Her name is Catherine Breed, and on July 1 she waded in at the Oregon border to begin something no one has finished before: swimming the entire length of California, top to bottom, all the way to the Mexican border. She calls it Swim California.
Swim California is more than a feat of endurance, it is a story about protecting something you love. That is a story we understand.
Dermasport is the Official Sunscreen of Swim California. It is also the sunscreen Catherine has trusted on her recent record swims, starting with her record-setting lap of Lake Tahoe. She was reaching for Dermasport long before this partnership had a name.
What is Swim California?
Swim California is a solo, staged swim covering more than 900 miles of coastline, from the Oregon-California line down to Mexico. If Breed completes it, she will be the first person on record to do so. It is one of the longest staged ocean swims ever attempted.
The plan runs roughly three to four months, July into October, with Breed covering around ten miles on a typical day and sleeping aboard a support sailboat between stages. Independent observers ratify the swim under open-water standards, logging stroke rate, water temperature, and pace along the way. This is not a stunt. It is a documented athletic project with the rigor to match.
It is also a conservation campaign. Breed founded the nonprofit Sea Dreamers to connect more women to the ocean through adventure, education, and conservation, and Swim California doubles as a moving platform for it. Along the route she is making more than a dozen community stops, including an event with the Surfrider Foundation's Humboldt chapter, to talk about the coast she is swimming past.
"This isn't just about swimming. It's about listening, learning, and sharing the stories of the people and places that depend on a healthy ocean." - Catherine Breed
Why Catherine Breed is doing this
"Swim California is my love letter to the coast," she has said. "I hope we tell its story well, I hope we are brave in the attempt, and I hope we finish this journey as changed people." She grew up sailing and surfing these waters, learning to swim in the San Francisco Bay and off Ocean Beach. By her own account, there was a stretch of her life when she had swum and sailed under the Golden Gate more often than she had driven over it.
The conservation purpose is not an add-on. "The bigger reason, the why that's greater than myself, is to tell a story of the coast," she told ABC7, "to raise awareness for the people, places, the problems, ocean conservation issues happening in our very own backyard." Then the line that sits at the center of the whole project: "Because I believe if you learn about something and you fall in love with it, you're going to fight to protect it."
The physical reality
The scale is hard to hold in your head. Ten or so miles a day. Five to six hours in the water. Repeated for months, through cold, currents, tides, and long stretches of coast with no easy shore access.
Breed is built for it. She holds multiple open-water records, has crossed the English Channel and the North Channel, and in 2022 became the first person to swim the 27 miles from the Golden Gate Bridge to Half Moon Bay. "All these swims and all the training I've done in my life has gotten me ready for this," she said as she started.
None of that removes the fear. "Sharks and elephant seals - both of those scare me," she has said plainly, which is why her team runs shark-deterrent systems and support vessels alongside her. The mindset she brings is not domination but surrender. "When I get in the ocean, it's a full surrender," she told KQED. "Your only job is to put one arm in front of the other and be at peace with whatever the ocean gives you that day."
What the ocean gives her, every single day, includes something most people never factor in: the sun.
The sun exposure problem in ultra-endurance swimming
Here is where I want to put on the dermatologist hat, because open-water swimming hides its UV risk better than almost any sport.
Cold water and cool coastal air mask the burn you would feel on a hot trail or a tennis court. You do not feel hot, so you do not feel exposed. But UV does not care about air temperature. Over five or six hours a day, the dose adds up, and near the water it adds up faster. Open water and the open sky above it reflect and scatter ultraviolet light back onto the parts of a swimmer that sit at the surface: the face, ears, back of the neck, shoulders, and lips. Fog is not a shield either; a meaningful amount of UV passes straight through cloud and haze.
Then there is the part unique to marathon swimming. A trail runner can duck under a hat and reapply at an aid station. A swimmer stroking through open ocean cannot stop to reapply mid-stage. Whatever protection is on the skin has to stay on through hours of saltwater, friction, and motion. That is a durability problem, not just an SPF-number problem.
The guidance here is not alarmist, it is standard dermatology. The American Academy of Dermatology and the CDC recommend broad-spectrum SPF 30 or higher, water-resistant formulas, and reapplication every two hours and after swimming or toweling off. For an athlete whose training ground is the ocean, those are not fine-print suggestions. They are equipment.
One myth worth retiring: the SPF number is not the headline. Between SPF 30 and SPF 50, the practical difference is relatively small. What matters more is broad-spectrum coverage, protection across the full range of ultraviolet light, including the UVA that drives long-term aging and skin damage. Both of our body sprays deliver that. The Clear Body SPF 50 is the one Catherine has trusted for years and wore through Tahoe, and it is a favorite for good reason. The Mineral Body SPF 30 is my personal pick, for the way a mineral formula covers the entire UV spectrum. Different athletes land in different places. What matters is that both are broad-spectrum, water-resistant, and built to stay on.
Why Dermasport supports Swim California
Dermasport is the Official Sunscreen of Swim California, and this partnership did not start with a pitch. It started in the water, before this swim ever had a name.
