Delmont endurance swimmer closer to 'Ocean's Seven'
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Darren Miller of Delmont goes through a swim routine at the Murrysville Swimming Club last year.
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Darren Miller of Delmont swam the 24-mile Catalina Channel -- between Santa Catalina Island and the mainland near Long Beach, Calif. -- on Aug. 3 in 9 hours and 15 minutes, completing the second leg of his quest to be the first person to swim the "Ocean's Seven," the endurance swimmer's equivalent of the "Seven Summits" for mountain climbers.
Mr. Miller swam the English channel in July of last year. Nearly 1,200 others have swum the 21 miles between Dover and Cap Gris Nez in France, once considered the Mount Everest of marathon swimming. So in 2008 Steven Munatones, a swim coach in California, invented the Ocean's Seven so swimmers would have a challenge comparable to climbing the highest mountain on each of seven continents.
The other swims in the Ocean's Seven are the Cook Strait in New Zealand; the Tsugaru Channel in Japan; the Strait of Gibraltar; the Molokai Channel in Hawaii, and the North Channel between Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Mr. Munatones chose these channels for their geographic and climatic diversity, and the extreme hardships they pose.
Mr. Miller, a private client group manager for PNC Bank, plans next to tackle the Molokai Channel, at 26 miles the longest of the swims, in October.
First Published August 15, 2011 12:00 am
