Meeting People Along The Shore

Courtesy of Lewis Pugh, Arabian Sea. Photos courtesy of Kelvin Trautman. Back in August 1994, Lewis Pugh swam 7 marathon swims to encourage governments to establish Marine Protected Areas.

Pugh‘s campaign was called Seven Swims In The Seven Seas For 1 Reason:

* 10 km in the Mediterranean Sea in Monte Carlo, Monaco in 3 hours 33 minutes
* 10 km in the Adriatic Sea in Zadar, Croatia in 3 hours 55 minutes
* 10 km in the Aegean Sea in Athens, Greece in 3 hours 12 minutes
* 10 km in the Black Sea in Istanbul, Turkey in 2 hours 48 minutes
* 15 km in the Red Sea in Aqaba, Jordan in 2 hours 57 minutes
* 10 km in the Arabian Sea in Rass Al Hadd, Oman in 3 hours 15 minutes
* 60 km stage swim in the North Sea ending in London, United Kingdom

He recalled his adventure, “I did all these swims back to back, but one important thing struck me. When we left the capital cities, and the noise, and the traffic, we found amazing people. This was especially the case for our swim in the Black Sea and the swim in Arabian Sea.

In the Black Sea, we met up with some Turkish swimmers who took us to a superb location.

In the Arabian Sea, we drove all the way down the coast to near Yemen – where I found an old fisherman to escort me in his traditional arab dhow. My skipper on the Arabian Sea swim along the Arabian Desert was beautiful man who fished while I swam, much the way his ancestors have done for generations. A few hundred kilometers away, there was a major civil war underway.”

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