Lee completed the 40 mile crossing between Avalon on Catalina Island and Dana Point, CA at approximately 9:30 pm on Thursday March 24th just a couple of days before she paddled it again on a two woman relay team with Jodie Nelson.
Jen is now among the handful of men and women who have crossed solo including Laird Hamilton, Jodie Nelson, Jared Vargas, and Karen Wrenn. At the time of the crossing she became the sixth person ever to complete it. She paddled the channel in spite of ominous weather forecasts, a friendly encounter with border patrol, south west winds that forced her to paddle on her left side for more than 8 hours straight, hypothermia, and weather/water conditions that forced her to slow it down and finish in the dark. In spite of completing the first 35 miles in under 8 hours, on track for a record women's time on her Custom Bark 14' board, she encountered incredibly challenging conditions in the last 5 miles and completed the paddle in approximately eleven hours.
Clarence Yoshikane, her solo boat crew, when asked about the whole ordeal said this: “Many athletes are physically fit but very few have what it takes mentally to pair with that and do what Jen did. To mentally face those challenges that she just couldn’t have been physically prepared for; she pushed her body way beyond what it wanted to do.” When asked about this, Jen said, “First and foremost this paddle was put in my heart by something much bigger than myself and only God could have gotten me to that beach, I cannot take credit at all. I did do my part, I decided that I would have to completely collapse and be unconscious before I would give up. I have trained my whole life to be mentally and physically tough, but there are a lot of people out there tougher than I. The last two hours it was really difficult, I was praying the whole time that I would have the opportunity to finish, and basically that prayer was answered. I had the support of God and so many people, especially Clarence that day who had about 10 jobs on his hands, driving the boat, cheerleading, my nutrition, photographer, by the end he had to help keep me safe, and I am sure he was freezing too; my family and my boyfriend, then there is Joe Bark, and Lizzie and Jimmy at Quickblade paddles, Jeff Kellom my conditioning coach, and Chris Wyman from Kaenon; most of these people didn’t even know me and welcomed me into their families and did everything they could to help me do this. Then there are all my other sponsors/supporters, who really helped me with this too through their wonderful products: Elite XC, Free Motion Fitness, GU Energy Labs, H2O Audio, Hook-Up-Surfing, Indo Board, Pualani Swimwear, SurfCo Hawaii, and Xcel Wetsuits; without all the aforementioned people and companies’ strong and wonderful support all this wouldn’t have even been a possibility.”
Three days later Jennifer paddled the channel again with Jodie Nelson in the Catalina Challenge Relay as the only two woman relay team. The two dedicated their paddle to earthquake and tsunami victims in Japan and are helping Quickblade Paddles raise money to donate to the Red Cross.
Photo by: Clarence Yoshikane
