Making Waves - Indian to Add to His Rcords by Becoming Youngest to Swim S.B. Channel

KYLE JAHNER, NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
September 28, 2007 12:05 PM

Kaustubh Vemuri, 10, will attempt to become the youngest person to ever
swim the Santa Barbara Channel today, starting on Anacapa Island
and heading to Oxnard. MICHAEL MORIATIS / NEWS-PRESS PHOTOS

He looks like any other 10-year-old kid coming out of the water, walking towards the showers at Leadbetter Beach.

Then you realize he has been swimming hard in the ocean -- for 2 1/2 hours. Under the swim cap and goggles is a restless young open-water distance swimmer, emphasis on young. He has also already accomplished major feats on two continents and today should add another when he attempts to become the youngest person to ever swim the Santa Barbara Channel.

While many kids don't like sitting in a car for a 12.4-mile drive, the distance of the swim (10.8 in nautical miles) from Anacapa Island to the mainland in Ventura county is hardly intimidating to Kaustubh Vemuri.

"I'm not nervous. I enjoy it," Vemuri said very matter-of-factly.

Kaustubh Vemuri takes a break from training Thursday to speak
with coach Vinay Marathe at Leadbetter Beach.

After all, this is a kid who just before turning 9 (not a typo) made the 44.7 statute mile swim (also not a typo) from the Gateway of India in Mumbai to the Dharamtar jetty and back, not surprisingly making him the youngest ever to swim that stretch of water, taking 17 hours and 26 minutes.

When not traveling the world to find bodies of water to traverse, Vemuri lives in Pune, India, a city known as a cultural center of India that has been called the Oxford of the East for its status as a university and research hub, and as the Detroit of India for its automobile production.

It is also quietly making a name for producing young, open-water distance swimmers, remarkable for a city in a landlocked district about 100 miles inland of Mumbai. Vemuri started training when he was 8 years old, and shortly thereafter found a coach in Vinay Marathe to push him to achieve at an astounding pace.

He has followed in the wake of another Marathe protege and Pune native, Aditya Raut. Raut made the Gateway-Dharamtar swim at 9 years old to set the record Vemuri would break. Raut later became the youngest to swim 16.1 miles across the Gulf of Toroneos in the Aegean Sea in Greece, at 11 years and 11 months old. Naturally, Vemuri trekked to Greece to cross it at 9 years and eight months old.

"I like adventure," says Vemuri, who revels in his travels. He plans to have swum major geographic locations in five continents in the near future, and this puts him past the halfway mark, all at an age where most kids are just ecstatic over a trip to Six Flags.

Of course the rides at an amusement park don't carry the risks of long distance open-water swimming. In fact, Marathe had looked into having Vemuri swim the Catalina Channel, but the association there does not allow children younger than 12 to attempt the journey.

In Santa Barbara, he found an organization willing to give him a chance. Emilio Casanueva, president of the Santa Barbara Channel Swimming Association, has watched Vemuri as he trained in Santa Barbara the last couple weeks.

"Most associations don't let kids his age swim," Casanueva said. "If we feel you are capable of doing it we will let you do it."

If the organization has doubts about a swimmer's safety, as they did with Vemuri, they will ask him to perform a qualifying swim.

So out Vemuri went, about eight miles from shore, to prove not only that his age and size weren't a problem, but that neither was the water of Southern California, relatively cool compared to the Arabian Sea he is most used to. He made it to shore without any trouble, assuaging concerns.

"If you want to swim and really train hard, and really deserve a go at it, we are willing to do it, as long as you don't compromise your safety," said Casanueva, who estimated that Vemuri will finish the trip from Anacapa Island to Ventura county in about eight hours.

After the workout Thursday afternoon, Vemuri spent some time mingling with other swimmers also logging some time in the ocean. He has become somewhat of a minor celebrity among local swimmers, leaving quite an impression with both his inexhaustible drive and his friendly, unassuming demeanor.

"He's awesome," remarked one swimmer, probably a little more than twice his age. Another swimmer, nearly old enough to be his grandmother, gave him a book as a gift to remind him of his time in Santa Barbara.

Marathe said that Vemuri works to keep his studies up back home, especially since, as he points out, there really isn't much money in distance swimming, and there is much pressure in India to be tracked into a good profession. His father, an engineer, and his mother, a scientist, will undoubtedly see to his education being completed.

But Marathe did express hope that there could be a career for Vemuri, one of about 40 kids he coaches. And open-water distance swimming has been added to the Olympic regimen in 2008, so come 2016 or 2020, when he is actually competing with people his age rather than in places none of his peers have never been, who knows were Vemuri could be.

But for now Vemuri is focused on the nearer future. In January he says he is going to Wellington, New Zealand, to cross the Cook Strait, again to following in the wake of Raut. Then, he says, it's a trip to Cape Town, South Africa.

After that, who knows. He'll probably find another body of water yet to be traveled by someone like him. After all, there aren't too many kids like him to begin with.