a number of events, one after the other
- compete – be in a competition