Edie Hu’s Marathon Swim Story

What do you think? Does learning to swim give you confidence that seeps into other areas of your life? What about learning to push your limits in the water? How does that translate to your day to day life? This is what I’m contemplating these days. Share your thoughts, email me: shannon@intrepidwater.com

Today I had the pleasure of catching up with Edie Hu. Edie swam around Hong Kong in 2018 to raise money for Splash, an organization that gives foreign domestic workers a chance to learn to swim, for free. They started with 30 or so people and have grown to 3,000! In this episode, Edie tells us all about it, as well as how she started swimming marathons.

Enjoy!

In her own words:

Edie Hu is an American open water swimmer based in Hong Kong. While in university, she
swam and played water polo for Wellesley College in Massachusetts. After a long break from
swimming, she found herself drawn back to the water, when she moved to Hong Kong. But
instead it was the ocean, not the pool, which reawakened her love of swimming.

Since 2015, Edie has been swimming in local open water long distance races, as well as
swimming the Maui Channel (Hawaii) and Rottnest Channel (Perth). In 2018, Edie swam the
English Channel as a two-woman relay. But her proudest swimming achievement to date was
her circumnavigation of Hong Kong Island November 2018 and by doing so, becoming only the
3rd person to complete the 45-km swim and the first woman in over 40 years to do so. Along
the way, she also raised US$80,000 for Splash, a local charity that gives free swimming lessons
to foreign domestic workers and underprivileged youth. Her swim put her on the list of the
World Open Water Swimming Association’s 50 Most Adventurous Swims by a Woman in 2018.

In February 2020, she became the first American (and second female) to swim the Palk Strait a
29 km body of water between Sri Lanka to India. She was joined by Briton, Adam Moss who
also swam the strait. They became the 12th and 13th persons to have completed the crossing
and had the second fastest time of 10 hours and 18 minutes. Due to Covid-19, her plans to
swim the Tsugaru Channel (Honshu Island to Hokkaido Island, Japan) and a circumnavigation
around Manhattan, New York have been put on hold. This July, she plans to swim the length of
Lake Tahoe, California, a 38 km swim.

When she is not swimming in the ocean, Edie works as an independent art advisor Hong Kong.