April 9, 2007

The unsinkable Slovenian

It's a dark and stormy day. Martin Strel considers the weather a minor inconvenience as he slips into the river headwaters at Atalaya, Peru.

His rotund 250 pound frame belies his ability. Martin will swim almost twelve hours down the Amazon River and cover a distance of 63 miles. Not bad for a good swimmer, but Martin is going to outdo himself. He has 69 more days of swimming ahead.

His time in the water will run about ten to twelve hours a day. His skin will chafe from the wetsuit. His face will burn and peel in the equatorial sun. Alligators will watch him pass, as will the anaconda's, piranha's and river pirates.

His stamina is tested against diarrhea, cramps, dehydration, larval infections and chronic insomnia. All of that said, Martin isn't exactly a stranger to these kind of problems.

Over the past years, he swam 1,866 miles down the Danube, 2,360 miles along the Mississippi and another 2,487 miles down the Yangtze in China. This, however, is going to be his longest.

His escort boats pour blood into the river, away from Martin, to distract the sharks and other predators. Some days he has to be pulled out and treated for exhaustion and sunburn. As tiring as the ordeal is, he faces another challenge.

Tidal bores are waves created in certain places where a river widens as it meets the ocean. This funnel shape rapidly increases the height of the incoming tide. Martin slams into a 13 foot tidal bore and fights the incoming current as he nears the end of his journey.

On April 5, Martin Strel completes a record breaking distance of 3,274 miles. He's pulled from the Amazon River at Belem and is carried to a local hospital for vertigo, high blood pressure, nausea and delirium. Last we heard, he's okay.

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