Nuala heads off on bid to conquer Cape Horn

DINGLE’S ice queen, Nuala Moore, left town on Monday, bound for the cold and desolate lands at the remotest tip of South America where she plans to become the first person ever to swim from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean in the forbidding water off Cape Horn.

Nuala has many extreme cold water challenges under her belt, including ice swimming in Russia and swimming across the arctic waters of the Bering Strait , but this will be her greatest feat of endurance yet.

Storm-swept Cape Horn has a fearsome reputation as a graveyard of ships; the water temperature can be as cold as three degrees Celcius; and it’s a long way to civilisation if anything goes wrong. “This is by far one of the most remote and most difficult swims that can happen worldwide, based on the risks and the remoteness of the location,” said Nuala, who feels the one-mile swim in open water off Cape Horn will leave her more romote, more exposed and more vulnerable than she has ever before been.

But, accompanied by no more than a small backup team, she is confident and, as always, determind that she will meet and beat the challenge which is timed for later this month or early in April depending on weather conditions.

On her way home from Cape Horn Nuala plans to swim across the mouth of the Italy Glacier in the Beagle Straits and if she manages this 2km swim she will become only the second person in the world to complete the feat. However, she hopes to go one further and swim the 4km over and back across the fjord, which would give her another world first. To round off the trip, Nuala plans to swim across the Straits of Magellan which promises another 5km of freezing cold, highly dangerous, water.

To help Nuala on her way, Fenton’s restaurant in Dingle, are putting their ‘mussels’ behind her – this comes by way of a donation from sales of mussel starters in the restaurant… as well as giving Nuala a lift to Kerry Airport on Monday as she set out for South America.