By Manuel Ausloos
MARSEILLE, France (Reuters) – A French couple is training in the Mediterranean to prepare for what they hope will be a record-breaking three-month relay swim across the Atlantic.
Matthieu Witvoet and Chloe Leger Witvoet plan to set off from the island of Cape Verde, off the African coast, on November 1 for a 3,800-kilometre (2,360-mile) swim to the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe.
The couple will take turns swimming for six hours each every day and attempt to set records for the longest female ocean crossing as well as for the longest swimming relay “with drifting”, which means the boat they will sleep on will drift at night, which will account for part of the distance covered.
“This is ultra-swimming, and that is what we like to do,” Leger said.
In 2019, the couple swam across the Strait of Gibraltar from Spain to Morocco; in 2021, they swam down the Seine River from Paris to Deauville; and in 2023, they swam from Marseille to Barcelona.
Crossing the Atlantic is a challenge of a different level, though. Water temperatures are expected to hover around 23 degrees Celsius (73 Fahrenheit).
The couple has been preparing for two years, perfecting their technique to avoid injury.
“This summer, we did a lot of time swimming, we swam almost three to four hours a day, so we really got our bodies used to swimming that much per day,” Leger said.
Their catamaran sailboat will be crewed by four people, including a nurse.
The swim aims to raise awareness for ocean protection and they have created an educational kit for which more than 63,000 school children have signed up.
Kids and their teachers will receive weekly lesson plans on ocean-related topics such as biodiversity and pollution as students follow the swimmers’ progress.
“If we don’t complete the physical challenge but succeed in the awareness campaign, we will have succeeded more than if we complete the swim but fail the awareness campaign,” Leger said.
(Reporting by Manuel Ausloos, editing by Geert De Clercq, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
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