The 300+ swimmers at the Vibes & Scribes Lee Swim in Cork, Ireland learned during the safety briefing that their fellow Irish open water swimmer Stephen Redmond was in the water in Japan for his fourth attempt across the Tsugaru Channel.

This iconic inner-city river swim is 1700m down the North Channel of the River Lee and 300m back up the South Channel.

It annually draws large crowds of over 5,000 in the famed Oceans Seven adventurer’s home county.

The atmosphere after the race, with rare sunshine was abuzz with updates from Japan about Redmond’s crossing of the Tsugaru Channel: “…he is 2 miles off…”, “…a mile off from the finish…” and “…300 meters to go…”

His timing could not be more perfect. The announcement of the race winners was interrupted with cheers when the crowd heard of his success, an achievement that touched all who had just done their own open water swim.

The Cork open water swimming community continues to grow. Craig Morrison entered the entered the English Channel on Sunday morning and became the 18th local soloist 12 hours 27 minutes later. This county on the southwest coast of Ireland with a population of less than 500,000 has five more English Channel aspirants scheduled later in 2012.

Copyright © 2012 by Open Water Source