E31 - Duncan Kukard, our very own Clever Dick support swimmer.

In this episode, Jim interviews Duncan! As some of our listeners may know Duncan swims with an intellectually handicapped young Fijian swimmer, Shazeel. Duncan and Shazeel recently swam 20 km around Rangitoto island in the Hauraki coast, right next to Auckland.

We talk about what it means to be a support swimmer and how Shazeel's mum helps, gets him ready and ensures he understands as well as possible. We then talk about the practicalities of the swim, clockwise or anti-clockwise, which is best? We also talk about maybe having an Auckland mini triple crown. 1 - Round Rangi, 2 Waiheke to Okahu (the chopper challenge), 3 to be decided. Looking for suggestions from listeners.

Then we talk about going swim camping, lots of ideas, need to make it real now.

A note from Jim - I am still blown away by the effort & care that Duncan, and other support swimmers give. Let's all consider helping others to swim. It may be swimming with someone disabled, but it could be going out with someone nervous.

Transcript

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Welcome to another Clever Dicks podcast. In this podcast, I interview Clever Dicks Duncan. Duncan has recently swam around Rangie Toto Island with Shaziel, his disabled partner, a 20-kilometre swim. I thought was pretty impressive, so I convinced him to sit down and let me interview him. We talked about the swim, the different ways that you can go around Rangie Toto, came up with the idea of a little Auckland mini-triple crown and a couple of other things as well. I hope you enjoyed as much as we enjoyed making it. Well, welcome to another Clever Dicks podcast. In this podcast, we're going to interview a Clever dick Duncan. You're going to be our person of the thing. Clever Dicks, go. So we thought we'd talk about your recent adventure with Shaziel. Do you want to tell us a little bit about your last swim? Yeah, so obviously I think we've spoken about Shaziel once before, so special needs might. And we sort of try to do one adventure, one long-ish swim every season and we decided that we were going to go around Rangie Toto Island, which is pretty cool because there's not that many people that have done it. And yeah, so Shaziel became the first for June to swim around Rangie Toto Island. And he's obviously also the first special needs moment to swim around Rangie Toto Island. So it was a good day out, where there was fair, where there was pretty good, in fact, for the first first half, three quarters of the swim. And then it turned a little bit pay-shaped and it got a little bit rough and bumpy towards the end. But he was a happy camper, which makes me happy, so it was a good day out. That's cool. So just for people who might not live in Auckland, so swimming around Rangie Toto Island, just in the Haruki Gulf, about a normally about a 20k swim? Yeah, correct, yeah. So two to one knowledge, it's sort of 20.2 kilometers. Obviously, so we swam a little bit further on the tracker we had 22k's, by the time we finished. There were certain parts, obviously, that we went a little deeper just to try and find the current and a little bit of total assistance. So yeah, 22k swim. I think Shaziel became the seventh person, non-wetsu, to swim it. I became the first person to do a twice, first person to go anti-clockwise and clockwise, which was pretty cool. You were on the boat, waking as a support, which was pretty cool. And I had my daughter there as well, so that was pretty cool. It was a good day out. And we had Mike and Sainé as well. We had two boats going around with two boats looking after us. I think some, maybe let's go backwards a couple of steps. So Shaziel has done he did chopper challenge with me as well a couple of years ago. I think it was in that COVID you were the actual event was cancelled. And you could, I think the organisers sort of had guys you can swim whenever and wherever you want, as long as you follow whatever instructions they had, it had to be 20k's, you had to have an observer, blah, blah, blah. And we swam from Devon Port down the up the East Coast to Long Bay, which was 20k's. And he just cruised it, he's such a strong little swimmer. The tricky part with Shaziel is sort of observing him and trying to understand what state he's in, is he cold, is he hot, is he thirsty, is he tired. So that's probably one of the jobs that I needed for full as a support swimmer. You know, he's generally just so positive and so happy. And I think if we sort of pitched up and tried us from 100k's, he'd give it a go. You know what I mean, he's really good and strong. So you've got to go to talk to him and got to really watch him closely and make sure that he's that he's happy, you know. Well, I must admit that when we were watching you guys swim, you know, you could see at sort of three quarters of the way around. This was a guy who was working hard. He knew that there was a long way to go because he hadn't put any paddles