Amy Appelhans Gubser (also referred as Amy Gubser) is an American swimmer from the state of California. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Gubser co-founded Surf Camp Pacifica with her husband Greg Gubser, where she worked as an instructor. She started swimming at the age of ten, he at the age of five. Both have worked as professional lifeguards. [5] [3] She has completed over a dozen marathon swims in two years. [2]
In 2016, she joined a relay team of six people in a swim from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Farallon Islands, and then back to the Golden Gate Bridge. The route was 59.4-mile-long and took 34 hours and 54 minutes to complete. [3] In September 2018, she became the fourth person to complete a 25-mile swim across the Monterey Bay, starting from the Santa Cruz Harbor and finishing at the San Carlos Beach. The route took 17 hours and 49 minutes. [4]
At the age of fifty-five, she swam through a 29.7-mile-long shark-infested route from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Farallon Islands. The swim, which took place in 2024, took 17 hours to complete. She was the first person to complete this route. [6] [1]
Gubser has lived in Pacifica for seventeen years. [3] She has two children, as well as grandchildren. She works as a pediatric nurse. [1]
The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the one-mile-wide (1.6 km) strait connecting San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The structure links the U.S. city of San Francisco, California—the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula—to Marin County, carrying both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1 across the strait. It also carries pedestrian and bicycle traffic, and is designated as part of U.S. Bicycle Route 95. Recognized by the American Society of Civil Engineers as one of the Wonders of the Modern World, the bridge is one of the most internationally recognized symbols of San Francisco and California.
Martin Strel, is a Slovenian long-distance swimmer, one of the most elite endurance athletes best known for swimming the entire length of various rivers. Strel holds successive Guinness World Records for swimming the Danube river, the Mississippi River, the Yangtze River, and the Amazon River. His motto is "swimming for peace, friendship and clean waters."
State Route 1 (SR 1) is a major north–south state highway that runs along most of the Pacific coastline of the U.S. state of California. At 656 miles (1,056 km), it is the longest state route in California, and the second-longest in the US after Montana Highway 200. SR 1 has several portions designated as either Pacific Coast Highway (PCH), Cabrillo Highway, Shoreline Highway, or Coast Highway. Its southern terminus is at Interstate 5 (I-5) near Dana Point in Orange County and its northern terminus is at U.S. Route 101 (US 101) near Leggett in Mendocino County. SR 1 also at times runs concurrently with US 101, most notably through a 54-mile (87 km) stretch in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, and across the Golden Gate Bridge.
The Golden Gate is a strait on the west coast of North America that connects San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean. It is defined by the headlands of the San Francisco Peninsula and the Marin Peninsula, and, since 1937, has been spanned by the Golden Gate Bridge. The entire shoreline and adjacent waters throughout the strait are managed by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
Long Beach Island is a barrier island and summer colony along the Atlantic Ocean coast of Ocean County, New Jersey, United States, on the Jersey Shore. Aligned north to south, the northern portion generally has more expensive low-density housing, whereas the southern portion possesses higher-density housing and considerable commercial development. Long Beach Island is 1-2 miles away from Mainland New Jersey. The primary industries include tourism, fishing, and real estate. The only access point to the island by land is a single causeway. The island is the southernmost point of the New York Metropolitan Area.
The Farallon IslandsFA-ra-lon, or Farallones, are a group of islands and sea stacks in the Gulf of the Farallones, off the coast of San Francisco, California, United States. The islands are also sometimes referred to by mariners as the Devil's Teeth Islands, in reference to the many treacherous underwater shoals in their vicinity. The islands lie 30 miles (48 km) outside the Golden Gate and 20 miles (32 km) south of Point Reyes, and are visible from the mainland on clear days. The islands are part of the City and County of San Francisco. The only inhabited portion of the islands is on Southeast Farallon Island (SEFI), where researchers from Point Blue Conservation Science and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service stay. The islands are closed to the public.
The Golden Mile is the popular stretch of beachfront in the city of Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, including the promenade that runs along with it. It runs roughly from uShaka Beach in Point Waterfront to Suncoast Casino and Entertainment World in the north and now includes a route directly to Moses Mabhida Stadium. It abuts the central business district of the city to its west.
