It is seen as the Mount Everest of open-water swimming and a 18-year-old local girl from Pringle Bay has done it.

On Sunday 23 August, Amber-Rose Berry plunged into the cold, dark waters off Shakespeare Beach in Dover, England, at 05:27, only to become the youngest South African woman to make the 33 km English Channel crossing, to Cap Gris-Nez, situated between Calais and Boulogne along the French coast.

The swim, still subject to official ratification by the Channel Swimming Association, placed her well ahead of the average completion window of 12 to 14 hours. Amber-Rose’s time was 10 hours and 27 minutes, enduring jellyfish stings, fierce currents and the churning wake of a passing ship before hauling herself onto rocks at Pointe du Riden, near Cap Gris-Nez.

She was accompanied by a pilot boat Sea Leopard, skippered by Stuart Gleeson, with observer Jon Miell on board. “It was bloody tough,” the young distance swimmer declared afterwards.

This was not the first time the teen made history.

At just 16 years and 77 days old, on 3 December 2023, Amber-Rose became the youngest person to complete a solo swim across False Bay, a 33 km stretch from Miller’s Point to Rooi Els, finishing in nine hours and 40 minutes, wearing nothing more than a swimming costume and cap (“Learner youngest to cross False Bay,” DistrictMail & Helderberg Gazette, 8 December 2023).

That achievement earned her a Guinness World Record. She also completed the Cape-to-Robben Island crossing twice, the first time at age 13.

Amber-Rose’s English Channel swim was her longest challenge to date. But it was never just about personal glory.

Her “Believe in What You Can Achieve” campaign raised more than R112 000 for the Ukukhula Institute in Makhanda, which provides scholarships and living-expense support to disadvantaged student athletes from the Eastern Cape to study at Rhodes University. “Raising opportunities for fellow student athletes helped motivate me through the ordeal,” Amber-Rose said of the gruelling swim.

The timing of her achievement carries a special significance.

Her crossing came exactly 100 years after Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim the English Channel in 1926, and in South Africa’s Women’s Month.

Amber-Rose follows in the footsteps of another local record holder, Otto Thaning, the oldest person to complete the channel crossing, at age 73, in 2014.

She trained for months under open-water swimming coach Clinton le Seuer. During the crossing a disciplined fuelling strategy kept her moving.