At 3:56 a.m on Wednesday, Aug. 12, under the Perseid meteor shower near Sandy Shores on Vashon Island, Mary Singer, 51, did the unthinkable. She waded out into frigid Puget Sound waters in only her bathing suit and went for a swim.
She swam back in, 15 hours and 28 seconds later, shivering, exhilarated and exhausted. Her husband, Katsumi Purbeck, wrapped a big towel around her and grinned.
She’d definitely taken the long way back.
Singer swam around the entirety of Vashon Island on Wednesday, roughly 32 miles. She is now the only person on record to have ever done so. A body-numbing feat that bewilders ordinary folk and endurance athletes alike.
Singer spoke to The News Tribune on Friday while recovering from her home on Vashon, where she lives with her husband. She’s been eating and sleeping a lot since Wednesday and said it’s an odd sensation to feel hungry all the time, no matter how much she eats.
Cold water inspired
In 2016, Singer and her husband had just moved to Vashon from Tacoma and rented a beachside home when they noticed open-water swimmers splashing in the Puget Sound in front of their house.
“I looked out, and there were these people out there swimming,” Singer said. “And it was winter. I was like, ‘What the heck?’ They were having the best time, laughing and carrying on. I was like, ‘Why am I not doing that?’”
Singer, who had grown up on Vashon Island, learned to swim at the local pool and competed with the Vashon Aquatic Club. But she’d never swum in the Sound.
After some time off from the sport, witnessing open-water swimming at home inspired Singer to get back into it. She borrowed a wetsuit from a friend and officially swam in open water for the first time in 2019.
“There are some really amazing open water swimmers in this area,” Singer told The News Tribune. “At Alki Beach in Seattle, and there’s a big community on Vashon.”
One person Singer kept talking about was open-water swimmer Stephanie Zimmerman. Two years ago, Zimmerman swam around Bainbridge Island. Zimmerman was on Singer’s crew on Wednesday, and so was Andrew Malinak, who was the first person recorded to swim around Bainbridge Island.
“When Stephanie swam around Bainbridge, it was a really hard swim,” Singer said. “It was cold, and it was not a great day for it. But, man, she was tough.”
After her Bainbridge swim, Zimmerman wondered aloud if a swim around Vashon Island was possible.
“And that’s what sparked it,” Singer said.
Originally, Singer thought she and Zimmerman might swim around Vashon together, but tandem swims are hard.
“She wasn’t into it this year, so I went off to do it on my own,” Singer said. “She came up with the idea and handed it over.
“Vashon is more difficult,” Singer continued. “It’s a longer swim. I believe Bainbridge is about 25 miles. The shortest distance around Vashon is about 31.
“Stephanie planned the entire swim for me.”
Competitive swimming
In 2021, Singer did her first marathon swim around Coronado Island in San Diego. That’s where she got bitten by the open-water swimming bug.
At 11 or 12 miles, circumnavigating Coronado Island was the perfect competitive starting point. “I started thinking about progressing from there,” she said. “Every year from there I wanted to do better.”
Singer learned about a famous open-water swimming challenge called the “Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming,” which includes swimming the Catalina Channel, swimming around the Island of Manhattan and swimming the English Channel, totaling 69 miles.
It’s serious business with only around 400 people who have ever finished it. Singer completed it in 2025.
Vashon was going to be the longest, coldest and most difficult of her career.
The swim
Zimmerman, an open-water swimmer and sailboat racer, did her homework and planned Singer’s Vashon swim for a day with the best possible tides.
“There are some challenges in the Puget Sound,” Singer says. “At Vashon in particular, where Dalco Passage meets Colvos Passage. There is a lot going on in that water.
“There was a narrow window of when I could swim past it going counterclockwise. If you missed it, I wasn’t going to make it. The current and tides would’ve just been moving too fast. I was definitely swimming harder there. But Stephanie planned it beautifully.”
Through Zimmerman’s planning, Singer was able to use the current to her advantage. While currents might scare 90% of the population, Singer says she loves them.
“In that area where Dalco and Colvos Passage meet, I was feeling those swirls,” she said. “Those little whirlpools, the movement in the water. I love that. I don’t know if everyone does, but I love to feel the energy in the water.”
