We recently connected with Romina Caristo and have shared our conversation below.

Romina , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

At Ocean Fever our mission in paper is TO CREATE AWARENESS FOR WATER SAFETY AND MENTAL HEALTH. We believe these 2 topics are well related when it comes to the importance of topics, and even more when you involve your community.
We believe Water Safety should be a right, not a privilege. We are located in the South Bay area, Redondo Beach, and the ocean is our big pool. After coaching many years high school and masters, we decided to expanded to the ocean where our youth volunteer their time on a Sunday FREE program, not only to reduce drowning cases, but to also fight anxiety and depression, topics that increased after COVID.
We want to raise awareness for mental health and water Safety while EMPOWERING OUR YOUTH to take the LEAD in our community.
We are STIGMA FREE zone, so we welcome everybody.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I discover swimming after a summer that include swimming to help me with gymnastic. After that summer I was hooked!!! My instructor was a single dad, that took his son with him everywhere. AT one point, we didn’t have a pool to swim, so he will take us to a lake, river and soon we started competing open waters, before even competing in pool. I saw Jorge Destry, my coach then, doing the impossible for us and of course his son, to keep us out of trouble. Many years later, I moved to Redondo Beach and starting teaching swim lessons for infants and kids, at the same time I was teaching my children too.
When my son Ruka was 2.5 years old, he almost drown at the Marina in Redondo Beach. He fell between the dock and the boat (very narrow place) and since then i focus in water safety.
I put both of my children in a swim team, SOBA, from 5-12 years old, while doing JG’s over the summer. Witnessing the joy in their faces, after every summer of JG’s made me move3 my swim coaching skills to the ocean.

Before starting officially Ocean Fever, I went to a summit, WOWSA 2018 in San Francisco and because my flight arrived late, I got to seat at the speakers table, that of course I wasn’t even aware. It was then, when I discover the open water WORLD and how and why people would some of the craziest thing I could ever imagine.

A year after that i found myself and people around me swimming a 10K swim at WOWSA in Redondo Beach. Some of our youth swam the mile, 5k and the little ones the 500 yard and everybody had a great time!

It was 2020, and everything was closed, except the ocean. That was the year that we got BIG, kids from everywhere was coming to our group. AT the same time we could hear all the things happening because of the FEAR of the unknown…

In August 2020, we had a loss of a 14 years old, due to Anxiety and Depression, and we knew we had to act fast. We started doing everything in our program to help people dealing with the STIGMA of depression. Youth were organizing a paddleout for our 14 years old teen, when I got a call that my own mom just suicided a day after her birthday. This was, definitely the most devastating pain I ever had in life. My life was upside down, and I was lost…

The support of our ocean community, friends and family was overwhelmed. My daughter Ina, told me to go to be with my sister and that she was still going to take care of the paddleout, but now also in grandmas memory.

Since then, we helped and support others to experience the Ocean as a HEALING tool, but at the same time, the program and people gave me purpose in life and helped me coping with grief.

The programs activities got expanded everywhere, from beginner swimmers being able to swim to the pier, to swimming the Catalina Channel relay overnight, raising awareness for the 2 topics.

Our original mentors, now graduated from High school, are expanding the love and respect to the ocean in their careers, Cal Maritime, U.S. Coast Guards, LA County Ocean Lifeguards, representing US in the WORLD Lifesavings for the past 3 years, representing Team US in triathlon and being involved in our community, helping, donating and volunteer their time to help others.

We are hoping to expand the Ocean Fever and help people find the HEALING power of the ocean.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

This will be our 3er year that we will have a relay team crossing the Catalina Channel overnight. The first year was 2020, and of course we had to cancel it, because everything was closed…
Finally, 2021, things were starting opening up a little bit more and we got our double relay team together. We had 2 teams of 6 swimmers, plus 2 alternates that were going to crossed the channel. Youth organized bake sale, special events and more to get the funds to cover cost while raising awareness and helping each other. That couldn’t happen…. The night before my daughter had to call 911 after I passed out unconscious. We learned that I got COVID. While in the hospital i texted everybody to right away get tested for COVID, everyone was negative, but the crossing couldn’t happen because was the coach and I was with them 2 days before that.

The expected happened, we lost many, many volunteers and participants after that news and I fell like giving up. It was super tough. After so many years volunteering so many hours, I was alone… and judged…But somehow, we continue with the few left and Britney, One of the youth took the LEAD to organized the relay, this time, single relay. Kids crossed the channel on September 25-26.

We learned to overcome obstacles for sure and we learned to be resilient.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

During these hick-ups, we consider to include masters to our program too and the result was awesome. We didn’t have many youth as Summer of 2020, but we had people that really wanted to loose their FEAR for the ocean and more important, being involved in our COMMUNITY. It was last summer, 2022, where we crossed the channel and I was part of the masters team. Our motto was TRANSFORM FEAR INTO ACTION. Masters and high schoolers really believed in this and since then, they are making an IMPACT in our community.

Youth are taking ACTION, by hosting SOUTH BAY SERIES SPEAKERS, where people involved in our ocean community (swimmers, paddlers, surfers, lifeguards, spearfishers, etc) come and share their testimony to others.      

Contact Info:

• Website: www.oceanfever.info
• Instagram: @ocean_fever_
• Facebook: Ocean Fever
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@oceanfever-nk9zo

Image Credits
Doriann Toledo Kim D. West