Diana Nyad is an American author, journalist, motivational speaker, and long-distance swimmer. Nyad gained national attention in 1975 when she swam around Manhattan in record time, and in 1979 when she swam from Bimini, The Bahamas, to Juno Beach, Florida.
The Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916 were a series of shark attacks along the coast of New Jersey, in the United States, between July 1 and 12, 1916, in which four people were killed and one critically injured. The incidents occurred during a deadly summer heat wave and polio epidemic in the United States that drove thousands of people to the seaside resorts of the Jersey Shore. Since 1916, scholars have debated which shark species was responsible and the number of animals involved, with the great white shark and the bull shark most frequently cited.
The Golden Gate Biosphere Network is a voluntary coalition of federal, state and local government agencies, nonprofit organizations, universities, and private partners within the Golden Gate Biosphere region. The Network aims to protect the region's biodiversity and conserve its natural resources. The Network has been part of the UNESCO Man and Biosphere Programme since 1988.GGBN is also part of the US Biosphere Network as well as EuroMAB. It is recognized by UNESCO for its "significance for biological diversity conversation" and organizational efforts involving municipal authorities and private interests.
The Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) is a U.S. National Recreation Area protecting 82,116 acres (33,231 ha) of ecologically and historically significant landscapes surrounding the San Francisco Bay Area. Much of the park is land formerly used by the United States Army. GGNRA is managed by the National Park Service and is the second-most visited unit of the National Park system in the United States, with more than 15.6 million visitors in 2022. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world, with a size two-and-a-half times that of the consolidated city and county of San Francisco.
The Golden Gate International Exposition (GGIE) was a World's Fair held at Treasure Island in San Francisco, California, U.S. The exposition operated from February 18, 1939, through October 29, 1939, and from May 25, 1940, through September 29, 1940; it drew 17 million visitors to Treasure Island. Among other things, it celebrated the city's two newly built bridges: the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge.
San Pedro Creek is a perennial stream in the City of Pacifica, San Mateo County, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area whose tributaries originate on Sweeney Ridge in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Montara Mountain in the Santa Cruz Mountains.The creek mainstem flows 2.5 miles (4.0 km) through the San Pedro Valley to its mouth near Shelter Cove of the Pacific Ocean The stream is notable as the 1769 campsite for Gaspar de Portolà before he ascended Sweeney Ridge and discovered San Francisco Bay.
Duxbury Reef State Marine Conservation Area (SMCA) is a marine protected area located about 1 mile (2 km) west of Bolinas in Marin County on California’s north central coast. This marine protected area covers 0.66 square miles (1.7 km2). Duxbury Reef SMCA prohibits the take of all living marine resources, except the recreational take of finfish from shore only and the recreational take of abalone.
Kimberley Chambers is a marathon open water swimmer from New Zealand. She is the sixth person in the world to complete the Ocean's Seven swimming challenge. In 2015, she became the first woman to swim from the Farallon Islands to the Golden Gate Bridge – a distance of about 30 miles.
Aurelia Margaret Ditton, also known as Lia Ditton, is a British professional sailor, ocean rower, motivational speaker and conceptual artist.
Ross Edgley is a British athlete, ultra-marathon sea swimmer and author. He holds multiple world records, but is perhaps most recognised for completing the World's Longest Staged Sea Swim in 2018, when he became the first person in history to swim 1,780 miles (2,860 km) around Great Britain, in 157 days In 2024, he also became the first person in history to simultaneously hold official Guinness World Records for long-distance swimming in the sea and river when he broke the record for the longest non-stop, continuous river swim down the Yukon River.
Stella Taylor was an American long-distance swimmer born in Bristol, England, best known for crossing the English Channel twice and holding Guinness Book of Records recognition as the oldest woman to swim across the Channel. She made her first English channel crossing in August 1973 in 15:25, from England to France, when she was around the age of 43, repeating the swim in 1975 in 18:15 at the age of 45.
Nyad is a 2023 American biographical sports drama film about swimmer Diana Nyad's multiple attempts in the early 2010s to swim the Straits of Florida, with flashbacks to her early life. It is directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin and written by Julia Cox on the basis of Nyad's 2015 memoir Find a Way. It stars Annette Bening as Nyad, with Jodie Foster and Rhys Ifans in supporting roles.