Women swim non-stop around Manhattan Island during night

A WILD swimmer and river campaigner swam non-stop around Manhattan Island for charity.

Laura Reineke, 51, founder of the Henley Mermaids, completed the 20 Bridges challenge in nine hours and 15 minutes alongside her friend Lee Saudan.

The pair set off at 7.30pm on Friday and swam 30 miles through the night with the help of two kayakers who fed them using a tube on a fishing line.

They started at Pier A Harbor House in Battery Park, Lower Manhattan, and travelled along three rivers, including the East River connecting New York Harbor to Long Island Sound.

They swam under the Brooklyn Bridge and through the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens.

The pair then reached the Harlem River, which connects the East River to the Hudson and is eight miles long and crossed by 15 bridges between Manhattan and The Bronx.

The final stretch was along the Hudson River, which separates Manhattan from New Jersey. The pair finished back at the pier.

The women were so exhausted that they went back to their apartment in Manhattan and slept for most of Saturday.

The next day they celebrated with a breakfast of a bacon and egg roll at the Tin Building in New York.

On finishing the race, Ms Reineke said: “We were absolutely elated, really. We gave each other a big hug and thought, ‘Thank goodness that we’d made it’ because there were times when we thought we wouldn’t.

“It was a really hard swim but we were never getting out.

“We’re pretty hardy and feisty and we wouldn’t let down each other or anyone else. We were determined and resilient.

“Afterwards you always feel a bit surreal, like you haven't done it. It takes a while to sink in.”

Ms Reineke, a mother of three from Binfield Heath, battled with seasickness during the first half of the race.

“It was particularly rough — there was a lot of traffic,” she said. “There were jet skis, sailing boats, speed boats and the Staten Island Ferry.”

At one point they narrowly avoided being hit by a jet ski which was being driven with no lights. Ms Reineke said: “We were getting tossed about because the tides were clashing. You had a tide going one way, another coming in another way and lots of wind.

“It didn’t help that it felt a very long way and the water was dark.

“I was retching constantly, which wasn’t fun. Keeping feeds down when you’re feeling sick is really difficult.”

The women were accompanied by Mrs Saudan’s husband, Richard, who was on a pilot boat. He mixed up their feeds and passed them to the kayakers.

“We each had a kayaker,” said Ms Reineke. “On the pilot boat was an observer who observes that you stick to the rules of the swim — you can only wear a swimming costume, goggles and a hat and you’re not allowed to touch the boat. You’re not allowed to get out, stop or put your feet down.” The New York swim is part of the triple crown of open water swimming, which also comprises the Channel and the Catalina Channel, a 20-mile crossing in California. This has been completed by only 331 people so far.

Ms Reineke, who swam the Channel solo last year, would become one of only 11 British women to complete it.

She said she also wanted to take on this swim because of its iconic location.

“New York is a really buzzing city — it’s an attack on the senses,” she said. “But to swim around it gives you a completely different perspective.

“Going under the bridges when they were all lit up was lovely and seeing the George Washington Bridge, which was the last bridge to come into view, was an incredible experience. It was amazing looking up and seeing all the lights of Manhattan as we went round and each river had a very different feel to it.

“The East River was really rough. That’s what started me feeling poorly and then the Harlem River was really nice and smooth.

“The Hudson River has only one bridge and it takes you ages to get to that and then you have another three hours after that to get back to Pier A. That felt like a very long way after six hours of swimming.”

She said the water temperature was about 19C.

Ms Reineke said: “There were some patchy, cold bits but it wasn’t too cold.

“I was expecting it to be a hard swim but it was particularly hard. It was a real challenge…. the pure size of the bodies of water. I didn’t expect it to be so wide. It must’ve been a mile across in some parts.”

Ms Reineke was being spurred on by family and friends. Her children, Mae, 23, Ava, 21, and Alfie, 18, joined a WhatsApp group set for people to send messages to support.

Ms Reineke said: “It was lovely to have messages from all over the world. We created the group for our friends and family to join and Richard posted updates on it as we were swimming. There was a Garmin tracker of our route on the group.

“People were messaging to say what a challenge it was and how brilliant and inspiring it was. All the comments were really lovely.”

Ms Reineke, who founded Henley Music School, has previously undertaken other endurance swims, including a 15km swim across the Scilly Isles, the North Channel four-person relay, the Bristol Channel four-person relay and the Thames Marathon swim between Henley and Marlow.

She has also taken part in the Winter Swimming World Championships in Bled, Slovenia.

Both women completed the Robben Island Freedom Swim in South Africa in 2022.

She had been preparing for the 20 Bridges swim by training six days a week.

Before the race, the pair went on a sightseeing trip around the island.

Mrs Saudan, 57, from Nuffield, said: “That was pretty spectacular. It gave us a really good idea of what to expect so we knew what was coming. In some ways, that made it quite scary because we suddenly realised how far it was.

“We were really lucky [with the swim] because it was the summer solstice and there was a full moon. It was quite a light evening and there was a lot of light coming off the buildings and the streets.

“To swim at night and to see all the lights and to finish coming up to Manhattan and the Freedom Tower was absolutely out of this world.”

The pair raised more than £6,000 for WildFish, a fish conservation charity, where Ms Reineke works in marketing.

She said: “We have to raise money to call government and policies and the regulators of water companies to account so that we can protect our wild fish populations from deteriorating any further.

“Fishing is not sustainable any more. The numbers of fish has plummeted and many are becoming extinct. We need to fight that decline.”

To make a donation, visit www.gofundme.com/f/protect-wild-fish-and-their-waters