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Speaker 1: For years, people were trying, but nobody got it right.

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Speaker 1: And then on the twenty sixth of February this year summer,

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Speaker 1: Dina Levivich of Croatia, she became the first person in

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Speaker 1: the world to complete the full circumnavigation swim of Saint

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Speaker 1: Alena Island, roughly forty eight kilometers. She did it in

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Speaker 1: seventeen hours and thirteen minutes. And then on the eleventh

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Speaker 1: of March, so what, that's just two weeks later, Angus

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Speaker 1: McPherson became the first man to complete the circumnavigation. He

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Speaker 1: finished quite a lot slower than Dina Levicic just over

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Speaker 1: twenty hours twenty hours, seven minutes and twenty three seconds

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Speaker 1: for those of you who like precise timings. And then

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Speaker 1: just a couple of days ago, Ryan Stramrud, who knows

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Speaker 1: a thing or two about endurance swimming, became the third

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Speaker 1: person to swim around and he has the record time

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Speaker 1: of the three that have done the swim quite a lot,

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Speaker 1: quite a lot quicker sixteen hours, fifteen minutes and forty

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Speaker 1: two seconds, So that's twenty two minutes, twenty three minutes

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Speaker 1: quicker than Dina Levechitch and he is with us now

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Speaker 1: via zoom from Saint Alina. Hello Ryan and congratulations.

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Speaker 2: Oh thank you so much, John, Thanks for the interest.

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Speaker 1: It's I don't know how many people have tried and

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Speaker 1: failed in the years before, but to what you ascribe

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Speaker 1: the fact that in the space of what February the

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Speaker 1: twenty sixth, so in less than a month, three people

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Speaker 1: have done what nobody'd ever done before.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, John, I don't I think besides one unofficial attempt

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Speaker 2: that we know of, no one has ever tried it.

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Speaker 2: And then a business called Open Water Africa run by

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Speaker 2: Howard James, decided he wants to try and open the

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Speaker 2: route because it's an exceptionally remote and difficult swim to

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Speaker 2: do with wild waters and lots of unknowns. And he

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Speaker 2: liaised with the island and put a team together that

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Speaker 2: when you arrive on the island you've got a rib

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Speaker 2: rubber duck next to you and a support boat and

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Speaker 2: lots of other logistics. And he opened it up there

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Speaker 2: to say, hey, anyone want to give this ago and

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty six being an exceptionally pioneering here, I think

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Speaker 2: his business actually starts officially next year. And I put

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Speaker 2: my hand up as quickly as I could, which happened

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Speaker 2: to be in third position Angus and Dina crept in

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Speaker 2: there just before me.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so, and I mean, how much did you know

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Speaker 1: about what you were taking on by putting up your

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Speaker 1: hand when your hand went up?

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Speaker 2: Very little? So you know, I'm an ultra extreme swimmer, John,

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Speaker 2: I've been doing this for a long time, and I

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Speaker 2: look around and lay in waiting for something that pings

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Speaker 2: the right things that I need pinged in my head

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Speaker 2: to say, hang on, that might be something I want

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Speaker 2: to take on. And when I read that, and I

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Speaker 2: saw Santa Helena and forty eight kilometers, which is in

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Speaker 2: fact they sold it as forty five initially, but I've

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Speaker 2: soon figured that was wrong. Just the pioneering element of that,

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Speaker 2: the things that you know. It's very difficult to go

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Speaker 2: and do a swim where you know so little. You

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Speaker 2: know nothing. I mean when I put my name, no

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Speaker 2: one had ever done it. So you don't know the currents,

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Speaker 2: you don't know the wind. It's around an island. Therefore,

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Speaker 2: whatever wind's blowing, sometimes it's going to be good for you,

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Speaker 2: and sometimes it's going to be bad for you. And

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Speaker 2: what happens in the middle is the big question mark.

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Speaker 2: So there were so many unknowns around it, and I

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Speaker 2: just was immediately taken to the pioneering element. I also

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Speaker 2: know Howard James, and I wanted to work with him

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Speaker 2: to be one of the first to give it a

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Speaker 2: go and see if we can put it on the

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Speaker 2: map as a swimming destination.

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Speaker 1: I guess the distance of just under forty eight kilometers.

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Speaker 1: That wouldn't have frightened you.

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Speaker 2: It did. It's by farther the furthest I have ever swam. Ah. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: you know. You take an English Channel, which is the

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Speaker 2: everest of all open water swims, it's exception difficult. That's

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Speaker 2: thirty four kilometers. You take the False Bay in Cape

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Speaker 2: Towns heard, that's thirty three kilometers. They all monster swims.

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Speaker 2: So and I can tell you now, anyone who's done

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Speaker 2: those swims who walks out and thinks they might have

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Speaker 2: another fifteen kilometers after that to do, is going to

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Speaker 2: shake their head. So I was daunted by John very much.

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Speaker 2: So it was definitely me walking a little bit of

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Speaker 2: the talk that I preached around the world on stages,

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Speaker 2: and that is to set goals you're actually not sure

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Speaker 2: you can achieve. It's going to push you out of

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Speaker 2: that comfort zone. So I set it. But the one

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Speaker 2: thing I knew which gave me a bit of peace

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Speaker 2: of mind was that it was not cold water. You know,

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Speaker 2: I've done so much in the element of cold and

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Speaker 2: doing anything without a wetsuit, and the element of cold

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Speaker 2: is ten times more difficult than with the element of cold,

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Speaker 2: or sorry, without the element of cold. And Santa Lena

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Speaker 2: water was twenty five degrees celsius. So eliminated that freak

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Speaker 2: out for me, and all I had to do was

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Speaker 2: concentrate on getting my body and my mind ready for

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Speaker 2: an ultra distance, ultramarathon, swim distance, and then of course

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Speaker 2: all the curve galls come along.

