Word from a Wise man: Make friends with sharks and the sea

Marathon open water swimmer Hank Wise has crossed Catalina Channel eight times.

- JAMES RAINEY

FRIENDS on a boat escort Hank Wise as he swims across the Catalina Channel.

“What about sharks? You know they're out there!”

Yes, landlubbers, the sharks are out there. But they don’t have much interest in you. Really, they don't. Just ask Hank Wise. He’s not only wise, like his name suggests. He recently notched another major achievement in a long list that puts him on a path to being the greatest Catalina Channel swimmer of them all.

Count the 57-year-old Wise as one of a rare breed of marathon open water swimmers. With another successful crossing of the 20-mile Catalina Channel completed in mid-September, Wise now owns a total of eight crossings. Only one other human has crossed the beautiful, unpredictable channel that many times.

And there seems little doubt that the salty, ebullient Wise will be back for another.

Those of us who love to swim in the Pacific share such stories like members of a monastic order. Coldest swims, hardest swims, choppiest swims and longest swims. But Wise, like the rest of our tribe, likes to talk mostly about the people he has met and how the water leaves him feeling: energized and alive.

The ocean is a place of dreams, comfort and memory for Wise and many others.

The son of a businessman and a homemaker, he grew up in Long Beach near Alamitos Bay. His parents had raised three much older siblings and left their youngest largely to his own devices. That led to a joyous progression from wading to swimming to mastering every kind of watercraft.