WESTBROOK — The 61-year-old local woman attempting to cross Japan’s Tsugaru Strait will start the swim again Wednesday afternoon.

Pat Gallant-Charette, a grandmother from Westbrook, attempted to cross the 12-mile channel on Monday, but strong currents caused her to swim in a circle for more than three hours and she decided to get out of the water.

Crossing the Tsugaru Strait would mark the fourth of seven long-distance swims around the globe, known as the Oceans Seven, that Gallant-Charette is attempting to complete.

In the last two years, she has crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, the English Channel and the Catalina Channel off California. She plans to attempt to cross the Cook Strait in New Zealand, the Irish Channel and the Molokai Channel in Hawaii.

Gallant-Charette had a week, ending Friday, to start the Tsugaru Strait swim. Whether she is allowed to get in the water depends on weather conditions.

She wrote in an email to her daughter Wednesday morning that the swim was ‘a go’ and would begin at 4 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time – or 5 a.m. Thursday in Japan — from the Tappi peninsula on the island of Honshu and swim to the island of Hokkaido, where she tried to start her swim Monday.

Also starting from Honshu, she said, is her “new friend” Anna-Carin Nordin, who hopes to be the first woman to complete the Oceans Seven Challenge. She has finished four of the swims and also started the Tsugaru Strait swim this week, but got out of the water after seven hours.

Gallant-Charette said in her email, which is posted on her blog, patgalant.blogspot.com, that she has “been receiving words of encouragement from all over the world,” including an email from Redmond wishing her luck.


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