More than 300 swimmers descended on Maho Bay Beach Sunday for Joe Kessler’s Beach to Beach Power Swim to raise funds for the Friends of Virgin Islands National Park’s kids’ swim programs, marine conservation, education outreach and more.
Swimmers chose their distance starting at Maho Bay Beach and swimming to Cinnamon Bay, Trunk Bay, or, the full 3.5 miles, to Hawksnest Bay. Teague Gleason, 15, of St. Croix took the top prize, completing the long course swim unassisted in 1 hour, 11 minutes and 17 seconds. Sabina Csak, 20, of Old Greenwich, Connecticut, took the title of fastest female unassisted, taking 1 hour, 23 minutes and 34 seconds to swim from Maho Bay to Hawksnest Bay. Sasha Poe, 16, of St. Thomas, was the top female finisher, and overall top finisher, in the intermediate unassisted course from Maho Bay to Trunk Bay.
The swim is named for Joe Kessler, who served as president of the Friends of the Virgin Islands National Park for 17 years before retiring in 2018. He and his wife, Cristina Kessler, an activist and a writer who was best known in the territory for her children’s book “Hope Is Here,” about a bird that made regular migrations to St. Croix, died last April when a train struck their RV while they were on a road trip in Taylorville, Illinois.
St. Croix Source
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