Bhakti’s mother, Leena Sharma, loved to swim. That might not sound so unusual to you, but in India, especially in the desert climate where they lived, swimming wasn’t a popular sport. It was even more unusual for girls to be swimmers. Girls were expected to dress modestly – and often swam in their clothes rather than in bathing suits.

Leena swam throughout college, and trained with great coaches. Her family thought it was a strange hobby, but Leena didn’t care. And once she had kids, she hoped they would inherit her love of the water.

When Bhakti was two years old, Leena put her right into the deep end of a swimming pool, and helped her learn to float. Bhakti was a natural from day one! Just like her mother, she loved to swim. As she grew older, Leena was amazed to find that Bhakti could swim for hours at a time.

The two swam together whenever they could, and with Leena as her coach, Bhakti began to train for swimming competitions. Pretty soon she wasn’t just finishing the races, she was winning them! By the time Bhakti was 14 she was competing at a national level, against the best swimmers in all of India.

One day during practice, while Leena was admiring Bhakti’s incredible endurance, Leena had an idea… She’d had a coach, a long time ago, who had swum across the English Channel. It was something Leena had always wanted to try.

The English Channel is the part of the Atlantic Ocean that separates England from France. It varies in width, but at its narrowest point, it’s still 21 miles across. People call it the Mount Everest of swimming, as it’s known for fast currents, big waves, and unpredictable weather.

“There’s an open water swim people have done,” Leena said, “swimming across the English Channel. Would you like to try something like that?”

Bhakti loved a challenge – reaching deep inside of herself, practicing to learn something new – it meant that every day she was getting a little better and a little stronger as a person. She also knew that if she did something unusual, like swimming the English Channel – and succeeded – that people would see that Indian girls can do big things, and maybe other girls would be inspired to try for their own dreams. So, Bhakti knew right away, her answer was “Why not?!”

Bhakti and Leena started practicing 3 to 4 hours a day, and sometimes, when all her friends and family were tucked into their warm beds, they’d go back out and swim at night, so that the water would be even colder, and she could practice in the dark. They even practiced in the murky waters of the Arabian Sea – the first time she ever swam in an ocean.

A month before the big day, Bhakti and Leena traveled to London, England, so Bhakti could swim every day, for 4 hours at a time, in the cold Atlantic water. 4 hours was a long time to swim in the ocean, and her body was always tired by the end – but swimming across the channel would take double, or even triple that amount of time.

Finally, the day she’d been working towards had arrived. Bhakti stood on the dock overlooking the channel – it was 3 o’clock in the morning, everything was dark. She could barely see the water, or where she was headed, but she took a deep breath and dove in.

Leena rode in a small boat alongside her, and planned to stay close by, with snacks and water at the ready. The first few hours felt like any other practice. Bhakti had prepared for this.

But soon it began to feel a little different. She had never swum so long, she was exhausted, and she was only halfway there. The waves were rough, sometimes 6 or 7-feet tall, and the water was very cold. Even pausing to take a break, the waves rocked her violently forward and back so she had to keep actively treading water.

Finally, after the 10th straight hour of swimming, Bhakti saw something in the distance – land! She could actually see France! Bhakti was tired in a way she had never been before, but the sight energized her. She could reach the shore before her 11th hour!

Bhakti swam towards a buoy up ahead, excited to have a marker to reach. She swam and swam, but when she looked up, the buoy wasn’t getting any closer. She didn’t understand, but she kept going. After the 11th hour had passed, she paused – the shore seemed to be getting farther away. What was going on?

The boat captain was worried. He could tell the currents were too strong. They were pulling Bhakti in the wrong direction!

“She’s just 16 years old. We have to take her out!” he shouted.

Leena told her daughter it was up to her. So Bhakti chose to keep going. She swam for another hour. But again, she made no progress. The captain was getting louder, insisting she had to get out of the water.

Bhakti looked up at her mom – they had been training together for two years, and Leena had done everything she could to help make Bhakti’s dream come true. At this point she’d been swimming for over 12 hours, and she wasn’t going to let someone else decide when it was time for her to give up.

If the current was strong, she’d just have to be stronger. Bhakti swam at double speed, in a sprint, as hard as she could for over another hour. Her body moved like clockwork, like her arms and legs belonged to someone else, a swimming machine that never got tired. And finally… her feet brushed the sand below.

She’d done it! At 16 years old, she swam from Dover, England to Calais [ka-lay], France – over 13 hours and 55 minutes. Leena surprised Bhakti with her favorite treat, a chocolate rose. Bhakti peeled the red foil away and the chocolate melted in her mouth, salty from the ocean water. She thought about what she had just done, and though her body felt numb and weak as she climbed into the boat, she had never felt happier.

In 2008 a friend asked her to swim the English Channel again, as part of a relay. But they’d need a third team member, and Bhakti knew just who to ask. There was one person who’d been training with her, day in and day out, for all of her life – Leena. Her mother.

At first Leena hesitated – but Bhakti insisted. Swimming the channel had once been Leena’s dream, and Bhakti knew there would never be a better time for her to try. So Leena started training right alongside Bhakti and her friend. And guess what? They became the first mother-daughter duo to ever swim across the English Channel.

After that, Bhakti traveled to swim in the Arctic and Antarctic oceans — the two coldest oceans in the world! The waters there could dip to below freezing! Bhakti worried she wasn’t prepared for the icy temperatures, but Leena had an idea – she set up a plastic pool at their home, and went from store to store, buying up all the ice she could find. She filled the pool with 20 tons of ice, and for 10 days straight Bhakti swam in the icy water for hours at a time.

When she was finally ready, Bhakti and Leena made the long journey to the South Pole. They headed out in a boat where Bhakti planned to jump into the icy waters. Everywhere around her all she could see was ice. It was beautiful and terrifying all at once.

(sound of her jumping in)

The water hit her skin like a thousand needles. The cold was like nothing she’d ever experienced. And beyond cold, the water was thick and heavy. The high salt content made every stroke harder and harder to pull.

Within the first minute of swimming in the Southern Ocean, Bhakti’s legs and arms went completely numb. She didn’t know what to do! Her mom was there in the boat, ready to pull her out if she needed to, but Bhakti kept on paddling, determined to go forward.

Just when she was about to signal for help, a little black and white penguin slid right underneath her belly, popped up on the other side, and then swam alongside her in the dark waters. Bhakti laughed – she took it as a sign from the universe – right when she was about to give up, here was a little helper to keep her going. Her own personal cheerleader from the Antarctic.

Bhakti Sharma swam for a total of 41 minutes, and the little penguin stayed with her almost the whole way!

That day she became the youngest person to ever swim all five oceans. She was also the youngest, and the only Asian woman, to ever swim in the Antarctic Ocean. And she learned she had stayed in the cold icy water, longer than anyone else in the world.

Bhakti truly made a name for herself that day. She became a role model for girls who might want to try something new, something hard, or unusual. But behind all of her records, and all of her success, was her own role model – her mother, Leena.