
Antarctic Circle Ice Challenge: The Goal, The Men, The Cause

Antarctic Circle Ice Challenge: The Goal, The Men, The Cause
Courtesy of WOWSA, Southern Ocean, Antarctica.In 1913, the famous explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton ran the recruitment ad shown above.
101 years after this ad, South Africans Toks Viviers, Andrew Chin, Ryan Stramrood, Kieron Palframan, Gavin Pike and Ram Barkai have figuratively signed up.
“Some claim the ad is a myth, who cares?” says Barkai, ever the imaginative and adventurous soul from Cape Town. “The reality is that Sir Shackleton managed to recruit a bunch as described in the ad before his famous Antarctica trip on his ship the Endurance. Maybe this ad and what followed for Shackleton can begin to demonstrate the billion-dollar question we are asked so often: Why?”
As Barkai and his band of merry ice swimmers describe, “Man has always been drawn to the raw beauty of nature – to the challenges it presents and to its ultimate power. There is nothing in the world as raw in its beauty as Antarctica. Its deadly beauty with its nature-made art, sculptures, deserts, frozen waves and glaciers. Its vastness and mysteries are beyond the world we know. It’s like an entire new hostile planet.
So imagine – you take a space shuttle to this ‘hostile planet’ – a place even Star Trek never dared venture, and instead of getting dressed in your protective space suit armed with technology and comfort, you rather undress, everything, put on a small brief swimming costume, cover your upper head with a silicon cap, place a pair of goggles on your eyes and the. dive in to the frozen liquid solution they call sea, on this newly discovered hostile planet and go for a swim.”
For us, Shackleton was not mad, but just an inspiration and the epitome of the human spirit.”
From a mid-winter swim in Lake Zurich in Europe to the Patagonia Extreme Cold Water Challenge at the tip of South America, Barkai and crew have always pushed the boundaries of open water swimming. “On February 21st, we will embark on a long flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina. From there we will take another long haul flight to Ushuaia, deep South into Patagonia, on the Beagle Channel. We have been there before, but on the other side, in Puerto Williams, Chile, where we swam across the Beagle Channel and back. We then headed to set our world first swim at Cape Horn around the Sailors Graveyard. We remember looking at the lights of Ushuaia saying we will be back one day to venture even further south.

Their swim is the Antarctic Circle Ice Challenge at the bottom of the world. At the surface, the challenge is simple: a one-mile attempt in this mass of swirling frigid waters. Practically, the logistics, costs and uncertainty of swimming in extreme conditions in an unpredictable open sea are significant obstacles to success. They will swim somewhere near where the ship is anchored, confirming the distance with GPS.
But the organization of the ice swims is complicated. “There are six of us so we will have to split into two or three teams and rotate once the a team has fully recovered. Although we will have a doctor, expedition professionals, zodiac and other support, in terms of ice swimming and enduring these temperatures, we are the experts and we will have to look after each other. No one there understands ice swimming quite like we do.”
With Barkai at the helm, the possibility and probability of a safe and successful execution of these grandiose plans is high. Although only three swims have been completed in Antarctica, Barkai claims one of them. In 2002 Lynne Cox was the first to swim in Antarctica at Neko Harbour around 60º South. She swam 1.2 miles in 25 minutes and wrote a book about her journey that inspired the current generation of Antarctic ice swimmers. In 2005 Lewis Pugh followed her footsteps and swam 1 mile in Deception Bay and an additional 1 km further south at around 65º South. In 2008, Barkai completed a 1 km swim in a frozen lake inland Antarctica at 70º South and was awarded with a Guinness World Record for the world’s most Southernly Swim.
“But no one has ever swum a mile south of the Antarctic Circle (66.5622° South),” describes the sextet of hardened adventurers. “The logistics of one swimmer compared to the much larger six swimmers, is exponentially more complicated. Risks are compounded, not just added. The attempt will take place in a bay which never seen a swimmer before. Water temperature in the area will vary between -2ºC to +1ºC. We hope for the ‘warmer’ 1ºC, but we have to prepare ourselves for lower temperatures.”
And preparation and planning is what these men do well, extraordinarily well. For every degree difference in the water temperature makes the swim and the recovery that much more difficult. While many ice swims are performed along a shore or in a pool that is carved out of a lake, the South Africans will be swimming in the open sea which brings about different challenges. “There are several possible hazards that we will need to avoid while swimming in the ice waters. One is floating glaciers and pieces of ice in different shapes ands sizes. They float and drift quite fast and constantly drop pieces weighing a ton or two right in our swim route. There are killer whales or orcas – the name we prefer. Thankfully they tend to avoid humans, but we may be not appear very human swimming in the frozen waters for some time.

