泳渡北极海 swimming across the North Pole

Swimming across the North Pole

Today, I want to talk about swimming across the North Pole, across the

Northest of the world. And perhaps the best place to start is with my

father. He was a great storyteller. He could tell a story about an event, and

so you felt you were absolutely there at the moment. And one of the story

he told me when I was a young boy, was about the first British atomic

bomb test. He had been there, and watched it go off. He said that the

explosion was so loud and the light was so intense that he should put his

hands in front of his face to protect his eyes. He said he could actually see

the X-ray of his fingers, because the light was so bright. And I know

watching that atomic bomb going off had a big impact on my late father.

Every holiday I had as a young boy was in a national park. What he is

trying to inspire me is to protect the world and show me just how fragile

the world is. He loved history. He would tell me about Captain Scott and

walking all the way to the South Pole, and Sir Edmund Hillary climbing

up the Mount Everest. And so ever since I think I was just six years old. I

was dreaming to go to the Polar Regions. I really really wanted to go the

Arctic. There was something about that place which drew me to it. And

well, sometimes it took a long time for a dream to come true. Seven years

ago I went to the arctic for the first time. And it was so beautiful that I’ve

been back there ever since, for the last seven years. I love the place. But I

have seen polar bears walking very very thin ice in search of food. I have swum in front of glaciers which have retreated so much. And I have also,

every year, seen less and less sea ice. And I wanted the world to know

what was happening up there. In the two years before my swim 23

percent of the arctic sea ice cover just melted away. And I really wanted

to shake the lapels of world leaders to get them to understand what is

happening, so I decided to do this symbolic swim at the top of the world,

in a place which should be frozen over, which now is rapidly unfreezing.

And the message was very clear, climate change is for real. And we need

to do something about it. And we need to do something about it right now.

Well, swimming across the North Pole, is not an ordinary thing to do. I

mean, just put it in perspective, 27 degrees is the temperature of a normal

indoor swimming pool. This morning the temperature of the English

Channel was 18 degrees. The passengers who fell off the Titanic fell into

water of just 5 degree centigrade. Fresh water freezes at zero. And water

at the North Pole is minus 1.7. It’s fucking freezing. I’m sorry but there is

no other way to describe it. And I had to assemble an incredible team

around me to help me with this task. I assembled this team with 29 people

from 10 nations. Some people think swimming is a very solo sport, you

just dive into the sea and off you go. It couldn’t be further from the truth

for me. And then went the did a huge amount of training, swimming in

icy water, back words and forwards. But the most important thing was to

train my mind to prepare myself for what was going to happen. And I had to visualize the swim. I had to see it from the beginning all the way to the

end. I had to taste the salt water in my mouth. I had to see my coach

screaming for me “ Come on Lewis, Come on. Go, Go, Go, don’t slow

down.” So I literally swam across the North Pole hundreds and hundreds

times in my mind. And then after a year of training I felt ready. I felt

confident that I could actually do this swim. So myself and the five

members of the team, we hitched a ride on an icebreaker which was going

to the North Pole. And on day four, we decided to do just do a quick five

minute test swim. I had never swum in water of minus 1.7 degrees before,

because it’s just impossible to train, in those types of conditions. So we

stopped the ship, as you do, we all got down onto the ice and I then got

into my swimming costume and I dived into the sea. I had never in my

life felt anything like that moment. I could barely breath, I was gasping

for air. I was hyperventilating so much. And within seconds my hands

were numb. And it was, the paradox is you’re in freezing cold water but

actually you’re on fire. I swum as hard as I could for five minutes. I

remember just trying to get out of the water. I climbed out of the ice. And

I remember taking the goggles off my face, and looking down at my

hands in sheer shock. Because my fingers had swollen so much that they

were like sausages. And they were swollen so much I couldn’t even close

them. What had happened is that we are made partially of water. Water