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Speaker 1: Yeah did the fact that two did you learn anything

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Speaker 1: from what the two before you had achieved?

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Speaker 2: Yes? Yes I did. So. When I learned that the

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Speaker 2: were to go ahead of me, just you know, two

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Speaker 2: weeks and a week ahead of me, yeah I was.

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Speaker 2: I was a little disappointed, to be honest, because I

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Speaker 2: would have loved to have been the first to give

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Speaker 2: it a shot. But given that that was what it was,

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Speaker 2: I obviously then set out to make sure I learn

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Speaker 2: as much as possible. But I can tell you now

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Speaker 2: on the twentieth swim around this island, John, we will

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Speaker 2: still be learning things about which wind to go and

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Speaker 2: what tired to go, and what works and what doesn't work.

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Speaker 2: So I definitely drew off Angus's swim. Angus has also

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Speaker 2: been sharing so much info we good friends back home

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Speaker 2: as well. So you know, just I've been like a

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Speaker 2: magnet to Siphon to suck out information from him, and

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Speaker 2: I got it all and then I put it all

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Speaker 2: in in my pipe, and I took all my research.

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Speaker 2: And you know, there's a swimming saying that that says,

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Speaker 2: suck in as much info as you can, then disregard

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Speaker 2: it all into it your way anyway, which is pretty

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Speaker 2: much what I did.

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Speaker 1: And then let's talk about the swim. How difficult was it?

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Speaker 1: Pepa Hudson was telling me that she'd seen photographs of

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Speaker 1: all three of you coming out of the water, and

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Speaker 1: you look knocked and battered and bruised and a word

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Speaker 1: that I can't say on radio. I mean, what was

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Speaker 1: the reality of it, Like, what were some of the

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Speaker 1: curve balls that research didn't prepare you for?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, John, one of my family members said, I look

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Speaker 2: way worse than Dricas after a fight but I really

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Speaker 2: battled on that swim. You know, a subtle change in

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Speaker 2: wind direction or wind speed can change the swim completely.

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Speaker 2: And there's what I term washing machine water. So I'm

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Speaker 2: not scared of swell and rough water because somewhere in

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Speaker 2: that you find a little bit of uniformity and you

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Speaker 2: can figure out what your rhythm needs to be. When

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Speaker 2: you are going around an island and you have these

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Speaker 2: swells that are bashing up against these big, dramatic cliff

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Speaker 2: faces and then reverberating back off, plus you have deep

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Speaker 2: water becoming very shallow quickly as it comes up to

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Speaker 2: the island, it causes a washing machine effect where there

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Speaker 2: is no way you can can find any rhythm. And

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Speaker 2: that is hugely disconcerting for a swim because all I

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Speaker 2: want to do, knowing that distance forty eight kilometers ahead,

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Speaker 2: is to slide into some kind of rhythm and get

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Speaker 2: my mind where it needs to be. And Santa Leanna

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Speaker 2: Island Swim did not allow that for one second. For me,

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Speaker 2: every stroke felt like an effort.

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Speaker 1: And the time of six just under several little closer

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Speaker 1: to seventeen than to sixteen. The what's the longest you've

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Speaker 1: been in the water, before. This is by far the

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Speaker 1: longest swim in terms of kilometers, so how much more time?

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Speaker 2: The English Channel for me was a twelve hour and

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Speaker 2: fifty four minutes swim. False about it a lot quicker.

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Speaker 2: I've done other swims, like twenty four hour swims, but

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Speaker 2: those are in a swimming pool you get to stand

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Speaker 2: on the bottom, so I don't count this. So this

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Speaker 2: was by far the longest. You start. I started at

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Speaker 2: twelve pm or sorry, twelve am, so in the middle

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Speaker 2: of the night, which is its own set of dynamics

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Speaker 2: because it's very hard. You know, you're starting something that's

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Speaker 2: going to take you seventeen hours of extreme effort, and

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Speaker 2: you're starting at midnight, and it's very hard to sleep

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Speaker 2: before that and to get your meals in before that,

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Speaker 2: and so it's quite a it's quite a lot of

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Speaker 2: planning and prep that has to go in it. And

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Speaker 2: then you start by swimming in this tumultuous water along

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Speaker 2: these cliff faces in the absolute pitch dark, the kind

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Speaker 2: of only the darkness you can find in a super

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Speaker 2: remote island in the South Atlantic. It is super dark.

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Speaker 2: And yeah, so the first sort of six and a

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Speaker 2: half seven hours are in the dark and then the

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Speaker 2: light comes up and you start to feel a little

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Speaker 2: bit of joy in your body. And with that, this

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Speaker 2: massive whale shock just appeared out of nowhere right like

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Speaker 2: underneath me, and the full length of its body going

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Speaker 2: underneath me, which was beautiful, majestic, but also gave me

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Speaker 2: a little bit of a shock back to my senses.

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Speaker 1: An incredible, incredible experience. Maybe maybe when you're back in

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Speaker 1: South Africa, takes some photographs and because you can't bring

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Speaker 1: us your battered body because it will be less battered

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Speaker 1: by the time you get back to South Africa, but

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Speaker 1: be lovely to talk to her because I'm starting to

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Speaker 1: get questions from listeners which we don't have time to

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Speaker 1: put to you and get your answer. But perhaps we

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Speaker 1: can have you in studio when you're back. So thank

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Speaker 1: you very much for talking to us, and really well done,

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Speaker 1: not just to you but to the other two who

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Speaker 1: have done it as well. But you did it quickest