Fastest swim crossing of the Tsugaru Strait (female)

The fastest swim crossing of the Tsugaru Channel between the Japanese islands of Honshu and Hokkaido by a female swimmer is 6 hours 20 minutes 52 seconds, achieved in a tandem swim by Nora Toledano Cadena and Mariel Hawley Dávila (both Mexico) on 1 July 2018. They departed from the Kodomari Benten Cape, Honshu, at 1.15 a.m. local time and arrived at Cape Shirakami, Hokkaido, at 7.35 a.m. The record was verified by the Tsugaru Channel Swimming Association.

The Tsugaru Channel, aka Tsugaru Strait or Tsugaru Kaikyō, is a 19.5-km (12.1-mi) stretch of water with fast-moving currents between Aomori on Japan’s main island (Honshu) and the northern island of Hokkaido, connecting the Sea of Japan to the Pacific Ocean.

This bettered the previous record of 8 hr 55 min, set by Michelle Macy (USA) on 15 July 2012.

The overall fastest swim crossing of the Tsugaru Channel is 6 hr 11 min 17 sec, set by Steven Munatones (USA) on 29 July 1990.

The Tsugaru Channel is part of the Oceans Seven challenge, both of which Toledano and Hawley completed on 30 March 2019. The Oceans Seven is the open-water swimming community’s equivalent of the Seven Summits mountain-climbing challenge, which was first proposed by Steven Munatones, founder of the World Open Water Swimming Association. In addition to the Tsugaru Strait, it also requires the crossing of six other challenging waterways around the world: the North Channel between Northern Ireland and Scotland, UK; the Cook Strait between the North and South Islands of New Zealand; the Molokai Channel between Oahu and Molokai Islands in Hawaii, USA; the English Channel between England and France; the Catalina Channel between Catalina Island and the southern California mainland, USA; and the Strait of Gibraltar between Spain and Morocco.