On Monday, an endurance athlete from Britain and South Africa achieved a remarkable feat by becoming the first individual to swim the entire circumference of Martha’s Vineyard. His journey spanned 60 miles (97 kilometers) over several days, aimed at raising awareness about shark conservation as the 50th anniversary of the film “Jaws” approaches.
At the age of 55, Lewis Pugh embarked on this challenge starting May 15, enduring waters as cold as 47 degrees (8 degrees Celsius) for several hours each day. His mission is to shift public opinion and advocate for the protection of sharks, who he believes were unjustly portrayed as “villains, as cold-blooded killers” by the iconic movie.
“We’ve been at odds with sharks for the past 50 years,” Pugh stated after finishing the last stretch of his swim, a 1.2-mile (2-kilometer) segment, at Edgartown Harbor Lighthouse, close to the “Jaws” filming location. “It’s time to reconcile with them now.”
In total, Pugh swam for about 24 hours over 12 days. His first stop in Edgartown after greeting cheering fans on the beach was at an ice cream shop, where he enjoyed a cone of salted caramel and berry brownie.
Rough waters made a cold swim harder
Pugh said this was among his most difficult endurance swims in an almost 40-year career, which says a lot for someone who has swum near glaciers and volcanoes, and among hippos, crocodiles and polar bears. Pugh was the first athlete to swim across the North Pole and complete a long-distance swim in every one of the world’s oceans.
He said he expected the swim to be difficult because of the water temperature, the distance and the fact that it was happening during the start of shark migration season. But the weather proved the most challenging element of all.
“It’s been a long journey, it really has – 12 days, cold water, constant wind, waves, and then always thinking of what may be beneath me. It’s been a big swim. A very big swim,” he said. “When you swim for 12 days, you leave as one person and I think you come back as a different person with a new reflection on what you’ve been through.”
Day after day, Pugh entered the island’s frigid waters wearing just trunks, a cap and goggles, enduring foul weather as a nor’easter dumped 7 inches (18 centimeters) of rain on parts of New England and flooded streets on Martha’s Vineyard.
Some days, he was only able to make it a little over half a mile (1 kilometer) before wind and waves made it impossible to see beyond an arm’s length ahead. In some cases, he had to make up lost distance by swimming multiple legs in a day.
“I was just getting really cold and swallowing a lot of sea water, not making headway and then you’re constantly thinking, ‘Are we taking the right route here? Should we go further out to sea? Should we get closer in?'” he said. “And meanwhile you’re fighting currents.”
British South African endurance swimmer Lewis Pugh stretches before entering the water to complete his 12-day nearly 60-mile swim around the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.
AP Photo/Leah Willingham
Endurance swimmer’s latest feat is meant to help protect sharks
But Pugh – who has been named a United Nations Patron of the Oceans and often swims to raise awareness for environmental causes – said no swim is without risk, and that drastic measures are needed to get his message across: About 274,000 sharks are killed globally each day, a rate of nearly 100 million every year, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
On Monday, Pugh called the decimation of sharks an “ecocide.”
“I think protecting sharks is the most important part of the jigsaw puzzle of protecting the oceans,” he said.
“Jaws,” which was filmed in Edgartown, and called Amity Island for the movie, created Hollywood’s blockbuster culture when it was released in summer 1975, setting new box office records and earning three Academy Awards. The movie would shape views of the ocean for decades to come.
Both director Steven Spielberg and author Peter Benchley expressed regret that viewers of the film became so afraid of sharks, and both later contributed to conservation efforts as their populations declined, largely due to commercial fishing.
Pugh’s endeavor also coincided with the New England Aquarium’s first confirmed sighting this season of a white shark, off the nearby island of Nantucket. As a precaution, Pugh was accompanied on his swim by safety personnel in a boat and a kayak, whose paddler is using a “Shark Shield” device to create a low-intensity electric field in the water to deter sharks without harming them.
There were no shark sightings along Pugh’s journey, but he said he saw sun fish, seals and terns.
He now plans to travel to New York for a few days to do interviews about the swim and discuss shark conservation before returning to his home of Plymouth, England.
“Now the real hard work starts, which is getting this message to policy makers,” Pugh said.
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