Swimmer Lewis Pugh completes his mammoth channel swim from Land’s End to Dover
Endurance swimmer Lewis Pugh has completed his 330-mile swim along the length of the English Channel.
Arriving at the finish line on the pebbled Shakespeare Beach, the 48-year-old, was cheered on by dozens of supporters from a local swimming group.
Mr Pugh said he was “exhausted and exhilarated in equal measure” after he made an estimated 500,000 strokes across 49 days from Land’s End to Dover.
Mr Pugh, UN Patron of the Oceans, set off from Cornwall on July 12 wearing only swimming trunks, a cap and goggles and pushed himself to cover around six to 12 miles per day.
Despite being told he had tendonitis and advised to rest by his physiotherapist just 10 days before the end, he finally reached the finish line.
The taxing challenge was overseen by the Channel Swimming Association and The Long Swim is part of Mr Pugh’s mission to highlight inadequate protection of UK waters.
Before setting off, he warned of a “shocking” figure that just seven square kilometres (2.7 square miles) out of 750,000 square kilometres of coastal waters are fully protected.
He is calling on the government to urgently strengthen marine protected areas around the UK and its Overseas Territories.
Mr Pugh was accompanied by marine conservation campaigners Surfers Against Sewage on beach cleans along the south coast during his seven-week challenge.
And to welcome him back on dry land, members of the group took part in a litter-picking exercise.
For the past three decades Mr Pugh, from Plymouth, has been swimming the world’s waters and he has witnessed first-hand the threat that plastic pollution and climate change poses to the oceans.