Well it is the afternoon before the big relay swim and the groceries are purchased, the debriefing has occurred and I think the teams are all set to go.  Before I go and have a lie down I thought I would give the update.  There are 2 relay teams each swimming a triple crossing of Lake Taupo on the North Island of New Zealand.  There is a 6 person woman team and a 5 person male team.  Our overall team goal is for each relay team to successfully make the triple crossing and have a rip roaring good time.   I believe that the total distance will be 120.6 kilometers.

Obviously there will be some friendly competition between the teams.  Right now we are pretty evenly tied for time even with the disparate number of people.  I do believe that we will finish very close to each other.  Or at least that is my private goal with the women stepping on the beach perhaps just a little before the men.

Here is the breakdown of the teams and order of swimmers (from first to last):

Mens Team:

Steve – Australia

Mark – New Zealand

Dougal – Australia

Chris – Australia

Stephen – Australia

Women’s Team:

Penny – Australia

Michelle – USA

Barb – Australia

Heather – New Zealand

Julie – UK

Lucy – UK

Rumor has it that there will be mobile service for the whole swim, so I hopefully will be texting my parents and they will be updating my blog.  This is of course all dependent on mobile service and how busy I am with the swim.  Our guesstimate is that it will take us 12 hours per leg of the lake for a total swim of 36 hours.  Each swimmer must swim a 1 hour leg and then the next swimmer gets in for an 1 hour leg and so on and so forth.  This means that I will swim for an hour and then have 5 hours before my next swim.  The order of the swimmers must remain the same throughout the entire swim.  Water temp is around 18-20 degrees C (66-70 degrees F – very rough calculation).

Looks like our biggest challenge is going to be the New Zealand sun as it is beating down and sunburn is a definite possibility, especially with my fair freckled skin and red hair.  Luckily I packed a lot of sun screen.

Like I stated earlier, we will be starting around 5am New Zealand time (8am PST, 11am EST) tomorrow.  So watch for updates and cheer all of us on!