Maya Merhige has never considered herself a big sports person. But when she was in third grade, her dad participated in a swimming event in the San Francisco Bay, near Maya’s home in Berkeley, California. During his swim, her dad saw a whale. That inspired Maya to do the same swim the next year. She loved the experience of swimming in open water, as opposed to a pool. “Afterward I was like, I can do anything!” she recalls. 

Today the 17-year-old is a champion distance swimmer who’s broken several open water records. She was the youngest person to cross California’s 20-mile Catalina Channel and also the youngest person to swim across the 26-mile Ka’iwi Channel in Hawaii. To cover these distances, she sometimes swims for a full day and night without a break.

But Maya is motivated by more than just the desire to break records. She swims to raise money to fight pediatric cancer. She’s also dealing with her own health issues. But no matter what else is going on, Maya can’t stay out of the water for long. “At this point, swimming feels as natural as breathing,” she says. Here’s more about Maya’s journey.

Maya trains in a pool, and she competes on her high school’s swim team. But the conditions for open water events are much different. For one thing, the water temperature can be around 60 degrees Fahrenheit. (For comparison, a pool is usually 77 to 82 degrees during swim meets.) For some events she’s allowed to wear a wetsuit, but for others she can wear only a swimsuit. When Maya’s training for an open water swim, she gradually increases the amount of time she spends in chilly water to get her body acclimated. 

Another big difference is the length of the event. Her open water swims range in distance from 6.2 to 28.5 miles and can take up to 28 hours, depending on the currents and other factors. She’s not allowed to hold on to anything or get out of the water the entire time. 

During open water swims, Maya is surrounded by support teams that follow her in boats or kayaks. They track her location, monitor the weather, and make sure she is safe and healthy. They also give her drinks and food like energy goo or packages of sliced peaches, which she consumes while treading water. 

It’s not uncommon for Maya to see dolphins, whales, or even sharks during her swims. The sharks don’t scare her, but she’s not a fan of jellyfish. During her Ka’iwi Channel Swim in Hawaii in 2023, she swam through swarms of them. “I was stung nonstop for almost three hours,” she says. 

During a big swim, Maya doesn’t think about hazards like jellyfish. She also tries not to concentrate on how much time she has left or how far she’s gone. “It can be a little bit terrifying, and it’s not super motivating,” she explains. Her focus instead: “Just keep swimming.” 

To keep her mind occupied, she’ll do things like count to 100, recite multiplication tables, or practice conjugating Spanish verbs. Friends also suggest things to think about, like “What should I write for my college essays?” or “Have a conversation with a celebrity you want to meet.” Her crew will read her encouraging messages from supporters. The messages help keep her spirits up. “They remind me that people are thinking about me even when I feel alone in the water.”

Her personal health challenges have inspired her as well. In 2023, Maya had a noncancerous tumor removed from her pancreas, and she still deals with pain from the condition. The experience made her even more determined to raise money to fight cancer. “I have a lot more empathy and understanding for what it’s like to spend time in the hospital as a kid, and that’s made me even more dedicated to everything that I’m doing,” she says. She writes the names of people who’ve been touched by cancer on her swim cap as motivation during her competitions. 

In May, Maya completed her latest feat: swimming across the English Channel, a part of the Atlantic Ocean that runs between England and France. It took her 11 hours and 39 minutes. By completing that swim, along with the Catalina Channel and a 28-mile swim around the island of Manhattan in New York City in 2023, she became the third-youngest person ever to earn the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming.

Next she hopes to become the youngest person to complete the Oceans Seven, which are the seven hardest marathon channel swims in the world. She has four to go: in Scotland, Japan, New Zealand, and a channel between Spain and Morocco.

But while breaking records is fun, the greatest rewards of open water swimming are less tangible. She often swims through the night, and as the sun comes up, she says, “I feel like I’ve just woken up. I’m usually not close to shore, and it’s the most freeing feeling in the world. I feel so connected to nature. I also feel grateful for the people I know are thinking about me, and that I get to see something that not that many people in the world get to see.”