Wow!
Never thought I'd see the day someone completed this swim. Incredible.BBC Website wrote:A South African man has become the first person ever to swim from the Mull of Kintyre in Scotland to the north Antrim coast in Northern Ireland.
Wayne Soutter, 43, who now lives and works in England, set off on the North Channel swim at 11:19 BST on Sunday.
He came ashore at Kenbane Head between Ballycastle and Ballintoy shortly before 23:30 BST on Sunday.
He was then taken to Ballycastle harbour to a welcoming reception.
His training had included a one-hour swim off the Northern Ireland coast which had allowed him to gauge currents and test his resilience to jellyfish stings.
Speaking about this session, he said: "It was, as expected, fairly cold but working hard enough you managed to keep warm.
"What was a little unexpected was the huge number of jellyfish I saw, about one jellyfish every minute. Now and again some of them were closer to the surface and I had to swim around them.
"The water was good for a fairly calm day, but sometimes we got into a bit of rough water and that made hard work of it. Overall it was good - I'm encouraged."
Wayne, was raising money for the Community Rescue Service, through his swim. He conquered the English Channel on his first attempt in 2012.
Sean McCarry, regional commander of the Community Rescue Service, had said it would be the most difficult swim that Wayne would undertake in his lifetime.
"He will be in the water for 8-10 hours and will have to contend with rip tides, jellyfish and possibly rough waters. To get to this level of fitness requires great determination."
Apart from the aforementioned jellyfish, the South African had to battle six feet waves as he approached his destination. The swim should be about 20 km in length if taken in a straight direction, but due to the the nature of the tide it was about 45km.
Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-19388990
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