Catherine has used Dermasport for a long time. Last summer, swimming the roughly 60-mile perimeter of Lake Tahoe over five days, she was in the sun about five hours a day. She finished without a sunburn, and she knew exactly why. "I wore this Clear Body SPF 50 Spray Sunscreen," she says, "and what I was really impressed about was I didn't get sunburnt." So when she began planning a 900-mile swim, she came to us. That is the whole origin of this partnership: an athlete who already trusted the product, asking us to stand behind her for the hardest thing she has ever attempted.
I understand the instinct, because I have lived it. I grew up swimming and played water polo through college, then spent years doing rough-water swims and ten years as a Navy undersea medical officer, much of it outdoors and on the water for hours at a stretch. Being out there hour after hour, you start asking how you protect yourself. That question was the impetus for a lot of this. Dermasport exists because I got tired of watching athletes, myself included, treat sun damage as the price of doing what we love. It is not a price we have to pay.
Preparation starts with the skin
Before Catherine put a single stroke in the water for Swim California, she did something every outdoor athlete should consider and most skip. She came in for a full skin check.
A skin check is simple and quick: a top-to-bottom, scalp-to-toes evaluation of your skin, where I look at every spot, assign each one a level of risk, and from there we decide whether anything needs a biopsy or follow-up. For someone about to spend four months in direct sun, it is a smart baseline, not an alarm.
So what am I actually looking for? Most of what shows up is benign, the normal round, lightly colored growths we call nevi, the ordinary moles nearly everyone has. The spots that get my attention are the ones that break the pattern: red, scaly, or flaky patches, a mole with some black in it, or any erosion or interruption in the skin. Those are the warning signs worth a closer look.
For Catherine, this carries personal weight. She has a family history of melanoma, which makes a baseline check before four months in the sun not just prudent but pointed. Here is the part that should lower the fear rather than raise it. Skin cancers do not all behave the same way. A small number are aggressive from the start, but the large majority of what we find grows slowly, over years. Those are exactly the ones a routine exam is built to catch early, while they are still simple to handle. That is the real case for getting checked: most of the time the news is good, and when it is not, catching it early is what matters.
Catherine came away reassured on both counts. "It was totally fine. I was not nervous at all," she says, "and happy to say I had a clean slate." And she left with a plan to stay ahead of it: "I will definitely keep an eye on that." That is the goal for any athlete who lives outdoors: know your skin, catch anything early, and get back to what you love.
Protecting athletes, protecting skin, protecting the ocean, protecting the adventure. Different verbs, one idea.
Lessons every outdoor athlete can take from a 900-mile swim
You do not have to swim to Mexico to train like the exposure is real. A few things Breed's swim makes obvious for any athlete who spends long hours outdoors:
- Reapply on a schedule, not a feeling. Cool air and water will lie to you about how much sun you are getting. Reapply every two hours and after every water exposure.
- Choose a very water-resistant mineral sunscreen rated for 80 minutes
- Look for broad-spectrum, not just a big number. A higher SPF is not the goal. Full-spectrum protection across UVA and UVB is. A mineral sunscreen covers the entire range.
- Cover the spots that ride at the surface. Face, ears, back of the neck, shoulders, lips. These take the reflected UV. A broad-spectrum facial sunscreen and an SPF lip balm handle most of it.
- Layer protection. Sunscreen plus a rash guard, hat, and shade between stages beats sunscreen alone.
- Recover the skin, not just the muscles. Rinse off salt, chlorine, and sunscreen after training, then rehydrate the skin barrier. Recovery is skincare too.
- Be consistent. The damage is cumulative, so the protection has to be, as well. One good day does not undo a careless week.
The coast, and the body that carries you across it
Somewhere off the California coast right now, the fog is lifting or it is not, the water is cold, and Catherine Breed is putting one arm in front of the other. She has months of that ahead of her. Every mile is an act of protecting something she loves.
At Dermasport, that is a mission we understand. Extraordinary goals ask everything of the body that makes them possible - including the skin. Protect it, and it will carry you a long way. Maybe even 900 miles.
Protect your skin like an athlete with dermatologist-developed sun protection built for long days on the water.
Frequently asked questions
What is Swim California?
Swim California is Catherine Breed's attempt to become the first person to swim the entire length of California's coastline, more than 900 miles from the Oregon border to Mexico, over roughly three to four months beginning July 1, 2026.
How far is the Swim California route?
More than 900 miles, from the Oregon-California border south to the Mexican border, making it one of the longest staged ocean swims ever attempted.
How long will Swim California take?
Roughly three to four months, from July into October 2026, with Breed swimming around ten miles on a typical day.
Who is Catherine Breed?
Catherine Breed is an American open-water swimmer and former University of California, Berkeley swimmer. She holds multiple open-water records and has completed the English Channel, the North Channel, and the first swim from the Golden Gate Bridge to Half Moon Bay.
Why does sun protection matter so much for open-water swimmers?
Cold water masks how much sun a swimmer is getting, UV reflects off the water onto the face and shoulders, and marathon swimmers cannot easily reapply mid-swim. Dermatologists recommend broad-spectrum SPF 30+, water-resistant formulas, and reapplication after every swim.
What is Dermasport's role in Swim California?
Dermasport is the Official Sunscreen of Swim California, providing dermatologist-developed, water-resistant sun protection built for endurance athletes.
Follow Catherine's journey via the live tracker on SwimCalifornia.com
