Gosport swimmer Anna Wardley set for challenge of 33km Catalina Channel swim after winning Churchill fellowship
ENDURANCE swimmer Anna Wardley will navigate through more than 20 miles of shark territory in one of her biggest challenges yet.
Swimming the Catalina Channel, Anna will start at midnight from Catalina Island and head for the coast of Los Angeles in a gruelling 16-hour journey.
Accomplished Anna, from Gosport, will spend the first six hours in darkness, wearing only a standard swimming costume and heading through a stretch of water known for sharks.
The 43-year-old ocean swimmer, who claims a swim around Portsea Island among her a dizzying array of achievements, said: ‘It’s definitely one of the most challenging swims I have done.
‘Someone swimming it a few weeks ago, a great white shark circled the pilot boat. Of course we don’t get that in the Solent.
‘I try to focus on why I’m doing it because that then overrides the nerves to some extent.’
Anna has raised thousands for charities close to her heart over the years, including Samaritans in memory of her dad, Ralph Wardley, who died by suicide in 1985 when she was nine.
Challenges overcome by Gosport’s own mermaid include a 56-mile swim of the Isle of Wight and surviving hundreds of jellyfish stings in a 23-mile attempt from Menorca and Mallorca.
This latest feat will kickstart research across the USA, as Anna has been awarded a Churchill Fellowship by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust.
This is awarded to 150 people in the UK each year to research an area they are passionate to improve, bringing back ideas from abroad to contribute to society.
Anna will visit organisations in the USA, Australia and Denmark which support children who have experienced parental suicide.
She recently spent time in Australia for the first leg of her trip, giving a speech at the Australian Suicide Postvention Conference in Sydney.
Anna said: ‘It’s something that I really do feel is important, just to start a conversation about it. People don’t know the language to use to talk to children who have lost a parent to suicide.
‘I think it’s something that’s really overlooked and there’s a lot of stigma around it, it’s important that we look after the children. That’s my mission at the moment.’