With the somewhat impromptu decision made, Reid then casually started "getting ready", preparations that did not include gym workouts, cold water acclimatisation, balance work, or mental visualisation — activities that might be added to a training plan today. Instead, when summer 1987 rolled around, Reid simply increased the number of lengths he swam in Onekawa's outside pool. "It was all very basic," he remembers.
A few weeks later someone told him that if he was serious, he'd better do a decent open water swim, "so I did."
Reid and teen swimming friend Katrina Egan (who went on to be a world surf ski champion) knocked out a five-hour swim between Tangoio and Ahuriri. Accompanied by friends in kayaks (one missing a bung) and cans of Complan "we swam across the bay — it was all pretty spacey stuff!".
Now a highly regarded Gold Coast surf lifesaving coach, Egan remembers getting the night-before call-up, and, being 16 and super fit, she agreed to the mad plan. She says her patience was tested during the escapade as the then 13-year-old Reid was insanely talkative, groused a lot, and wanted to practice his food stops. "It was about 16km and I recall getting frustrated and cold!"
After chalking up the long swim Reid's supportive parents Ray and Mary took their boy to see the pilot who would navigate him across the Strait.
They'd been asked to show how their son swam and Reid's 20 minutes of freestyle off Plimmerton Beach was all Shalimar pilot Graham Wilkinson needed to see. The swim was on.
Two early swim windows closed because of subsequent bad weather and tides but finally, on March 23, 1987, the crossing got under way.
The relaxed lead-up to the campaign meant Reid got two early surprises on the day of his swim. The first was when he learned that, because of the tides and currents, he would swim the Strait south-to-north, requiring a long bumpy boat trip to the South Island before he could start.
The second surprise was how bitterly cold the water was, which he only discovered when he first plunged into the chilly surf. "It was freezing! And I'd never swum in cold water. I had done all my swimming in Napier!"
The day Reid crossed the water temperature was 11.9C. For comparison, the water in most public indoor swimming pools is 25-28C. "I thought 'oh my God!' It was so cold it hurt my teeth. I hadn't even considered it would be so cold."
Reid jumped in a few metres from the South Island at Perano Head and had to swim to, and touch, rocks to officially start his crossing.
He was wearing his favourite pair of speedos (black with yellow and red triangles); a borrowed swim cap he'd never used before, and the only pair of goggles anyone had thought to bring.
"It was only the other day when I was reliving it that I realised it sounds like amateur hour at the amateur show," laughs Reid.
As Reid hollered about the wintry conditions, his father yelled back from underneath his towelling hat, "you'll be all right son, off you go!"
And so began what Reid now calls an "uneventful and boring" crossing of the Strait. He took a while to warm up and get into a rhythm but within two hours his style was locked in and his stroke rate was fast enough to keep him warm. His dad later told him his stroke rate stayed consistent the whole day.
Three hours in, he had his first food stop when the can of Complan came out, and soon after that, the sun turned up. "It had been cloudy and overcast to start with but now the sun was over the dark shapes of the island in front of me."
These days, swimmers tackling a marathon swim (anything over 10km) are closely tracked by their coach or swim co-ordinator. He or she sits in an IRB that idles alongside the swimmer. The relationship is intense and both people will traverse a gambit of emotions as they interact during the lengthy and often difficult swim.
But in Reid's case, the IRB broke down early in the piece and he was left to get on with it alone.
"There was no way the bigger boat my parents and sister were in could idle beside me so that was doing big circles around me instead. With your low eye line and the swell - it meant for a lot of the way it seemed as if I was swimming alone in Cook Strait."
Four hours into the swim the South Island lost its sharp outline and the North Island was coming into view. The cold dissipated and he wasn't feeling any discomfort.
At one stage during the swim, a school of dolphins kept him company swimming within 2m of him. It was a comforting presence, he said. "When there are dolphins you know there are no sharks."
Six hours into the swim he could see Cape Terawhiti beach where he was to land. Rugged and windswept, 78 years earlier it had been the site where wreckage from the SS Penguin shipping disaster had come to rest.
"I could make out the beach and see the headland, [which is] quite imposing with a rocky, bouldery beach. Towards the end of the swim, I remember the water being really clear and clean."
Only a third of those who attempt Cook Strait achieve their goal. And the ones that do often experience utter exhaustion, painful stomach cramps, seasickness, high levels of thermal discomfort, and mental fatigue. But 14-year-old Reid didn't get any of that. Surprised to find himself so close to the North Island he swum strongly towards the beach, marvelling when first he could make out shapes under the water. Once the seabed came closer he delighted in diving down and picking up a North Island stone.
After clamouring like a crab to shore, Reid then swam back to the refunctioning IRB and was motored back to the Shalimar, where his parents were waiting.
He has warm memories of their pride, his sister's delight, and the illicitness of drinking the champagne that magically appeared. More tasty delights were to follow when his parents took him to the newest restaurant in town to celebrate. "Napier didn't have a McDonald's so that was cool."
Back home, the neighbours put out a "Welcome home hero" sign and the Napier Daily Telegraph did a story but, otherwise, life went on as normal.
Some people take up to 12 hours to swim the treacherous stretch of water. Reid's loosely-planned teenage swim took seven hours and 10 minutes. At the time he was the 38th person to swim Cook Strait, and the second youngest to have done it.
"The day seemed relatively easy, I mean it was uneventful. Things had gone well, we were at the end, and I had completed it."
■ To read the full account of Reid's 2022 attempt on Cook Strait visit https://bit.ly/3TdGG24
