Lewis Pugh - Thought Quotes

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A thought came across my mind: if things go pear-shaped on this swim, how long will it take for my frozen body to sink the four and a half kilometers to the bottom of the ocean?

Lewis Pugh
I could not believe what I was seeing: everywhere there were whale bones. Thousands of them stacked on top of each other. They rose from the seabed almost to the surface of the water. There were big bones. I could make out many of them: rib bones, jaw bones, vertebrae. In some places they were piled so high that, when I took a stroke, my hands touched them. I thought of all the beautiful whales I'd seen around the coast of South Africa and Norway that add so much to the area. How many whales were hunted and brought to this island before having their carcasses burned for oil and their bones dumped in this way? It disgusted me to such an extent that I considered stopping the swim to move it elsewhere, but I decided I had to press on.

Lewis Pugh
Thoughts alone won't make extraordinary things happen. But nothing ever happens if you don't visualise it first.

Lewis Pugh
I resolved to follow my dream. I wanted to push every boundary. I wanted to swim further than anyone else. I wanted to cross seas and round capes that no one had dreamed of swimming before. And I wanted to swim in waters that were so cold no one thought it was possible to survive in them. And though it promised to make me poor and would take away the security provided by a career in law, that didn't worry me.

Lewis Pugh
A massive turquoise glacier feeds into Magdalenefjord, with chunks of ice as big as buildings breaking off and landing in the water to float away as icebergs. As I swam past them, with my head in the water, I heard a tantalising sound: a snap-crackle-pop, just like Rice Krispies in milk. It was the sound of tiny air bubbles being released from the ice – air that had been trapped there as much as 3,000 years ago. To swim through this sound, I thought, is to swim in history.

Lewis Pugh