News Stories

Middlebury Institute alumnus Frank Reynolds MAIEP ’12 has been an avid swimmer all his life, winning two national water polo championships as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley and taking inspiration from his beloved grandfather, who was still setting ocean swimming records in his late sixties. Reynolds, who has held the position of director of programs and development at the Friends of the Sea Otter conservation organization since the week after graduating from the Institute in 2012, belongs to a local ocean swimming group called the Kelp Crawlers. One day as they were swimming in the bay off Lover’s Point, he and his friend Thomas looked over to Santa Cruz and decided it was time to plan a swim across the bay. That was in January of this year and eight months later, their relay team set a new world record, beating the old one by two hours and 18 minutes!

As one of the most spectacular protected marine areas in the United States, the Monterey Bay offers some of the best wildlife viewings in the world. The bay is home to 34 species of sea mammals and visitors do not have to be on a boat to be treated to numerous sightings of whales, dolphins, or sea otters. The same factors that make it such a wonderful place for nature lovers are also part of what makes the bay such a challenging swim. Reynolds describes swimming in the dark ocean in the middle of the night and hearing a deafening scream, but not seeing anything. His teammates subsequently told him they had seen a dolphin swimming alongside him about a foot away. Later, when his brother Paul was on his second leg, the team spotted a great white shark about 150 yards away, but decided to monitor the situation instead of stopping the race and the shark eventually swam away. When Frank was swimming his second leg of the famous two-mile mile deep Monterey Canyon, he was joined by hundreds of dolphins, jumping and playing all around and underneath him. “It was an unforgettable experience,” he says.

The team, consisting of Frank, his brother Paul, his uncle Joe, and friends Michael and Thomas, made it across the bay in 10 hours and 20 minutes. “We had an amazing crew,” says Frank, who adds that he is beyond grateful for all the support they have received. The swim was dedicated to Frank Reynolds Sr., and was done to raise money for research into and awareness of Lewy body dementia, the devastating illness that took his life.

A passionate advocate for ocean conservation, Frank is very grateful for the professional connections and opportunities provided to him through the International Environmental Policy program. He loves his job and says saving the endangered sea otters is about much more than these amazing animals, as they play a vital part in the bay’s ecosystem. He says coming to the Institute was “without a doubt one of the best decisions of my life!”

For More Information

Jason Warburg
jwarburg@middlebury.edu
831.647.3156

Eva Gudbergsdottir
eva@middlebury.edu
831.647.6606