Jono Ridler

Our speaker for the evening, Jono Ridler, titled his stimulating presentation Choosing Discomfort, challenging us all to think of doing the hard things.

 

Although he had had swimming lessons as a boy, he was always more interested in his other sports. It was not until a snow boarding accident in 2011 that he came back to swimming as part of his shoulder rehabilitation: he then became seriously interested in marathon swimming.  

He talked about the importance of meeting the challenge and overcoming one’s fears.  His thorough and lengthy preparations included going out in atrocious and unknown conditions and acclimatising himself to swimming  at night. To say nothing of overcoming any fear of sharks! His major swims of

These were precursors to his working with Swim4TheGulf and achieving his record-breaking  swim from Karaka Bay, Aotea, Great Barrier Island to Campbells Bay, Auckland in May last year. The swim took 33 hours to accomplish, and was the longest, unassisted, continuous open-water swim in New Zealand's history - a distance of almost 100 kilometres.

 

It was more than just a swim - it was in partnership and publicity for the Live Ocean charity, with the ambition to improve the health of Tīkapa Moana (the Hauraki Gulf). [Supported by such luminaries as Peter Burling & Blair Tuke].

                          

 

Jono spoke of the crossovers into public speaking and with his work at DHL.