Lewis Gordon Pugh
British environmental campaigner, maritime lawyer, and endurance swimmer.
A thought came across my mind: if things go pear-shaped on this swim, how long will it take for my frozen body to sink the four and a half kilometers to the bottom of the ocean?
Nothing excited me more than opening up the atlas and seeing places and seas, imagining what they looked like and what kind of life the people had.
There is nothing more powerful than the made-up mind.
Look around the world. Wherever you damage the environment, you have conflict. We have had enough conflict in [South Africa] – now is the time for peace.
The right to have our environment protected for the benefit of present and future generations is our most important human right.
I resolved to follow my dream. I wanted to push every boundary. I wanted to swim further than anyone else. I wanted to cross seas and round capes that no one had dreamed of swimming before. And I wanted to swim in waters that were so cold no one thought it was possible to survive in them. And though it promised to make me poor and would take away the security provided by a career in law, that didn’t worry me.
I have seen what the challenge of the impossible does to some athlete's minds - once their minds accept that the impossible is achievable, their bodies soon follow.
Going against the tide has never been difficult for me. It wasn’t even a conscious decision but the natural consequence of following my own instinct.
There’s nothing more chilling than swimming across open sea, where recently there used to be a solid glacier.
You don't know pain until you've had a stalactite in your cock.