on. He takes the little cues coming from you. Yeah, yeah. He picks up all of that stuff, yeah. In fact, he asked me, hey. Yeah. So again, for the listeners, I generally, when I train with Chazille, we'll do sort of half the set. I'll swim, you know, with no aids. But then I'll put my paddles on just to be able to, you know, make me swim a little bit faster because I'm pretty quick with paddles on and I'll sort of give him a bit of a workout. So yeah, we must have got to about four, five hours and he sort of looked at me and he said, pedals. So somewhere in his head, he sort of knew that, you know, we must be somewhere towards the end. Like, come on, you put your paddles on and let's finish this thing, you know. But yeah, he breathes only to his left hand side. I breathed only to my right hand side. So we sort of look at each other while we're swimming, which is cool because I can keep him under wraps. He pushes quite far left when he swarms naturally, I push far right. So between us, we sort of, you know, stay generally in the correct direction. But as you would have noticed from the boat is, you know, when the chop picks up, he comes even closer to me and I sort of get clunked on the head every second stroke. And I maybe clunk him on the head every couple of strokes. So it's quite, it's quite. Well, I was noticing that. I was just looking at that. They were very clearly swimming right in somebody else's space. Personally, I would find that super, super challenging, you know, I'm not happy when someone's swimming, swimming really, really close to me. So I was just mentally taking my hat off to you to being able to do all of that. How did it, you know, it's probably okay for the first little while. When you start tiring, it doesn't get a little more frustrating. Yeah, I'm not going to laugh. There was, there was probably a patch where I was a little bit grumpy. And I sort of said, oh, you know, give me a bit of space. It's from over there, you know. But it's so hard to be grumpy with Shazilla. I mean, he's such a cool little digmin. And I've become, well, it must be over four years we've been swimming together. And you get into it, you know, so every now and again, you know, as I turn to breathe, he splashes a mouth for a sea water. Into me and I'll, you know, I'll cough and choke us. I've learned how to cough and fart and splutter under the water while still carrying on. I hear him, he sometimes sort of whatever he does, sings, shots, talks and the water, makes bubbles, you know, so I can hear him when we're swimming. When he gets a little bit bored with me or when I'm sort of out of gas, he pulls ahead of me. And that's generally not a good thing because we will then start losing track of direction. Because, you know, he'll, like I say, he pushes left quite, quite hard, you know, so we naturally sort of like bumper cars into each other to keep a straight line. And if I do fall back a couple of strokes, a generally sort of just sort of grabbing by the ankle and sort of pulling back, you know, a meter and then he sort of gets the cue. Yeah, he gets the cue and he's then back to square one and back to patients with me for another 10 minutes or so before he gets bored. But yeah, I mean, as you saw, we stopped for our first feed at an hour. Every 30 minutes thereafter, he was feeding while he was really drinking. His liquids, well, he was consuming, you know, sort of 300 to 400 moles per stop, I think. He ate a banana, he ate a couple of gels as we were going along, you know, so he was really good. Yeah, he did what he was asked to do. He did absolutely everything that he was asked to do. He didn't complain once. I think he was quite happy when we got to the finish. I mean, you know, it's a long swim for anybody. And he was happy. And yeah, we had a little celebration on the rocks and it was cool. I felt good. I can remember somebody saying to me a couple of years ago, you know, to explain the story with Shazil. And technically, I'm his support swimmer, right? But in reality, I think he's my support swimmer, you know. Often, and you always joke, Jim, but like, if I'm not meeting Shazil for a swim, it's so easy for me to just roll over, switch it along, cock off and, ah, swim later, you know. But if I'm meeting Shazil, I'll be there. And, you know, he's there like clockwork for him to get there. Yeah, I mean, for example, when we swim on a weekend at 7.30, my understanding is that Shazil's got quite a routine in the morning. And he'll wake up, he'll shower, he'll eat breakfast, he'll get dressed. He's got his set routine. And I say, you know, to get to 7.30, he's up at like 5.30, you know. So it's not easy. And I know that what what his mom's Shamima goes through to get him ready and there, I can't disappoint. You know what I mean? So I'm generally there 100% of the time when I know I'm there for Shazil. And like I said, that makes him my supports when I was a person the other way around. The same is, you know, when you're going