She Swam From Oregon to Mexico. Sewage Was Waiting Near the Finish Line

Catherine Breed spent the summer and much of the fall swimming down California. On Monday, Oct. 19, 2026, the 33-year-old from Mill Valley reached Coronado to finish Swim California, a roughly 900-mile swim from the Oregon border to the Mexican border that took 111 days.¹²

She started on July 1.² According to the Coronado Times, the swim is believed to be the first completed staged swim of the state’s full coastline. Formal ratification is still pending a review of its supporting records.³

The swim also raised money for Sea Dreamers, a nonprofit that helps women and girls get into the ocean and protect the coastline. It drew attention to pollution along the way, including sewage near the US-Mexico border.⁴⁵

How you swim a whole state

You don’t do it in one go. Breed swam in stages, supported by a boat and crew. GPS waypoints linked each swim to the next, and observers documented her progress.³

Before the start, the team planned for around 10 miles on a typical day and three to four months in total. Breed would sleep aboard a support sailboat between stages, and independent observers would ratify the swim under open-water standards.⁵ Openwaterpedia’s pre-swim entry lists it as an assisted swim done in a wetsuit.⁶

The route ran past the remote North Coast, the Golden Gate Bridge, Monterey Bay, Big Sur and Point Conception, then through Southern California to the border.³

Breed, a former NCAA champion at UC Berkeley, put the workload in terms runners and triathletes will recognize.¹ “It is like doing a trail 50k or a half Ironman every day for about 110 days,” she said in a social media post, as reported by the Guardian.²

She said she planned the swim to test her endurance, celebrate the California coast, spotlight environmental preservation and encourage more women and girls into the ocean.²

Currents, storms and a lot of balloons

The ocean did not always cooperate. Coastal currents ran in reverse, which Breed blamed on a super El Niño. She also faced tropical storms, hurricanes and marine heatwaves.⁴

Off Los Angeles and Orange counties, she told KPBS, she saw many Mylar balloons in the water. She picked up about 10 of them in a single hour of motoring out.⁴

The final stretch brought sewage pollution near Imperial Beach and the border. Her team planned a route about a mile offshore there, and she took antibiotics as a precaution.⁴⁷

A short victory lap

On Sunday, the second-to-last day, Breed logged 9.5 miles. That left fewer than three miles for Monday, which she described as a victory lap.¹ By the standards of her summer, under three miles counts as a lap.

“This was harder than I expected, and there were days when I was exhausted and overwhelmed,” Breed said in the San Diego Union-Tribune report carried by the Press Democrat. “For months, I measured my world in the next few miles.”¹

The Coronado finish was held in partnership with the nonprofit WILDCOAST.⁵ “Swimming this coast has given me a deeper appreciation for the work it takes to protect it,” Breed said, as reported by the Coronado Times.³

A free Swim California community gathering with WILDCOAST is set for Wednesday, Oct. 21, at 4 p.m. at Stan’s Beach in Coronado.³