Jono Ridler completed an epic oceam swimming feat that started on Great Barrier Island and ended at Campbells Bay. Photo / Subzero Images
Marathon swimmer Jono Ridler was described as “superhuman” after his record-breaking solo swim of 33 hours around the Hauraki Gulf this month.
Choppy seas and 25-knot winds couldn’t stop the 33-year-old Aucklander, who swam nearly 100km in an epic feat that started on Great Barrier Island and ended at Campbells Bay.
Ridler chats to the Herald, revealing the toll it took, his next big swim and link with Kiwi ocean swimming greats, why he remains optimistic despite the “grim” environmental state of the Hauraki Gulf, and more.
Where does this swim rank on the pain scale?
This was the hardest physically and mentally. It took me to places I haven’t been to before. A major difference was swimming through the night.
I presume doubts crept in?
Yes, when you start having pain. The first pain I remember was pretty bad gut distress off the top of Little Barrier, along with bicep and shoulder pain, about eight hours in. That threw up some doubts. I had to pull myself out of it. I had pain in various other parts for the rest of the swim.
The gut pain may have been related to the anti-inflammatory pill I was taking. I took one anti-inflammatory, four Panadol and two No-Doz over the duration.
Most of the medicine was actually being taken on by the crew for bad seasickness - anti-nausea pills and jabs.
What about the good thoughts?
You get into a flow state - where the mind is kind of detached from the body. You are completely present, almost like a trance. Feeding every 40 minutes breaks you out of that trance though.
What sort of swells can you swim in?
They aren’t too much of a concern. I can swim in three-metre waves - it depends on what direction they are coming from.
Into it is a bit harder. When they crash on you, that is the hard bit. Quite a few were doing that in the latter part of the swim, on me and the boat. We changed our landing beach because the crew were actually worried about the boat crashing on top of me.
How do you avoid getting water in the mouth?
Getting water in the mouth is inevitable. I had a lot washing around my mouth because of the conditions.
I came out of it with a really rough throat and my tongue had some chunks missing. I wasn’t able to eat without pain for five days afterwards.
Where were you brought up?
The first few years in Torbay, then Avondale. Lynfield was home for a long time.
I went to Hebron Christian College in Mt Albert from age 5 to 15. My last year was at Auckland Grammar. My dad’s a Grammar old boy and he saw the value in me being exposed to the bigger world.
It was a big change at the time, a hard adjustment at Auckland Grammar. I was suddenly a very small fish in a big pond trying to build friendships from scratch which I wasn’t very good at. It was very difficult for me.
What’s your personal life like?
I’ve got a reasonably high-pressure job in logistics at DHL, and I’m married to Sarah, who’s a high school teacher at Kristin School. She is five months pregnant with our first child. We met in our early 20s at university and I wasn’t doing all the long-distance swimming then. It evolved later, but she’s along for the ride.
How did you latch on to long-distance swimming?
I played a lot of sports and could naturally pick things up. I was rehabbing a snowboarding injury in the pool, and my father and brother were doing an ocean swim.
New Zealand has a proud tradition of ocean swimming built around characters such as Philip Rush and Meda McKenzie, although that was some time ago.
Phil has been a mentor to me in undertaking these long challenges. He is a bit like the godfather of ocean swimming now.
He was an amazing swimmer, on the professional circuit, a proper fast marathon swimmer who did some epic long swims like the triple crossing of the English Channel.
I don’t think anyone is going to break his record soon for the English Channel double-crossing, let alone the triple one. He was that good. I think he is one of the most underrated athletes we’ve had in New Zealand.
I met Meda at a 2021 awards ceremony. I told her I intended a double crossing of the Cook Strait and she said, “Why on earth would you want to do something stupid like that?”
She had done it 35 years previously - I don’t think she had the most enjoyable of time. It didn’t put me off, but I still haven’t done it.
I was being a little bit of a fanboy - you hear these names, Meda McKenzie was one of them, so it was awesome to meet her.
Ocean swimming has been in a slumber but I think it’s entering another golden era.
Who is number one in the world?
It’s not like there is an objective list but there are some names and I think Sarah Thomas from the United States would be considered the best marathon swimmer in the world right now. She has done the longest lake swim in the world, 167km, and was the first to do a four-way crossing of the English Channel and a bunch of other things.
What would you like to ask her?
I’d like to pick her brain, about how to put your body through something for close to 70 hours. I got a taste of that, but I’ve got more room to explore.
I’ve just doubled my previous distance but I need to build up my base for these really long swims. I think I can do that, and then the sky is the limit.
The English Channel is the Everest of swimming but I’m not that drawn to it - I’m drawn to adventure-type swims that nobody has done before, finding the next level of physical and mental challenge. I’ve got the seed of another idea but it’s too early to bring to the surface.
What is coming up then?
I have signed up for the North Channel between Ireland and Scotland next year. It scares me a little bit. It’s cold, 12 degrees, and there are lion’s mane jellyfish everywhere.
They have big, long tentacles, stingy. I’ve swum into a few of those here - the sensation is almost like swimming through hair. You don’t see them until you are stung - “bugger”.
Those sorts of things kind of draw me into it though. It’s the wanting to do something that is really difficult, to push myself.
One of the greatest tragedies is having a gift and not using it. And I feel like I’ve got the mental and physical ability.
A big motivation for your record swim was raising awareness about the state of the Hauraki Gulf.
I’ve spent a lot of time swimming in the Hauraki and I’ve got a growing sense of the urgency driving ocean conservation, and correcting some of the degradation.
It feels like nothing is happening. We now want to drive some action as well.
I see massive amounts of sedimentation in the water, it’s pretty dirty closer to the land. That’s a consequence of our sewerage and stormwater system, pouring into the ocean when there is a major flooding event. You can’t swim safely after that.
And there’s a general lack of marine life - although the outer Hauraki is still reasonably lively. The ocean up north is much more alive.
But there is a raft of problems here - overfishing is probably the main driver, commercial and recreational.
There are still some archaic commercial fishing practices, like bottom trawling where they rip up the seabed, which is completely detrimental to the ecosystem.
There is a plan sitting there called Revitalising the Gulf but it just hasn’t been acted on.
Why do you think that is?
Very strong interests that want to retain the status quo.
Part of that plan is to change some of those unsustainable fishing practices. I’d say to those people that yes, I understand it’s an industry that supports thousands of people. But they need to think about the next generation, not the next catch. People would be surprised to know how bad the gulf is.
The Poor Knights is marine-protected which shows how beautiful things can be but we need to give the ocean some space, a breather.
All of the recreational fishers I talk to are completely behind more marine protection because they know it’s good for them and the ocean.
Eventually, the generation that is so enthused around change and sustainability and the environment will be the main generation of our population. So long as they carry those same attitudes through, they can break through any structures. It’s a grim situation, but I’m optimistic.
What can people do?
To anyone who wants to help, I would say stay aware because attention to the subject can be fleeting. Get in touch with your MP and drive the message, and you can donate to groups like Live Ocean.
Did the cause help you endure the swim?
Totally. For us to make some impact I had to be successful. If I’d pulled out with those doubts about 25km into it, it would have been harder to achieve the environmental awareness and action we are after.
'It’s a huge honour and it’s just reflective of all the good horses I’ve ridden.'