And last, but not least, there are plenty of the 15 species of whales cruising around.”
Like the team of men that survived under the leadership of Sir Shackleton, the team that will attempt the Antarctic Circle Ice Challenge has been together for some time, attempting and completing some extraordinary adventures and extremely tough challenges for many years: Toks Viviers, Andrew Chin, Ryan Stramrood, Kieron Palframan and Ram Barkai.
When Toni Enderli had to withdraw, the team was thrown for a curve. “We needed to replace him with someone experienced, someone hard-core and someone who can handle for 14 days stuck on a ship under hugely stressful conditions, with us.
Since we, usually fund our own adventures, we have to operate on a shoestring budget – flying obscure cheap routes and spending hours and hours in various remote airports. The ship is the dearest part of the trip so we have managed to find two triple-bed rooms on the lower deck right alongside the ship’s engine room. So we needed a sixth swimmer. So we called on Gavin Pike, our sixth member. Gavin is based in Amsterdam with serious swimming credentials. He swam with Andrew and Ram most of the length of the Orange River, has done various long, extreme swims and is a good friend of ours. As world-renowned explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes said, ‘Choose your expedition partners very carefully. You will hate everything and each other at some stage in the middle of the expedition and if you can’t get over it and focus – it may be your life!’ We all have been there before and realised how true his words were, and still we are here together heading towards another unknown beautifully mad adventure.

We are embarking on this ice swim in the most extreme temperatures and environment possible so really hopeful of ‘favourable’ conditions to accomplish the challenge. I am loving the cold water preparation and feel exhilarated by the challenge ahead knowing full well that I will be filled with dread at the moment I need to take that plunge in Antarctica.”

To do this with some of my very best mates is the cherry on the top.”

But this is part of it and going into there with my best mates give a huge sense of comfort and anticipation of fun.”

Now I have this opportunity to do this and of course to be able to swim there makes it just an awesome experience. I know how tough this will be after experiencing a mile above the Arctic Circle a year ago where I pushed my body to its extreme.
However unpleasant I know it will be worth it in the end when we all come home successful and enriched by the Antarctic’s beauty.”


If any six individuals can achieve their dream, these men can.
Their track record in the English Channel, Alaska, Siberia, Murmansk, Bering Strait, Strait of Gibraltar, Alcatraz, Magellan Strait, Beagle Channel double, Cape Horn, Ice Miles, plenty of Robben Island crossings, the length of the Orange River and many more. More importantly, they all know each other very well and been together through many highs and lows in some hairy situations, always watching over each other.
“Yet, again, we are k………ing ourselves. We know we are heading for another unknown scary experience in a deadly beautiful place. Yet, we have to go, because we just love it,” explains Barkai.
But why?
“A common question after the “why are you doing it?” is “for what charity or cause?” It has always been an interesting question. We are all normal people with families, kids, mortgage bonds, and work. This is our passion. Yet, we love the ocean, we love nature and the outdoors and we promote its beauty and the need to care for it in every step of the way – it is after all our second home. It is for this reason that we have two complementing amazing causes we support through our challenges:
One being our new strategic partnership with World Wildlife Fund’s Sustainable Seafood Initiative (SASSI) where we provide a unique platform of exposure for them. SASSI champions the plight of all the oceans’ great inhabitants and educates on the many issues surrounding over-harvesting and consumption choices – it is the natural fit for us.
Our second support cause is very dear to our hearts and our pet project – The SEAL Open Water Swimming Trust that we established several years ago. We come across many causes and issues urgently requiring attention and we try to do our best – from teaching kids and people to swim in remote places, to promote healthy lifestyles and active lifestyles. We talk in schools and other institution and donate all the proceeds to the SEAL Trust. Our Trust support kids requiring assistance in development areas, supports established programs that teach swimming coaches so they in turn are well equipped to go to the development areas and teach kids to swim. And most of all we promote the human spirit and the need to lead healthy, active lifestyle.
Keep it cool, don’t overheat, over-harvest, pollute or steal from our home – the ocean.”
Copyright © 2008 – 2014 by World Open Water Swimming Association
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