British endurance swimmer ‘terrified’ by Ross Sea swim

British endurance swimmer Lewis Pugh has completed a swim in the most southerly place possible on Earth, describing it as “the most terrifying place I’ve every swum”.

British endurance swimmer, Lewis Pugh. Image by Kelvin Trautman/PA Wire.

Mr Pugh broke the world record for the most southerly swim for the second time in 10 days, as he battles to complete a series of swims in the freezing waters of the Antarctic to raise awareness of the need for a vast protected area in the region’s Ross Sea.

The oceans campaigner completed a 350 metre (1150 ft) swim in the Bay of Wales in the Ross Sea, the most southerly stretch of open sea on Earth, which was so-named by explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton due to the number of killer whales in the area.

Swimming in just his Speedos, Mr Pugh had to contend with a sea temperature of minus 1C, an air temperature of minus 37C and wind gusting at 40 knots, or 47mph (75kph).

He said: “The Bay of Wales is the most terrifying place I’ve ever swum.

“During the swim, a wave broke over my support boat, I took another stroke and when I looked up, the seawater had frozen on my crew. They were caked in ice instantly – that’s how cold it was.”

Mr Pugh, who has also swum in the Arctic, in a lake on Everest and in the Seven Seas of Europe and the Middle East, wants to see a vast protected area established in the Antarctic’s “pristine” Ross Sea, with damaging activities such as fishing banned.

The swimmer hopes his swims will encourage the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), 24 countries and the EU responsible for creating marine protected areas in the region, to give the sea protection.

If it went ahead, it would be the biggest protected area on Earth and larger than the UK, Germany and France put together, helping protect marine life including fish, seabirds, whales and penguins.

Mr Pugh is calling on the countries in CCAMLR, which is currently chaired by Russia, to save the Ross Sea in the same way they came together to protect the land area of Antarctica at the height of the Cold War.

He said: “The Ross Sea is a place I care deeply about. It’s the most pristine marine ecosystem left on Earth, with wildlife found nowhere else, and holds great scientific importance. It is now being destroyed by industrial fishing.

“Our generation is driving species to extinction and irreversibly altering ecosystems – leaving our children with a planet that is unsustainable,” he warned as he urged CCAMLR nations to urgently set the Ross Sea aside as a marine protected area forever.

(Press Association)