Two Shelter Islanders, Toby Green, the high school’s boys cross-country and track coach, and Tommy Cronin, set forth on Jet Skis from Wades Beach there on June 30 with two goals: to set a Guinness world unassisted Jet Ski distance record and to raise $50,000 on behalf of Cronin’s “8-year-old great-niece, Julia, who lives in California and has scleroderma, a rare skin disease.”
“We’ve raised about $27,000 for the Scleroderma Foundation so far,” said Green, who recently flew home from Key West, Fla., the Jet Ski trip’s southernmost point, on the advice of a doctor who treated him for skin infections caused by chafing. “I’m feeling great, though I’m still on the antibiotics,” he said Tuesday morning.
Cronin, Green said, was on the return leg of the some 3,200-mile attempt, having “already broken the record, which is 1,900 miles. He should be going around Cape Hatteras today. . . . He should be back here in a couple of days.”
Green said, in reply to questions, that there was no support boat, and that he and Cronin had skied on the ocean, “not on the inland waterway. . . . The miles we covered per day varied. Some days we’d do 100, some days 300. We camped overnight. Our speeds varied from about 25 to 56 miles per hour. It was quite an experience — our GPSs weren’t working, sometimes we couldn’t see the shore, and sometimes we ran aground. It was a huge challenge.”
The South Ferry Company, for which Green works, and Sea Tow Services International of Southold are the record attempt’s main sponsors. Green said donations can be made online at scleroderma.org/goto/JetSkiforJulia.