California woman braves shark-infested waters for 900-mile West Coast endurance swim and survives

And you think you’ve got a long commute.A brave Bay Area woman just swam the entirety of the California coastline to make a statement about the environment — braving the Pacific’s briny, shark-infested depths for 900 chilly miles.Endurance swimmer Catherine Breed, 33, began her 111-day journey at the Oregon border near Crescent City on July 1 — winding up in San Diego yesterday afternoon.The biggest news, opinion and culture shaping California right now.

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Never miss a story Her goal was to be the first person in history to swim the entirety of the Golden State — and raise awareness for conservation efforts, she said.Breed marked the end of her journey on a San Diego-area beach on Monday afternoon.“For months, I measured my world in the next few miles,” Breed earlier told the San Francisco Chronicle.“Every message from someone following along, every person who came out to cheer, helped me get back in the water.”Breed, who swam competitively at University of California, Berkeley, previously swam the English Channel in 2018 and the North Channel Crossing between Ireland and Scotland in 2019.

She was formerly a member of the U.S.National Team, before transitioning to open-water swimming.Breed’s journey comes as the Pacific Ocean battles Super El Niño conditions, causing water temperature to rise, fueling powerful storms, raising sea levels, and disrupting the marine ecosystem.The Cal grad told KPBS that navigating the tropical storms was the hardest part of her journey.“California has a coastal current that typically runs north to south,” she said.

“There’s historical data about that on NOAA.And this year, because of the ‘super’ El Niño, that current switched direction.

And so the current is quite literally going against us the entire way.”During her journey, Breed was in the wa...