Four Hawaiian swimmers quietly took to the ocean last Thursday morning to undertake a circumnavigation of the island, completing the around island swim in 11 hours 35 minutes.

The coconut wireless came into play during the day as reports filtered through of the swimmers spotted during the 37km swim around Rarotonga’s circumference, and local paddlers paddled out from Traders to cheer the intrepid four on their final km, and created a cheering paddlers tunnel on the beach.  

“That was very special,” said swimmer Ryan Leong, “we were not expecting that”. 

Leong, who has an incredible record of open water swims, was joined by Rachel Randall (only the 2nd woman to undertake the feat), Christopher Chuck, and Thomas Rathburn. They were escorted by John Beasley, driving escort boat, and Ryan’s wife Bonnie who managed their feeding stops. The swimmers are all part of the Ala Moana Beach Swim Club, and between them have an impressive bio of open water swims. 

Leong has completed multiple channel crossings in Hawaii, including the 45km Kaiwi channel between Molokai and Oahu in 2017, three consecutive channels between the islands of Maui, Lanai and Molokai in 2019, and a 13 day 300km circumnavigation swim around Maui in July last year, which only four hardcore swimmers out of 12 starters completed. 

Randall and Chuck also completed the Kaiwi channel swim in September last year in a time of 16 hours 36 mins, and in 2023 together with Leong completed the 30k swim along Kauai’s Napali Coast.

The Hawaiian group were not seeking to break any records or have a fuss made, and enjoy swimming for the love of it focussing on adventure swims and group experiences.

 “It’s a different way of seeing the island,” said Randall who has been swimming open water channels from age 13. “it was so beautiful out there; your waters are beautiful.”

Rathburn who pilots for Hawaiian Air put the suggestion to the group of Oahu swimmers, who swim on average around 5-7kms on weekends, that they travel to Rarotonga to swim around the island. This was Rathburn’s first open ocean swim. “For myself there was huge satisfaction in being my first major ocean swim,” he said.

Arriving on the island on Saturday to the extreme windy rough conditions, they saw the opening on Thursday as the day with the best conditions to undertake the challenge.  “We got very lucky with the weather,” said Leong. “We weren’t sure how long it would take; we had no expectations; we knew the distance and knew we could do it.”  

In the last 5km the group came into some strong current, “we were barely moving” said Randall. Hugging the reef the swimmers looked solid as they swam to their finish mark at the Boiler, with a flotilla of V6 canoes cheering them on. “After a huge effort it was emotional to cross the finish through the paddlers tunnel,” said Randall.

The team were appreciative of their escort driver John Beasley whose local knowledge of the conditions was a key factor to their successful circumnavigation.  The team were grateful for a couple of days R&R in Aitutaki following their massive effort, before they headed home to Hawaii on the weekend

The last time the Round Raro swim was undertaken in 2017 by New Zealand swimmer Dan Abel who completed the swim in a record time of 11 hours 5 minutes raising over $10,000 for Cook Islands Autism.  Prior to that it was some 30 years when NZ Hall of Fame swimmer Meda McKenzie was the first to complete the around island swim in March 1985 in a time of 17 hours 27 minutes, followed two days later by Rarotonga’s own Don Carlaw who completed the swim in 17hours 15.  Local legend Pa Teuruaa had started the around island swim with Carlaw but unfortunately was unable to complete the circumnavigation, but is in the history books for other amazing ocean feats completed with Carlaw, including a swim from Moorea to Papeete in 1985, and the 23k stretch between Samoa’s Upolu and Savai islands in 1986.

 - Serena Hunter