Sitkan Dean Orbison on his way around the 5K course between Whiting Harbor and Battery Island. (Angela McGraw photo)

Sitkan Dean Orbison on his way around the 5K course between Whiting Harbor and Battery Island. (Angela McGraw photo)

The fourth annual Change Your Latitude Open Water Challenge put 22 competitors in Sitka Channel, on a course from the Mt. Edgecumbe High School ramp, out to John Brown’s Beach, and around Battery Island.

There were three events: a 1K, 5K, and 10K race. Each of the participants was accompanied by a kayak for safety. For the first time this year, there was a Youth division, with two competitors, and a so-called “naked” swimmer who braved the 58-degree water without a wetsuit.

Recent arrival Patrick Williams won the men’s 10K swim in 2 hours and 27 minutes. Heather Saline, also of Sitka, was the women’s 10K winner in 3 hours and 26 minutes.

In the 5K women’s event, Kristin and Lisa Jones, a daughter/mother combination from Juneau, were #1 and #2, in 1 hour 7 minutes, and 1 hour 33 minutes respectively. Brothers Leif and Kris Calvin were one-minute apart in the men’s 5K, at 1 hour 7 minutes, and 1 hour 8 minutes
16-year old Trevor Jones, also of Juneau, won the youth 1K in 15 minutes. And Grant Turner — the one swimming without the wetsuit — won the adult 1K in 17 minutes.

Race organizer Kevin Knox and his sister Erika think Change Your Latitude is the northernmost open-water event sanctioned by US Masters Swimming. The pair took a few minutes to talk with some of the competitors after the event, and sent this audio postcard:


Listen to iFriendly audio.

View the complete 2013 Change Your Latitude results.