out and let's say it's rough conditions or it's windy and it doesn't look so nice out there. I'm so comforted knowing that I'm, you know, A, I'm taking him out and I'm making his day and sort of, you know, giving him, you know, something positive for his day. But at the same time, we didn't get together at all. So it's fun and you've got less angst about going out and in poor conditions when it's the two of you, you know. So yeah, we talk shit, we talk about movies and, you know, we look at the scenery and we look for Batman's house and Batman's cave and, you know, we try and name the islands when we're swimming, you know. Um, but yeah, he's, he's a cool dude, man. Yeah. He's got a, he's got a pretty good mum with Shazil, Shameema, right? As he said, you know, if, if Shazil's got to get up at five, then it probably means Shameema's up before that because she has to sort of kick start the whole whole routine. Yeah. 100%. 100%. So after the swim did, have you sort of chatted to Shameema or, or things? What was her sort of impression of the whole swim? So she was pretty nervous right as I guess most moms would be. So from what I understand, there was a sleepless night or two from her perspective. Yeah. Just, you know, starting to worry about the things we all worry about, is this room going to go ahead? Is the weather looking okay? Is Dunkin inches all going to be okay on this one? Have they trained enough? Because we, you know, we probably could have done more training me. I, um, I don't believe in killing myself from, from a training perspective, I was like to sort of have some guests in the tank, but, but we did a couple of 20k weeks, which, which I think is, um, which is very swimming and, and, and definitely enough to ticket us around the island. We're not going to break any world records on my speed perspective. Oh, you did a seven hour swim, which is not respectable here. I'm happy with that. Um, and I, I suppose he's, he's got a little bit of youth on his side, you know, as well, which, uh, which counts for a lot. Um, and, um, yeah, we, we did, you know, hear a couple of 10k swims as, as part of his prep. Um, so I think he was, he was prepared while enough for the swim. Um, I definitely think at some point in time, I would like to start trying to think about how to challenge that, that sort of boundary, you know, what's next? How far couldn't, can we go? Um, what is reasonable to expect of a special needs for a, who, who can't explain to you, you know, if they want to do something, if they are tired, you know, it's, it's, it's hard. You know, how do you, how do you gauge? Well, yeah, because you seem to be really good after the swim. You needed a bit of recovery, but coming back on the boat, he was, he was bouncing around a little bit. You know, you can see that he was happy, but, you know, how much more does he want to, is, is that kind of adventure kind of filling his needs, has it? Yeah, so look, I think, I think that type of distance is, is probably, you know, now in hindsight, it's, it's, it's safe and it's durable. Um, but I, yeah, I mean, I reckon he's, you know, like, like I said, if we went in, and decided to, to swim for five days, you know, he'd give it a go. Like, I know, yeah, if I said, come, let's go, you know, he'd be there. Whether that's the right thing or wrong thing is, is the debatable part of it. But so long as you can rely on him to be able to tell you if he's, yeah, if it's, if it's not good, because he's pretty good at telling you if he's cold. Correct. So, yeah, correct. So I think, um, I, I would like to do some longer swimmers with Shazil. Um, oh, not necessarily longer, but longer and possibly different. So for example, you know, I would love to be able to go and do right nest with him as an adventure, you know, because, you know, you can imagine, um, the opportunities that he's got versus, you know, the opportunities that, that the average one I have has got is, is very different and very limited. Um, and maybe, maybe the trick is to, to just do more reasonable length swimmers, but keep them fun and keep them different. Um, and possibly once every two years or, or so, like really just sort of pump up the training a little bit, um, and, and he loves, he loves for the training, he loves the training. Um, he does, um, he trains at West Wave in the pool, um, he's, he's done special needs Olympics, you know, so it's pretty, he's pretty quick, he's pretty handy in the pool. Um, say he does the pool work out, he does the oceans with us, um, us from once in the pool with him during the week and then us from, twice when the week came with him in the ocean. Um, so for him to sort of, he also does, sorry, he's got another coach, um, a physical, gym coach, Jason, who, who does, um, running, um, stairmasters, physical gym, you know, he's, he's a strong wheel. I'm up and down the stairs at the stair. I mean, he really, he really trains, you know, six or seven days a week, so he's strong. Um, I, I would love