Lewis Pugh - Water Quotes

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I have been haunted by that swim through the whale graveyard and haven't been able to get the image of the bones out of my head. Man hunted whales almost to the point of extinction, not seeming to care that we would lose one of the wonders of the sea world forever. It is the coldness of the water in Antarctica that preserves the bones and makes it look like they were left there yesterday but I like to think they are there as a reminder of man's potential for folly.

Lewis Pugh
Everywhere water is under threat. It is our most precious resource. And there is no alternative to it.

Lewis Pugh
Never, ever did I think that there would be a debate in this arid country about which was more important – gas or water. We can survive without gas. We cannot live without water.

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
We made fracking a civil rights issue. Because that is what it is. We all have a right to a healthy environment and to clean water. And so do our children.

Lewis Pugh
I tolerate cold water. Anyone who says they love swimming in freezing water is either lying or has never done it.

Lewis Pugh
A healthy ocean is an ocean with sharks. Take away an apex predator and it's like removing the lions from the Serengeti. It won't be long before the gazelle, zebras and wildebeest have multiplied and eaten all the grass. And when the land is laid bare the grazers will starve to death. Predators are crucial for a healthy ecosystem – be it on land or in the water.

Lewis Pugh
My love for the water would always be tempered by respect for dangers that must never be underestimated.

Lewis Pugh
The English Channel is the perfect stretch of water to truly test the human mind.

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
Ultimately I wanted to be a pioneer swimmer, a distant descendant of Scott, Amundsen and Hillary, except that I would be an explorer of the water.

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