Photos courtesy Vangie White

Clay Stoddard swimming the Auau Channel on Nov. 28. Stoddard (third from left in front row) and fellow channels swimmers in Lahaina after their swim.

St. Anthony fifth grader swims Lanai-Maui channel

By Anna Weaver | Hawaii Catholic Herald

He’s only 10, but Clay Stoddard has already set a swimming record. The St. Anthony School, Kailua, fifth grader became the youngest person to swim the Auau Channel between Lanai and Maui when he took on the 8.9-mile stretch of water on Nov. 28.

Stoddard swam the protected channel with 20 others, all but one of whom were from the Aulea Swim Club in Kailua. Fellow St. Anthony student, seventh grader Hailey Pound, was also in the group. The school recognized both students in its December newsletter.

“I thought it was pretty cool,” Stoddard said of his accomplishment, which he managed in five hours and 24 minutes. By the time Maui transformed from a hazy shape on the horizon to the solid shore of Lahaina, he said, “It felt like a dream.”

His milestone trip started off with writing his name in giant letters in the sand on Lanai. It included swimming through pods of jellyfish, sighting “slimy worms,” “weird jellyfish-like” creatures and one distant shark, getting sunburned on the backs of his legs and swollen lips.

“I’d be in the zone for thirty minutes and then I’d get out again,” he said.

The whole trip, Stoddard and his fellow swimmers were followed by parents and supporters on boats and kayaks, including his mom Allie and uncle Eddie. Every half hour they drank water and every hour ate a packet of Gu Energy Gel.

But as his mother noted, after he arrived on shore and she asked him, “Was that as bad as you thought it was going to be?” Clay’s first response was to ask if they could get ice cream.

The blond-haired kid, who idolizes Olympic swimming star Michael Phelps, got what he wanted — right after the small matter of getting his picture taken and receiving the congratulations of the crowd that had gathered to meet the young athletes — chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.

He certainly put in enough training hours to earn a quadruple scoop.

Stoddard, who has been swimming since he was six, practices after school with the Aulea Swim Club for an hour and a half, five days a week at the Kailua Recreational Center. Starting in the fall, he and other swimmers interested in making the Auau Channel swim began training off Waikiki on Saturdays twice a month under the supervision of experienced parents.

At first, Allie Stoddard was worried about whether her 10-year-old could handle a swim from Lanai to Maui. “I mean it’s such a big thing,” she said.

But after she saw how he handled a 3-hour training swim “like it was nothing, I felt he was ready,” she said.

“He was so determined and never complained about the training swims,” some of which stretched between San Souci Beach and the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, Allie said.

Stoddard’s feat won’t make the Guinness World Book of Records since the organization doesn’t keep track of such records, but local record keepers should have it down in the books here. Stoddard says he might want to make swimming a career, but as a sprinter not a distance swimmer.