to be able to do like a leg tour or, or something like that. And again, who cares how long it takes us right? If we've got to stop and float on our backs and, and have a, have a full on sandwiches, opposed to a 30 second quick feed and off we go, you know, the idea is to make it fun for him and, and relaxing as opposed to being a race, you know, so, I'd have to do more with him. Yeah, you know, when you think about it, you know, rather than the length, you know, if you did a width, you know, that's, that's a 30k one, you know, it's, yeah, it's not necessarily a double kind of distance. Yeah. Cool. Now, moving on from that, I just wanted to talk about rangatata. Yes. So we've had lots of conversations in the past. You've done it in both directions. Yeah. So this time we did it anti-clockwise. Yep. So we're around the top of the island, got a really nice current going down the channel. Yep. And you were absolutely moving, yes, kind of over the ground. And then you came around the bottom and you were against the current and against the wind. Yeah. And you were moving at a strong steady one kilometer hour. Right. And then you got through, so the, the challenge with rangatata is it's very close to mototapu. Yeah. And the only way to swim through it is to absolutely hit the peak of high water, which you missed. So you had to just trudge through a little stream. Yeah. Get back into the water and carry on the other side. Yep. Now, when I was thinking of how to do it, I was a fan of doing it the other way to do it clockwise, where you would basically do the, the walk between the the islands. And then you would swim anticlockwise until you kind of got to the point that's closest to the harbor at high water. So you'd have a little bit of current helping you there. And then a little bit of current helping you up the channel and get around. You've done it in both directions. You were grumpy at going one K an hour. Yes, I was. Not that you took anything out on a supporter. There was no question of taking anything out on the supporter. I didn't question you guys once or twice, politely. Okay. So, so the bulk of the history with rangatata swim has been swimming clockwise. And the sort of agreed route is exactly to your point starting on the north end of the bridge. Yeah. And the bridge is what separates the two islands. Starting, you know, possibly 800 meters to a thousand meters north of the bridge at high tide. Swimming clockwise getting under the bridge with your kayak or with your IRB in our case and IRB is nice and flat. You can lift the engine up and you can sort of get through that bridge because it's very shallow. And then you've got some assistance for possibly the first the first one third of this one. So you get you get the tough bit out the way. You get under the under the bridge. But then it's quite a slog, you know, sort of from the wharf up to the rat house and around the top end of the island. You slogging away with very little assistance. Now, funny enough, when I did that one in 2020 with with Susho and we swam it in seven hours, 31 minutes. Again, I'm not the fastest swimmer. I'm really a proper middle, you know, still in the middle of the packed-ups, swimmer, no speed, but sort of relatively, relatively strong and can keep ticking over. And I was convinced that there's going to be a better way of doing it. Because the first time I did it was a slog. I then went back about two years later and four of us gave it a go and we had really shook with her and it wasn't a good day and we recalled the swim. If I remember correctly, we called her about 15 kilometers and jumped back in the boat and went and there was that same clock whilst I went direction which didn't work for us. Then I was talking to Mike and Mark's always got, you know, he's always like five steps ahead of everybody else. He was like, hey, you can do it the other way. And I was like, how? Look, how? You're not going to get under the bridge and all right. Anyway, so we have a couple of conversations and I've pulled Roger in, Roger Salisbury and we had, you know, Google Maps Art and Neveonix and my daughter was there and we sort of just stripped this thing apart and tried to see how to do it. But basically, if you swim clockwise, you've got to start at high tide, get under the bridge and then you can chill the rest of the way and when you finish your finish, because you don't need to go back under the bridge. When you go anti-clockwise, effectively, you start at the same place on the northern end of the bridge and then the first sort of, the first quarter, you've probably got a little bit of, I guess, sort of slack water with minimal assistance. But then to your point, around that western side of Rene Toto, when you've got the incoming tide, we were, I think we were doing six kilometres an hour, six kilometres an hour for a couple of kilometres right, for about two hours. If you get it right and you pick a day with little wind as we did with Sona and as we did with