Maya Merhige – by Chris Merhige for Swim Across America

New Zealand’s Cook Strait is considered one of the most dangerous stretches of open water in the world. Strong winds can produce violent storms, massive waves, and unpredictable currents. Jellyfish litter the surface. Sharks lurk in the depths below.

And yet, 17-year-old Maya Merhige was determined to cross it. The California teen is hoping to become the youngest person ever to complete the famous Oceans Seven—the most daunting open-water swims across the world.

The Berkeley native swam across the English Channel last summer and has also crossed the Catalina Channel near Los Angeles and the Moloka’i Channel in Hawaii.

In April, she took on the Cook Strait, which also required facing one of her greatest fears—jellyfish.

“Even when I was getting in the water, I was already like: ‘I’m so scared. I don’t want to see jellyfish,’” Maya told CNN. “The entire time I was just fighting myself mentally to kind of get over that fear.”

The Cook Strait separates the North and South islands of New Zealand. Marathon swimming guidelines only allowed Maya to wear a swimsuit – not a wetsuit – for her attempt, leaving her more exposed to those fearsome jellyfish and some frigid water temperatures that peaked near 60 degrees. And to make matters worse, ocean currents made her swim twice the distance of the actual Strait, turning the 13.67-mile swim into a 27-mile marathon.

Confirming her fear, every few strokes, Maya would get stung, the welts piling up on her arms, face, nose, and lips. The currents kept swirling. She had to stop every 30 minutes to eat too, with the exertion of the task requiring a regular calorie intake.

But she persisted. She saw a few shooting stars light up the New Zealand sky above her, sparking hope as the destination grew closer.

Credit: Chris Merhige

After 14 hours, eight minutes, and 36 seconds in the water, Maya finally stepped onto dry land again, completing her fourth of the famed ‘Oceans Seven’.

One of the motivating factors that propelled her along the way was an ongoing charity fundraiser she created. Maya survived a benign pancreatic tumor in 2023 and one of her close friends is also a cancer survivor. Thus, she has linked her swims to the nonprofit group Swim Across America, already raising over the years the huge sum of $150,000 for pediatric cancer research.

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“Swimming the Cook Strait was a hard, but incredible experience,” Maya said on the Swim Across America site. “The jellyfish stings, unpredictable currents and wind presented unique challenges, but knowing that my efforts contribute to cancer research kept me motivated.”

She also got some support from her father, Chris, Kelly Gentry, her coach, and her godparents, who all followed nearby in a boat.

Now, Maya, who will graduate from high school this year and start college in the fall, will turn her attention to the remaining three Oceans Seven challenges—including the Strait of Gibraltar separating Spain and Morocco, the North Channel between Ireland and Scotland, and the Tsugaru Strait in northern Japan. If she can complete them all by January 2028, she’ll become the youngest person to have ever done it.

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The milestone is about so much more than personal glory. It maintains Maya’s connection with nature, provides support for kids fighting cancer, and fuels a number of other adventures along the way.

“One of the main reasons that I would like to complete the Oceans Seven is because of the opportunities that it gives me to explore the world and meet such cool groups of people. I love how different each swim is, and how they all come with different challenges and highlights,” she told SwimTrek.

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“I am constantly learning more about myself and the world. Also, all of the swims are in incredible places that I would be lucky to have the opportunity to visit. The Oceans Seven is just more inspiration to push my limits, try new things, and explore around the world!”

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