“Her Oceans Seven,” Moral Injury,” and “Considering the Survival of a Marine Iguana Called Harry”

The challenge is called Oceans Seven,

and by the time Marcia Cleveland

finished the ginormous feat of swimming

all those channels and straits,

one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,

she indeed earned ownership.

As in, Her Oceans Seven.

The first, the Strait of Dover.

Classic English Channel crossing.

Head down, 30-year-old arms

stroking fast, feet paddling swiftly through

the channel’s salty waves, sucking a breath in,

head down again. Twenty-one miles of movement.

Hearing the shoreline of France calling out to her.

9 hours, 44 minutes

July 29, 1994

That snake of water between Catalina Island

and Southern California beckoned Marcia next.

A Pennsylvanian by birth, 41-year-old Marcia

dove into the August waters of the Pacific and stroked.

Bolstered by two friends, Liz and David,

Marcia made up the trio that rippled through this channel.

All three stroking in their own singular lane. Never touching.

Across 20.2 miles, feeling the push of camaraderie

through the currents.

8 hours, 56 minutes

August 2, 2005

Lion’s Mane Jellyfish tormented Marcia through

the North Channel. It’s the frigid seawater between the

Emerald Isle and the Land of the Scots. That’s where

the 54-year-old splashed into the waves

for her third open water challenge.

Sting, stroke, flutter kick, breathe, sting, stroke, flutter kick, breathe.

Bitter cold seas at 53 degrees F shocked and prickled the skin,

along with drifting tentacles of jellyfish. Double-whammy.

No wetsuits allowed. Ever. Triple-whammy.

At the finish of 21.4 miles, an “Angel” kayaker appeared.

Moment of grace after venomous, painful crossing.

15 hours, 3 minutes

July 21, 2018

Five hundred meters of garbage strewn across the

Tsugaru Strait greeted Marcia in Japan. Darn those

littering cargo ships! There’s a first time for everything, and

this was the 55-year-old’s first-ever in-water barfing misadventure.

“It felt great to expel,” the plucky swimmer said.

Thank God almighty for her friend, Ted. Japanese words

and phrases roll off his tongue like a native speaker, easing the

way through all the pesky and vital details leading up to this swim.

Ted even hit the waves and stroked alongside Marcia for the

final 58 minutes that clicked by on the stopwatch.

Garbage and barfing be damned, Marcia stroked for 12.4 miles.

Finally stepped her bare feet onto barnacled covered rocks (ouch!),

hanging on while wrestling with a strong sea current.

Nevertheless, triumph at Tsugaru.

10 hours, 11 minutes

August 19, 2019

Aloha, Channel of Bones, better known as

Molokai Channel in Hawaii. Mercenary Pilot parked

his boat offshore at the start, offered to kayak in

Marcia’s gear, then what the? Not answering his cell phone?

After repeated calls?

In rescue mode, through 6-foot surf, Marcia’s daughter Julia

and friend Terri bravely towed the gear out to her.

What a wet mess! But the show must go on.

Finally, time for blast-off. Dive in. Get into the rhythm of the water.

Five- to nine-foot waves kept the sharks down below Marcia’s kicking gams.

Count any blessing on this crossing, the 57-year-old thought.

Reckless Pilot defied norms and chugged 500 meters ahead

of his precious cargo in the water. Not one boat pilot in the

universe does this, Marcia thought. Darkness engulfed swimmer

and way-too-green kayaker escort. “My headlamp battery is dead,”

the dimwit kayaker cried. Duo stuck in middle of dark, wavy Pacific

with zero rescue plan. To stay on course in the pitch black,

the super swimmer navigated by riveting her eyes to the silhouette

of the kayaker on the horizon. Dimwit was good for something.

Minutes ticked toward 18 hours, the cutoff point for greedy pilot to

demand more fees, but Marcia stroked 28 miles and beat the clock.

17 hours, 45 minutes

March 29, 2022

Daughter Julia and friend Lee hopped in the boat to crew for Marcia

as she stroked across the Cook Strait that buffers the

North and South Islands in Lord of the Rings Land, New Zealand.

Those fairies of the seas, dolphins, frolicked around her

and clicked underwater, buoying her spirits.

Pilot and navigator guided the 58-year-old to a teensy beach, where

tears of relief and joy spilled down her cheeks.

14.2 miles of Kiwi waters now under her belt.

