Swimmers to Make a Splash Across San Diego Bay at Inaugural Sharkfest™ Swim

Wednesday, 21 October 2009

Experienced open-water swimmers will race across the Big Bay in the first-ever San Diego-Coronado Sharkfest™ Swim on Sunday, October 25.

But don’t be alarmed by the name. There won’t be any real sharks in the Bay, just as many as 500 swimmers churning up the waters between Coronado Island and San Diego’s bayfront.

During the inaugural San Diego event, which is not intended for novices, a ferry horn blast will send swimmers into the water at 9 a.m., where they will race across 1-mile of the bay. The course begins at the Fifth Avenue Landing, located at 111 W Harbor Drive behind the San Diego Convention Center, and finishing at the Port of San Diego’s Tidelands Park beach, located at the foot of the Coronado Bridge. (View map course.)

A “sister-swim” of San Francisco Bay, known as the Alcatraz Sharkfest™, draws a sell-out crowd of 800 swimmers from around the world. Enviro-Sports are the organizers of both events.

“My husband (Dave Horning) and I were down in San Diego for a race director’s conference ten years ago. And he started looking at it then,” said Wendy Hunt Horning, the event’s executive producer. “(Dave) saw the Coronado Bridge and it planted the seed.”

“The slowest swimmer is going to take up to 50 minutes, so this shouldn’t be taken lightly. If you haven’t trained, you shouldn’t be thinking about it,” said Dave Horning, co-organizer. “But for those experience swimmers, when they finish, they can say, ‘I swam the Coronado Bridge.’”

The area where finishers come ashore is near protected eelgrass along the tidelands. The Port of San Diego’s environmental department worked with organizers to design a route that would prevent the swimmers from causing any harm to the habitat.

Various incentives will be provided for all San Diego participants, and the top three swimmers of all age groups in each division will be honored at the awards ceremony. Afterwards, post race festivities can continue at the Coronado Ferry Landing to enjoy San Diego’s waterfront on the Big Bay.

The name Sharkfest™ comes from the tales of the Great White sharks that kept prisoners from escaping Alcatraz, also known as The Rock. But don’t worry about sharks at this event.

“If we really had to worry about sharks during the swim, we wouldn’t be doing the swim,” laughed Dave Horning.

A race day itinerary and registration details of the San Diego Harbor Sharkfest™ Swim are provided online. If you can’t make the inaugural Sharkfest™, there’s always next year, said Horning.

"There will be a second annual – I’m already planning a second race."

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