Ivan, I mean, they swear they're really good swimmers, but they've got to like five and a half hours, right? So their assistance is really high. The tricky part is that because you've started at low tide, you've got a time to get back in between the islands underneath the bridge at high tide to be able to swim at. If you get that timing wrong to your point, you're slagging, right? You've got basically a swamp that you've got to try and pull it kayaking through the boats, I'm not going to get through at that stage. And it becomes, it becomes a bit of a mess, it becomes a bit messy. So my sort of question is how important is it to actually swim under the bridge? Because if you said, all right, we're going to do it clockwise. Basically, you take your IOB to the southern side of the bridge. The swimmers go through, start north of the bridge, swim to the bridge, walk through the mud. And now, because you're not dependent on high water, you can actually sort out so that the tide assists for the whole swim. And it means that you can then go around, you can get to the ferry terminal at high water. So you can a bit of a bit of a help to the ferry terminal, a bit of the help up the channel and you go around. How people would think of the fact? Because you weren't able to swim under the bridge. And it also means that potentially you have to be quite considered because you need to go with a keen tide. You really need a good high water to be able to swim under the bridge, even if you get the timing right. Correct. So that's kind of the challenges. Yeah. How bad is it for a swimmer to have had to walk the couple of hundred years? So it depends on why you're doing it. For example, we just want to swim around when you're at Ireland, right? We're not chasing any records. We're not looking for any additional recognition from, you know, well, open water marathon, swimming associations, etc, etc. So, so if we had to, like, sort of, sludge through and walk, you know, 200 metres or whatever the case might be, no stress. If I ever, you are chasing records and recognition and all of that stuff, you've got a swimmer, right? You have to be able to swim under it. Now, in that case, the safest option is to go clockwise. Right. So you're starting a hard tide and you can literally swim 100% of the way, no issues. If you're chasing records, you've got to go and you've got clockwise, and you've got to get your timing right. Like literally, you've got maybe, you've got 30 minutes, sort of leeway where you can still work with the heart of the water to get under there. But if you are faster than you think, also than you think, you're going to must that high tide mark and you're going to have to sludge through. And then you're not going to be able to sort of claim, but that also means that you really should try to do it at a kind tide. Yes, but yes, it just gives you that extra couple of centimeters. Yes, but I mean, so with that said, it's, you know, you've got, you've got the New Zealand Triple Crown, which is Cook, Straight, Rangie, Toto and the Five Straight. I think obviously Cook, everybody knows about it. It's an internationally recognized swim. It's part of version seven. Topor, my understanding is that full, quite likes the guys to do at Topor before a cook, to make sure that they've got what it takes. It's a bit more controlled. It's a bit more control. It's obviously a lake as opposed to the ocean. It's further, but it's more controlled. Like you say, so you know, once you've done typo, you know, based on what happened on that day, if all we say are cool, you know, you've got what it takes to do a cook and let's go ahead of the booking and all that type of stuff, right? Whereas if you just go straight into a cook, I guess the level of failed swarms is quite high, you know, because you're possibly underestimating what it's all about, right? So Rangie, for me, is almost another opportunity for a marathon swimmer to come and do a good, long, tough swim, but a doable swim. It's not a ridiculous swim. It's 20Ks. You know, if you did in some other waters, 20 degrees, 19 degrees, 21 degrees, and you sort of tick the block, use it as a training swim. And you kind of know what your pace is all the way through a long swim, because I think that would be some of the challenges with a cook. You need to be fairly fast, but you need to be fairly fast consistently through the whole swarm. 