Blue Hill Bay Swim 2025
Done!
The 30th anniversary of the Long Island Challenge is now in the books, and as usual, long island did indeed challenge.
The ranks of our swimmers were very slightly battered and buffeted by time, nature, society, and other absolutes, but we did indeed complete the swim with all that set out on the day, and were thinking often of those who could not be there (Mary, Mark, Tricia, Andy, Brenna, and many more).
Boy, I’m making this sound like D-Day, or something. It really wasn’t quite as end-of-the-world as all that.
The water temperature was not as cold as it had been earlier in the summer, but it was surprisingly windy for 7 AM, and there was definitely a rolling motion to the water, I think the southwest wind managed to find a pretty solid gap between the islands. We finished the swim in about an hour and a half, which might be longer than usual.
Also, I found some sea stars out on long island, that was pretty cool.
Finally, a couple of swim-anniversaries for the swimmers as well as the event. It was my (John Clements) twentieth swim, Charlotte Clews’ tenth swim, and Alice and Lane’s fifth swim. In fact, Justice was the only swimmer not to have an anniversary, but he’s swum it so many times that we ran out of numbers. Let’s just call it infinity times.
The swimmers:
- Alice Clements
- Charlotte Clews
- John Clements
- Justice Pollard
- Lane Lucas
The magnificent support crew who successfully prevented all deaths and (further) injuries:
- Amanda Herman
- Charlotte Taylor
- Lucy Lawther
- Mike Murnik
- XC Clements
All-time swimmer stats : /Granite-Mon-Website/
We also have excellent photos from <all the people who sent photos> and I am personally deeply grateful to Mary Clews who organized the whole thing even though she didn’t get to swim.
— John Clements, 2025–08–10