Swimming in her grandmother’s wake

Though Ms. Archard has been swimming her entire life and has traversed other bodies of water, including a wide river in Vermont, she did a bit of additional training for this effort. She swam in a bay — alongside her kayaker friend — for two and a half hours, about two miles lengthwise. Those sessions only boosted her confidence.

“I felt like I could go on forever,” she said.

Bob O’Donnell, Ms. Archard’s father, whose mother did the swim in the 1930s, is excited for his daughter to follow in his mother’s path.

“It’s been a part of the family history ever since I was a little kid,” Mr. O’Donnell explained. “I spent all of my summers on Shelter Island and in Greenport with my cousins, and from generation to generation the word got down about my mother swimming over from Shelter Island to Greenport.

“My daughter got wind of it and now she’s going to do it,” he continued. “It’s nice that she’s trying to emulate my mother. She’s got the ability to do it and she’s got the perseverance to do it.”

Mr. O’Donnell said his mother’s brother, Ms. Archard’s great uncle Bill Cummings, also swam between Shelter Island and Greenport sometime before World War II.

Neither Mr. O’Donnell nor his wife were there when his mother did the swim — she was said to have been in her early 20s at the time — but they have no trouble believing it’s a true story.

“She was always very gracious, had a beautiful smile and was a great mother-in-law; I was one of the lucky ones,” said his wife, Joan O’Donnell. “And oh how she loved to swim. Once she said, ‘When I die, if there’s no water in heaven, I’m coming back!’ ”

When asked why she decided to do the swim now, Ms. Archard couldn’t give any specific reason.

“It just popped into my head,” she said. “Well, my sister and I just went skydiving and I needed a new challenge. I’ve never had a fear of the water and I don’t really understand a fear of it.

“I actually said why don’t we go from here to Fire Island?” she continued, laughing. “And my friend said, ‘Joan … maybe next year.’ ”