AQUAMAN OF GREAT BRITAIN
First to circle the isle
An English adventurer, fueled by more than 600 bananas, on Sunday became the first person to ever swim around Great Britain.
A crowd of hundreds cheered as Ross Edgley, 33, swam ashore after covering 1,791 miles and spending 157 days at sea. Sunday marked the first time the thrill-seeker had set foot on dry land since June 1.
“It was so strange” to be out of the water, the Grantham man told The Guardian after making landfall in Margate, where he had begun his epic swim. “I was just really worried I was gonna stack it and face-plant the floor.”
“I got out of the water, and thought, ‘This is gonna be amazing. I’ll run in like ‘Baywatch.’ The reality is that I’m really chubby now, really hairy, and I had a pink tow buoy.”
For his water-logged odyssey, Edgley swam in two six-hour stints per day — enough for the salt water to partially disintegrate his tongue, the BBC reported. He climbed aboard a support boat in between swimming for a little rest and a lot of refueling.
Edgley pounded down 10,000 to 15,000 calories a day to keep going, according to The Guardian, with his menu including pasta, pizza, rice pudding, about 610 bananas and 314 cans of Red Bull, which sponsored his feat.
Along the way, he was plagued by a chafing-induced neck wound, a suspected torn shoulder, his sore tongue and 37 jellyfish stings.
And in a whirlpool off Scotland, a jellyfish latched onto Edgley’s face for a full half-hour.
“The sting was searing into my skin. It wrapped around my goggles,” he said. “It was brutal, but you couldn’t stop.”
He had much more awe-inspiring encounters, as well. For five miles in the Bristol Channel, he was escorted by a minke whale.
“For all the jellyfish stings and the hardship, you get a moment like that which you’ll only ever get if you spend 12 hours swimming in the sea every day for 157 days,” he told The Guardian. “It was amazing . . . I hope she writes me.”
The voyage was just the latest superhuman feat for Edgley, who climbed a rope the height of Mount Everest in 19 hours and ran a marathon tethered to a small car.
In addition to becoming the first swimmer to circumnavigate Great Britain, he more than doubled the previous record for the longest staged sea swim of 73 days.
Edgley had hoped to complete the trip in a mere 100 days.
He told relatives among the throng waiting for his arrival, “Sorry I’m late.”