During her swims, Hardacker regularly encounters seals, herons, kingfishers and occasionally otters and sea lions. She remembers her first ocean swim, when she noticed a seal following her halfway to the reef.

“I thought, I have two choices — I can either be afraid and somehow get back to shore, but the seal is between me and the shore, or I can accept the fact that you know what? Seals swim out here and so do I,” she laughed. “And I picked the second option.”