Six swimmers from Bengaluru spent 29 hours and 24 minutes in the Pacific Ocean this month, and when they climbed out, they'd done something only eleven other teams in history had managed before them.

  • 29 hours, 24 minutes total swim time
  • Only the 12th successful double crossing of the Catalina Channel since 1991
  • 6 swimmers, each logging roughly 5 hours actually swimming
  • 32 km (about 20 miles) each way between the mainland and Catalina Island

The team behind the swim

SwimLife Orcas is a Bengaluru-based Masters swimming team guided by coach Satish Kumar Mohan, founder of SwimLife Academy and vice president of the Swimming Federation of India. Its six relay swimmers - Meghana Mayya, Varuna Mayya, Sindhu Naropanth, Nikhil Mysore Manjunath, Siddhartha Agarwal and team captain Sumanth Naropanth - all hold demanding full-time careers in technology, cybersecurity and business alongside years of competitive open-water training.

The team began the crossing from the Southern California mainland at 8:17 am on September 10, reached Santa Catalina Island shortly after midnight, and turned straight back around for the return leg, swimming in one-hour rotations under Catalina Channel Swimming Federation rules with official observers monitoring the entire route.

Swimming through the dark

A large part of the crossing happened during a new-moon night, meaning the swimmers negotiated cold water, shifting currents and ocean swells in near-total darkness. There was little rest between legs - by the finish, each swimmer had logged about five hours actually swimming in open ocean, back to back, over more than a day at sea.

Only 12 teams have completed a two-way swim of the Catalina Channel since 1991 - the SwimLife Orcas are the first from Asia to do it.

Recognition on both coasts

Consul General of India in Los Angeles Dr K. J. Srinivasa met the team after the swim, praising their endurance, discipline, mental resilience and coordination, and calling the achievement a matter of pride for India and the Indian community in the United States. The swimmers raised the Indian tricolour on the Southern California shore after completing the crossing, with the result now subject to final ratification by channel officials.

Why it matters beyond the record book

Several team members have also swum the English Channel and Sri Lanka's Palk Strait. Agarwal, 52, already holds a Limca record as the oldest Indian swimmer to complete a solo English Channel crossing, while team captain Sumanth Naropanth runs two cybersecurity companies, Deep Armor and Gauntlet, when he isn't training in open water.

The Catalina Channel, stretching roughly 32 km between Santa Catalina Island and the Southern California mainland, is considered one of open-water swimming's classic marathon routes. Organizers hope the team's result encourages more people balancing demanding careers - particularly women and young professionals - to take up the sport. For a channel that has turned back plenty of solo swimmers over the decades, a six-person relay pulling off the round trip in under 30 hours is a reminder of what patient, unglamorous training can do.

The relay format meant no single swimmer had to cover the full distance alone, but it also meant there was no way to bank rest - each rotation ended with another swimmer already in the water, and the clock never stopped until the team was back on the mainland. Coach Mohan's own resume includes prior relay crossings of the same channel, and several of the six swimmers had trained together through earlier Masters meets before this expedition was ever planned.