317 Miles: Pushing The Limits Of Possibility - Ross Edgley

Take me through, uh, eh, w- what you've just done. What have you just completed?

Yeah, yeah. So, uh, I suppose after swimming around Great Britain, so the 157 days, 1,780 miles, uh, that was the world's longest stage sea swim. So stage just means basically that you swim to a certain waypoint, you get out on the boat, and then you start from that waypoint. You keep going until you go all the way around Great Britain. I sort of had this idea and sort of fascination with a, a nonstop continuous swim, which is just basically no sleeping, no touching land, no one can touch you. I don't know why, it just ignited a bit of a curiosity in me. Uh, tried a few times in different bodies of water, uh, Loch Ness, which didn't go entirely to plan.

Yeah. Go through, go through what happened with Loch Ness and the Italian one.

That's right. So, so Loch Ness was the first one, and, uh, that was, uh, 2022. Um, it was all to raise awareness around ocean conservation, uh, doing some brilliant work with Talisker and Parley, uh, protecting marine ecosystems around the world. We had everything set up. Like, I mean, Loch Ness is a body of water that you don't take lightly. Um, it's as long as the English Channel. The way that the wind picks up, so it's a massive funnel, so you'll just end up getting 10-foot waves. We're already pushing it into the winter, and then, um, the Queen actually died the day that we were meant to start. So obviously, out of sheer respect, you know, the entire country shut down. Then I sort of sat there knowing full well, and as a team, we're like, "Okay, this is now getting into the winter," which i- i- it goes from being ambitious to a, a little bit stupid. Um, but with all of that said, the goal was always to raise awareness around ocean conservation. So I was like, "Do you know what? Not ideal conditions, but, but let's go." So I sort of set off knowing, not to say it was doomed to fail, but, you know, the, the odds were stacked against us. Um, things were going pretty well, 53 hours in, uh, and then it just kind of went dark. And then I remember just waking up, a hospital bed seeing my mum (laughs) and my girlfriend, and I was like, "Ah, it's not gone well, has it?" (laughs) And they were like, "No, it's not." Uh, hypothermia, cellulitis was actually what stopped it, which is, uh, where the wetsuit was chafing, so bacteria infection. Uh, but basically when that gets in your lymph nodes or bloodstream, it can be fatal. So, so glad that the team sort of called it and the doctor did, uh, when they did. Fast-forward another year and I thought, "Do you know what? Let's get away from the cold. Let's go somewhere warm." Went to Italy, Tressimino. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Again, uh, paid for the boat, paid for crew, everybody's out there. And then, uh, an anticyclone from the Sahara Desert (laughs) ends up in Tresamino, which is kind of this huge dome as well, so it just became a massive sauna. Uh, but because of the authorities in Italy, they basically say, "If you're gonna swim in that lake," uh, you pay for permits, organized permits, it has to happen at that time. We flew camera crews out and, and crew, i- it had to happen. So we set off, I think in the shallows the water was like 36, 37. Uh, for those who-