VINEYARD HAVEN — A British-South African endurance athlete crossed the end line of his 62-mile multi-day swim round Martha’s Winery on Monday, turning into the primary individual to swim all the best way across the island.
Lewis Pugh, 55, started swimming a number of hours a day within the 47 diploma water on Might 15 to boost consciousness in regards to the plight of sharks because the movie “Jaws” nears its fiftieth birthday. He needs to vary public perceptions and encourage protections for the at-risk animals — which he mentioned the movie maligned as “villains, as cold-blooded killers.”
“We’ve been fighting sharks for 50 years,” he mentioned after finishing the final 1.2 miles of the swim earlier than exiting the ocean on the Edgartown Harbor Lighthouse, close to the place “Jaws” was filmed. “Now, we need to make peace with them.”
In whole, Pugh swam for about 24 hours over 12 days. His first cease in Edgartown after greeting cheering followers on the seaside was at an ice cream store, the place he loved a cone of salted caramel and berry brownie.
Tough waters, chilly swim
Pugh mentioned this was amongst his most troublesome endurance swims in an virtually 40-year profession, which says loads for somebody who has swum close to glaciers and volcanoes, and amongst hippos, crocodiles and polar bears. Pugh was the primary athlete to swim throughout the North Pole and full a long-distance swim in each one of many world’s oceans.
He mentioned he anticipated the swim to be troublesome due to the water temperature, the space and the truth that it was taking place throughout the begin of shark migration season. However the climate proved probably the most difficult component 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 mentioned. “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 sporting simply trunks, a cap and goggles, enduring foul climate as a nor’easter dumped 7 inches of rain on elements of New England and flooded streets on Martha’s Winery.
Some days, he was solely in a position to make it a bit of over half a mile earlier than wind and waves made it unattainable to see past an arm’s size forward. In some circumstances, he needed to make up misplaced distance by swimming a number of 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 mentioned. “And meanwhile you’re fighting currents.”
Serving to shield sharks
However Pugh — who has been named a United Nations Patron of the Oceans and infrequently swims to elevate consciousness for environmental causes — mentioned no swim is with out threat, and that drastic measures are wanted to get his message throughout: About 274,000 sharks are killed globally every day, a fee of practically 100 million yearly, in line with the American Affiliation for the Development of Science.
On Monday, Pugh referred to as the decimation of sharks an “ecocide.”
“I think protecting sharks is the most important part of the jigsaw puzzle of protecting the oceans,” he mentioned.
“Jaws,” which was filmed in Edgartown, and referred to as Amity Island for the film, created Hollywood’s blockbuster tradition when it was launched in summer season 1975, setting new field workplace data and incomes three Academy Awards. The film would form views of the ocean for many years to return.
Each director Steven Spielberg and writer Peter Benchley expressed remorse that viewers of the movie grew to become so afraid of sharks, and each later contributed to conservation efforts as their populations declined, largely resulting from industrial fishing.
Pugh’s endeavor additionally coincided with the New England Aquarium’s first confirmed sighting this season of a white shark, off the close by island of Nantucket. As a precaution, Pugh was accompanied on his swim by security personnel in a ship and a kayak, whose paddler is utilizing a “Shark Shield” system to create a low-intensity electrical subject within the water to discourage sharks with out harming them.
There have been no shark sightings alongside Pugh’s journey, however he mentioned he noticed solar fish, seals and terns.
He now plans to journey to New York for just a few days to do interviews in regards to the swim and talk about shark conservation earlier than returning to his dwelling of Plymouth, England.
“Now the real hard work starts, which is getting this message to policy makers,” Pugh mentioned.