100% yeah. I mean, how many times have we heard the stories with regards, you know, bum all the way through until, I know, 500 meters from the end, they don't get to the end, right? So if you've got nothing left in the tank and you're at the end, there's what's the point? You just live and finish it. So yeah, that's, I think, you know, part of the reason why Rangie is so appealing for me, it's on my boardstep, you know, we can go out once a year or whatever the cast might be and do any swim without having to, you know, travel to the south of the world, you know, it's a good swim for the Auckland-based swimmers and it's a beautiful swim. So why don't why don't we start an Auckland mini-triple crown? I mean, hey, we do, you've got to go around Rangie, you can do Yhiki back to Auckland, you know, the original chopper challenge from? Yes, that's 20k, that's 20k and then think of a third. So what would you do for the third? I mean, I don't know. I suppose it could be around another island, it could be a point to point again in Auckland-triple crown. Yeah, you could go from the bottom part of Funga Prawera up to Wawera or something like that or you keep on going sort of north of Auckland itself or or even, you know, lucky did with Shazio, you go from Davenport, you know, up to Funga Prawer. That was a good swim. Davenport to Funga Prawer, you'd have probably a 15-ish, you know, just call it a mini-triple crown, but it's a good place for me. Yeah, hey, so maybe in any of the listeners who've got any ideas, see the three of us, right? I'm quite keen to to facilitate that, that sounds like a good idea. Cool, so talking about facilitating, you've been helping a couple of people with principally around Rangie's swims. So you've got a little side hustle going, is that great? Yeah, the side hustle is a short swimscape and really just to your point, right? The bulk of it is to get guys on Rangie Toto. A couple of options there, there's the Rangie Toto swim, which is 20. And then the island behind Rangie Toto is Matitapa, which is also 20 or 90. And then you've got the option of doing both islands, and if you do both islands, it's funny enough, it's not 40, it's 32 cases. So you've got nobody that's done all three of those options. We've got one swimmer that will be swimming in a couple of weeks, in fact, Tone, who she's aiming to be the first person to do both individual islands, and then come back next year and do the double, which is pretty cool. It's such a nice swim, Gemma, it's really on our doorsteps and just if the tricky part is finding the dates, like any ocean swimmer, it's about the weather, and it's about the tides, and it's about one of those good things. But we've sort of figured out the logistics part of it, which is pretty cool. We're also aiming to try and get some relays across, because Merit is swimming, and open water is swimming doesn't need to be about guys being heroes. Come with a group of four guys, two guys, six guys, and do a relay around the island as a bucket list swim. Last year, we did a relay along the length of Toppo, it was just super cool to get a group of swimmers together and go and do a bit of an adventure. How many of us, there were six of us, there were six of us. So we were all just you know, swam in chunks, I think it was an hour, 20 or time or something like that, and kind of there was a good day out, so it was a really good day out. Yeah, I'm walking on, on your little vision of swim camping that we learned from Colin, the Sartesman, Colin McLeod, yeah, McLeod, that sounds super cool man. Have you managed to figure out your equipment? No, no, I haven't yet. I have some thoughts. I actually have, I want to build like a little raft to five out of a fiberglass, but I think that's going to be an overwinter challenge because first of all, I haven't done much fiberglassing, so I reckon it'll take three or four goes before I get something that floats, yeah, yeah. But I think that we could probably do something before then, just breath. I was just thinking if you even just get a little spet in a tube, and you know, some nice big, like a truck tube, we used to go down the rivers. Yeah, yeah, a bit of a truck tube and a netting underneath or something, some netting with a whole bunch of dry bags. Yeah, I think that it's, so I'd like to do just a little adventure this summer and then learn a little bit more, and then maybe we get more adventuresome, you know, as we do more of it, but I certainly, even if I only swam a couple hundred meters and then camped, I'd still take that box. So, one of our ideas for venues, for your test venue? Well, Mike had put some ones out there from Maharangi, out to Saddle Island, and then I can't remember the name of the the the target island, but there was actually a dock campsite on the island. So, there's no real hucking involved. Yeah, basically just was like a three-case swam, I think, if I recall, three and a half-case. A three-case, and then another three and a half-case swam. So swam to one island, have lunch, swim to the next island, camp, and then do the same one, same thing on the way back. I think that would be. So, what would you need to take with you, right? You would need to take a tent. You would need to take a, I guess, a gas cooker. Yep. Tent gas cooker, put some dry clothes, and sleeping bag, and you don't need very much at all. So, it wouldn't be a heavy thing to tow as long as you manage that the drink is keeping it all dry and not slowing you down too much, although the slowing down doesn't bother me too much, because, you know, it's not a