This PE teacher is well on her way to swimming the world's worst waters.
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On October 3, Deniliquin High School teacher Brenda Norman successfully completed the 32km the channel from Catalina Island to the California coastine in 10:36:18.
Along with her recent completion of the Rottnest Channel and Mentone Open Water Marathon, the teacher has now successfully navigated her way to the Australian Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming.
It follows a rather grueling experience completing the English Channel last year with several broken ribs, an ocular infection and severe seasickness.
But this year's swim in the Catalina presented far fewer challenges than in previous.
"She's swimming faster and stronger than she did in the English Channel," said her mother, Beverley Norman, who cheered her daughter on from their Illabo home.
"Last time, there was pneumonia, broken ribs, a burnt eye, so she didn't go into it in good health."
But the former Junee High School was not completely sans injury upon her dive in.
Ms Norman told The Daily Advertiser afterward that she held some worries for pre-existing aches ahead of her swim.
"I went in with a sore back, sore shoulder, and a sore hip. They're all things I've been having treatment for for about six weeks," she said.
"I just had to hope my body would get it done, but the farther I swum the better I felt. I got out feeling like a million dollars. I'm thinking of messaging my physio to say, 'tell your clients, all they need is to swim the channel'."
Accompanied by a fellow swimmer from Melbourne in Richard Jones, Ms Norman was also able to take a dry-run at the channel two nights before her swim.
"Seeing everything before I had to do it helped," said the swimmer.
"It was very different from the English Channel. Then we were only one metre from the [guide] boat, but in this one we were about 30 feet, I couldn't hear them so I was communicating with the kayaker who changed over every four hours.
"We needed two kits of everything [food and drink] which we didn't know when Richard did it. Because he did it first, I could prepare that better."
Mr Jones managed to complete the channel in 11:36:33, an hour shy of Ms Norman's impressive score.
But he was plagued with terrible seasickness that slowed his progress.
"He actually joked that he was going to take up cycling instead, it was that bad," Ms Norman said.
"He had never been seasick before. I had that when I was doing the English Channel. We had both said we were going to aim to make it in 12 hours, so seeing that he did with that seasickness, I knew I could make it too."
Setting a rough time frame helped Ms Norman mentally prepare for her journey, and avoid some of the psychological pitfalls that had accompanied her English Channel experience.
"For the English Channel we didn't know how long we'd be out there, whether it'd be 20 hours or what," she said.
"Knowing it'd be about 12 hours [for the Catalina] I could break it down in my mind, I knew six hours was halfway roughly, and I didn't struggle as much."
The Catalina Channel it is widely regarded as the hardest swim in the world.
Its choppy conditions have meant that more swimmers have managed to successfully cross the English Channel than its American cousin.
But Ms Norman had made the decision to attempt the channel in October because it represents mental health awareness month, and she sought to bring attention to the problematic conditions with the notoriety of her swim.
Founding her own charity in Channel 4 Change a few years ago, Ms Norman has used her swims to raise thousands of dollars in aid of rural youth mental health.
Ahead of the latest swim, she managed to raise more than $10,000 with a full total yet to be calculated.
Recognising the pressure of mental health on her own abilities to complete the swim, Ms Norman implemented strategies that would keep her mind from a wayward path.
"I had decided that I would talk if I started to struggle, straight away I'd say something," she said.
"In the English Channel I didn't and that made it harder."
Although much of the swim was left in complete darkness, Ms Norman was not bothered by the physical depths.
"The light attracts marine life, sharks," she said.
"I was told that there were whales and a pod of dolphins circling near me, but I didn't notice. The only thing I touched was seaweed, thankfully not jellyfish.
"But the bio-luminescence at night was something, the aglae lit up and sparkled as my hand when in and out of the water."
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Such was the apparent effortlessness of her recovery, that hours following her marathon swim, Ms Norman was able to accompany her sister, Julie, to Disneyland.
"Following the swim, she was back out there at [Catalina] island having a look around, because she'd only seen it in the dark. They were going to go snorkeling too," said their mother.
Due to return to Australia the day before school resumes, Ms Norman is also preparing to wade another labour of love by swimming to Alcatraz Island on October 11, because, as she said, "it's a bit of fun, so why not?"