Singer had crews in two boats with her for the swim. Every 30 minutes, Singer would tread water while her crew fed her liquid food. She used a carb gel every two hours.
She also had two observers from the Northwest Open Water Association who were there to make sure she was following the rules.
“The observers take copious amounts of notes about the swim, water temp, wind speed, latitude and longitude, and fun notes about what they see in the water,” Singer says.
They also make sure her physical processes are functioning by performing hypothermia checks and ensuring her kidneys are working properly.
“An observer can stop the swim,” Singer says. “They look at me, and if I’m saying goofy stuff, they’ll pull it.”
The observer noted porpoises and seals around Singer in different sections, but no orcas this time, even though they had a plan for it.
“They asked me beforehand if I wanted to know if there was an orca, and I said, ‘Oh yeah. That would be awesome. I’d love that.’”
Singer says crewing for this kind of an event is an endurance sport all by itself.
“All the people on my crew are endurance athletes. It’s not easy. It’s a long event; they have to stay focused on the objective. You can’t be moody and disrupt the flow of the boat. It’s hard.”
How did she not get hypothermic?
Singer ditched her Puget Sound wetsuit in 2023 and never looked back. She calls it “going to skins.” “Wearing skins” is when an open-water swimmer is not wearing a wetsuit.
Wetsuits are considered “aid” in the open-water swimming world, as they provide buoyancy.
Singer began swimming year-round in skins. Two winters ago, Singer made sure she got in the water for at least an hour each week.
“It’s odd,” Singer says. “Very cold swims don’t transfer over to better acclimatization in very cold water. Uncomfortable doesn’t translate to hypothermic. It’s just a different thing. When you’re getting used to swimming in the 56-60 degree water, you’re uncomfortable. And it’s always going to be that way. You just get used to being uncomfortable for that long. It’s a mental process.”
But there’s also undoubtedly a body process as well. Vasoconstriction for one, which is when your arteries constrict and direct blood flow away from your skin and to vital organs.
“The other thing,” Singer says, “is that your body creates brown fat to help you stay warm. So, I guess I’ve developed this brown fat that allows me to stay in the water longer.”
Singer has become Puget Sound-minded and -bodied.
“You hear so much about the fears of hypothermia growing up,” Singer continues. “When I started swimming, I really fell on the conservative side when it came to that risk. So I really didn’t know where my limits were. Because of that, it took me a while to know that I could do it.”
The first time Singer swam the Puget Sound in skins, she swam for 45 minutes.
Then she pushed it to an hour.
“I had to work through what I had been taught my entire life about hypothermia and allow myself to push those limits a little bit.”
Singer says there are ranges of hypothermia and that she’s probably experienced mild hypothermia at some point, but she’s not sure.
“If I have, it hasn’t bothered me that much,” she says.
The other key is to keep moving.
Singer got in the water on Wednesday expecting the water temps to be 58-62 but was pleasantly surprised.
“I read the observer notes, and at one point the water went up to 65, which is unheard of here. I mean, they’re taking the temp at the surface, but I swim around here a lot, and I wear my Garmin, so I’m always looking at the temperature. I’ve never seen it that warm before.
“So, yeah, that was a nice benefit for me.”
What now?
Singer’s official time around Vashon Island was 15 hours and 28 seconds, pending ratification by the Northwest Open Water Swimming Association. Her crew clocked her mileage at 33 miles from the boat (as she wasn’t allowed to wear her Garmin).
She’s going to take a little more time to eat and rest, but not too much. She works as an HR professional in Seattle and already has another swim planned next month.
“Up next is a Labor Day swim event called the Mount St. Helens Classic. It’s a race, but I never take races seriously. For me, it’s just an event.”
After that, she’d like to stick around for a while.
“I’ve done all these swims in California, New York, Vermont and England,” she says. “But now that I’ve done [Vashon], I feel like I can do long swims in this area. I shouldn’t shy away from that. I was intimidated by the cold in the past. I feel like now that I’ve surpassed that hurdle, it opens up new opportunities for me. So I want to look into doing more around here.”
When asked how it felt to be a human being in this world who had conquered an athletic feat no other human ever had, Singer grew quiet.
“I guess it’s pretty cool,” she said after some time. “It’s overwhelming to hear it like that. I think people just don’t know that they can do things. And then once they believe that it’s possible, they can do it.”