race. No, not myself. That gear, whatever. Man, if you use fins or paddles or whatever you need to get your steam going and pull that. And the other thing is you could actually get a bigger inner tube and attach two swimmers to a single tube and put all of your gear into one thing. And then you just go along that sounds too hard, man. You're going to get the pace up between the two swimmers. Yeah, but you know, I know somebody who swims with somebody. Yeah, but he's the one who made me into the real place. Imagine taking to the real camping. That should be hard. That would be super hard. I think we're going to do it just for fun. Yeah. Hey, so there's a dude that swim around like Toporot. Yeah, yeah, he had a little fiberglass thingy with jig here. He also married that himself out. There was like a little catamaran. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's that's what is in my mind. I'd so like to be able to do it. Put it on one list of hobbies. Learn how to make a fiberglass bar tape. I'm thinking boogie board and some rope. You'd strap it down and off you go. Well, I'm just hoping that if I get a nice little fiberglass thing, you can take your boogie board. I might be able to beat you for a change. Hey, so we're going to be talking about trying to just swim down wherever we were. I think we need to do small camps first before we do a big long thing. Yeah, I think we thought about it. You know, Ram had done a big swim in South Africa. Yeah, so let's see if somebody can swim around Toporot and tow all the stuff. Going down the Waikato, you know, it's fresh water. All you've got to do is boil it. Well, you've got to do a lot of water in your food. Yeah. And miss the power stations, right? Well, I think what we'll do in terms of swimming down the Waikato, is we'll send Brian down first and find out what it's like. And then after he's done it in one day, then we can take a week to do it. Hey, exactly. All long day for me to, yes. Sounds like a plan. So I'm going to just go back. Sorry, man. As you talk in the hours, just thinking about Shaziel again, but maybe what maybe what I need to try and get across here is that obviously we try to grow the sport of open water swimming. And obviously that's about community and it's about mates and all of that stuff. And maybe as a challenge to some of the listeners out there is, you know, if there is a person that is keen to give open water swimming trance, but they're nervous or special needs or whatever the case might be, but maybe you know, put your hand up and try and help out. I definitely, I'm pretty sure, get more out of helping Shaziel for myself personally than what he gets out of it. I really enjoy it. And I, I said, it's the one good thing in a day that I can get done, you know. And I'm pretty sure that if the guys out there can all try and help out. I think it will be good for it will be good for the world, right? You know, go and help us swim around. Be it a kid, be it a newbie, be it somebody that's scared, be it somebody with a disability, go out and help somebody, man. I've gained from this experience so much more than than this woman partner, you know. Right. I think I need to take that up as a challenge. I'm going to find an opportunity to give a hand. Yeah. The 22-year-old Brazilian in a bikini doesn't count though. Jim. What if he's Italian or Brazilian? That's in the rule book. That's fine. That's all good. But yeah, definitely, I reckon it's a good thing. And try and get out there and help enable it. Get out there and make an happen. I think that that's a great thing just to sort of wrap up. It was super impressive seeing you swim around. Thank you. I know that you get stuff out of it, but there's, you know, if it wasn't for people doing things like you then Shaziel would not get those opportunities. It would make life harder for his mum at home because he's a very strong, active young man. And he needs those opportunities to burn the energy off. It's cool. And watch this space. We're going to come back. We're going to do some more stuff. It will be fun. He'll love it. And Eric and he'll keep me on my toes as well, which is pretty cool. I think we need to make a Auckland triple crown. And you and Shaziel should be the first people to do it. Oh, done. Let's do that. Where there's anybody else ever recognised. It doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter. Okay, then Shaziel, there's your next challenge. Boy, Auckland triple crown. You've done one of them so far. Um, too to go. Thank you, Jim. Cool. Well, work it out. Okay, then. She's all. Ciao. Well, thanks for listening. As always, if you've got any comments, suggestions or general feedback, you can flick us an email at cleverdixnz at gmail.com. We've got an Instagram page. You can drop us a comment there. Or you could even give us a rating and review on your favourite podcast app. We'd really appreciate to hear what you think about it. Until next time, that's it for us. Folks, cheers. Bye.