“I loved the entire experience,” Marcia crowed.

11 hours, 54 minutes

March 14, 2023

The seventh and final Ocean Sevens challenge called

61-year-old Marcia to the Strait of Gibraltar. It’s that

sliver of sea separating España and Morocco.

Took two tries to conquer this strait, but paradoxically,

Marcia says the swim was the easiest crossing of all seven.

Mother nature calls the shots in the strait, and mere human

swimmers must bow down to wind speed and direction,

ocean tides, and time of day. A year before, poor climate

conditions had raised a red flag against attempting the crossing.

But in 2025, Mother Nature waved a green flag. And the rare

mother-daughter swimming duo, Marcia and Julia, stroked 9 miles

in tandem from shore to shore. Their hearts sang.

4 hours, 1 minute

May 20, 2025

For 31 years, Marcia felt the pull, allure, and mystery of the seas,

enticing every inch of her body to dive back in and conquer

one more channel. One more strait. Her Oceans Seven.

In the end, the question lingers: what propelled her insatiable drive,

fervor, or just the raw need to keep swimming?

Moral injury is invisible, but anyone can picture it.

Like an ICE agent smacking a mom

to the floor in a courthouse, and no one blocks or grabs

the agent for fear of zip ties tightening around their wrists, too.

Anyone watching this? Flashing red siren and high risk

of moral injury present.

Like a billionaire walking into Epstein’s penthouse

near Central Park, fully aware of what the

14- or 15-year-old girls inside are being used for, but

feeling smugly indifferent in a cocoon of swirling

dollar bills, yachts, and Rolexes.

No one calls the NYPD, FBI, CIA, MI6, or Mossad.

These billionaires are self-exempted from moral injury.

Like Kayla showing up in my son’s second-grade class,

her arm in a cast, blurting out before anyone asked,

“I fell down. I really fell down! That’s what my mom said.”

Mr. Peterson—the gentlest, kindest teacher on the planet

(picture Mr. Rogers)—

hit the gas pedal on mandatory reporting.

Did he suffer a moral injury?

Probably, but give him a break!

No one could give Kayla a 24/7 shield of protection.

Years later, I saw her pushing a shopping cart at PetSmart,

carrying a baby bump about 8 months along.

My son was 16, so that meant Kayla was too.

What stop or detour or yield signs

did the adults in her life miss?

What was the moral injury this time?

Harry, the marine iguana, marches out

of the water like a fake sea monster from a

1940s Hollywood movie. I’ve named him

Harry, not in irony, like Gen Z does,

but for the actual Prince. Because this aquatic Harry

struts with royal swagger, and then lapses into a tumble

of irreverence, like his namesake in California.

Harry and his ilk greet me every morning when

I stroll out to the Pacific as it laps the shoreline.

Santa Cruz is the sacred name of this

island where my feet hit the sand each morning.

It’s one of the 13 masses of volcanic rock,

all anchored deep off the coast of Ecuador.

A chain of islands, Los Galápagos.

We all know Darwin was smitten by

Las Islas Encantadas. He spent many a morning,

like me, observing marine iguanas,

fur seals, blue-footed boobies, and the king and queen

of Los Galápagos, the giant tortoises.

What’s that theory Darwin’s so famous for?

Evolve or die? Now in the 21st Century,

there’s a competition named for him—the Darwin Awards—

that mocks people who die so foolishly,

they’ve supposedly raised the collective IQ

of humans on earth by exiting the planet.

I wonder how long the likes of Harry will continue

to walk out of the vast blue each sunrise,

heavy black tail dragging across sand, reptile skin

rippling with seawater, his dorsal crest sticking straight up,

all the way down his back. Will he evolve—or disappear?

These days, dark winds blow around the islands.

Rumors abound about narco-traffickers.

Cruising through the remote labyrinth of waterways

around Las Islas, they fuel up their boats in secret.

Fishermen hoard government-subsidized petrol and—

ca-ching—get paid thousands. The goods must get north

—at any cost.

So this UNESCO World Heritage site is now a quasi-gas station?

All because the cargo of cocaine must

feed the insatiable maw of North Americans?

Could this possibly mess with Harry’s survival in

this pristine outdoor paradise?

But that’s not my worry this morning. On the sand, Harry’s basking

in the warm rays, oblivious to Darwin’s theory or drug kingpins.

Steaming café con leche waits for me.