Mary Singer hopes to make Vashon swim history

Published 10:30 am Tuesday, August 4, 2026

During a weather window from Aug. 11 to 15 — ideally before sunrise Aug. 12 — Mary Singer plans to step into Puget Sound near Sandy Shores wearing only a swimsuit, cap, goggles and earplugs.

If the cold, currents, weather and her body cooperate, she will return to the same stretch of shore 14 to 16 hours later, after swimming at least 30 miles around Vashon.

Completing the route would make Singer the first known swimmer to circumnavigate Vashon-Maury Island — and mark the longest, coldest swim of a career that already includes crossings of the English and Catalina channels and a 28.5-mile swim around Manhattan.

But Singer does not want the attempt to be measured only in miles.

“I wanted the swim to be bigger than just a swim,” she said. “I have such gratitude for our marine environment and for the work Vashon Nature Center does, so it felt like a really good partnership.”

Singer has teamed up with the Nature Center to make the swim both a fundraiser and an interactive tour of the marine wilderness surrounding the island.

A map under development will track her progress while highlighting roughly 20 locations along the route. At each point, users will be able to learn what Nature Center scientists are studying and what may be happening beneath the surface as Singer passes — from kelp releasing reproductive material to bioluminescent plankton that could glow around her near KVI before sunrise. Other stops will explore juvenile salmon habitat, sea stars and shoreline restoration.

“We’re trying to root the swim in the present and show what is happening as Mary swims by, so people can get a window into what she is seeing through her goggles,” said Bianca Perla, science director of the Vashon Nature Center. “We want to get people below the surface to learn about this incredible wilderness that surrounds us.”

Singer grew up on Vashon, learned to swim at the island’s public pool and competed with the Vashon Aquatic Club. By the end of high school, however, she was burned out and stepped away from the sport for years.

Her return began while she was living near Dilworth in 2019, when she noticed people swimming outdoors throughout the winter and decided she wanted to join them.

“I saw these people out there swimming all year round in wetsuits and just having the best time,” she said. “It’s cold. It’s winter. They’re laughing. I’m like, ‘What is happening?’”

Her first open-water swim came in December 2019. Bundled in a wetsuit and neoprene gear, she stayed in for about 30 minutes while another island swimmer remained beside her.

“The waves are coming. It’s cold. You’re seeing things differently,” Singer said. “You’re right there with the critters and the kelp and the seaweed and the smells. It was just so exhilarating.”

She kept returning to the Sound and, during the pandemic, began swimming more frequently with Vashon’s open-water community. In 2021, after learning from a friend that marathon swimming existed, she completed a roughly 12-mile swim around Coronado Island.

“Every year, I would try to add something that was a little bit more challenging,” she said.

She followed Coronado with a 15-mile lake swim, the roughly 20-mile Catalina Channel and the swim around Manhattan. Last year, she crossed the English Channel in 13 hours and 52 minutes.

Vashon presents a different challenge: colder water for a longer period. Singer expects temperatures of 58 to 62 degrees and will swim without a wetsuit, in accordance with marathon-swimming rules.

A motorboat will accompany her, with crew members passing drinks and liquid nutrition to her on a line about every 30 minutes. Singer cannot touch the boat or another swimmer, and support swimmers must remain behind her so she cannot draft or receive pacing assistance.

She began structured training at the start of the year, first logging long sessions in the Vashon Golf & Swim Club pool before shifting into open water. During one recent stretch, she completed three six-hour swims in four days.

“There’s obviously a huge physical component, but there’s also this massive mental component,” she said. “You’re uncomfortable. You’re in pain for parts of it because it’s hard work. And then there’s the part where you’re cold for a really long time. It’s hard to be uncomfortable for that long.”

Singer is expected to enter the water around 4 a.m., spending several hours swimming in darkness before sunrise.

“It’s hard to be excited about something that you know is going to be really hard,” she said.

Still, the route will carry her through waters she knows and loves. Singer has swum through kelp beds near Glen Acres, passed seals and porpoises and once watched an orca travel through Colvos Passage while her husband kayaked nearby.

“I think this is my favorite place to swim,” she said. “I think about how lucky we are to have this environment surrounding us.”

Perla said Vashon’s shoreline provides important feeding habitat for juvenile salmon arriving from river systems throughout Puget Sound. The island’s kelp beds also shelter and feed fish, crabs, sea stars and other marine life.

“We think of ourselves as this little island isolated from the mainland,” Perla said. “But from a marine perspective, we’re incredibly important and connected.”

Funds raised through the swim will support the Nature Center’s marine conservation and education work, including kelp monitoring, community science, school programs and summer marine-science internships for high school students.

The map will allow those watching from shore to follow not only Singer’s progress, but the living world she is moving through.

“Once you put your head in the water, there’s all of this environment that becomes so close to you,” Singer said. “You’re just in the middle of it, and it’s really kind of magical.”

Follow Mary’s swim: tinyurl.com/3ywm7tkx Learn more or donate to Vashon Nature Center: vashonnaturecenter.org.