I can’t even imagine swimming the Amazon from bank to bank. You simply aren’t going to get me in there - who knows what lurks beneath those green, murky waters. That isn’t stopping 52 year old Martin Strel from taking on the world’s greatest river and swimming it from start to finish.

Martin’s journey will start on Feb 1st, 2007 and take him 3,375 miles from Atalaya, Peru to the Atlantic Ocean at Belém, Brazil over the course of 70 days.

I don’t need to say it, but swimming the Amazon is no small task. The Amazon River is the most voluminous river on Earth, eleven times the volume of the Mississippi. The Amazon has six times greater total river flow than the next six largest rivers combined, and the largest drainage basin in the world. At the peak of the high water season, the river’s mouth may be 300 miles wide.

At some point on his lengthy journey Martin is sure to encounter some dangerous wildlife as he swims 11-12 hours a day. The Amazon is filled with snakes, crocodiles, sharks, and of course the notorious piranha. The Amazon Swim project as it is dubbed will have a support team of about 20 people working with Martin including Doctors and river guides. As a safety measure, the escort boats will carry “buckets of fresh blood to pour in the water in case the piranhas or other fish attack me,”.

Martin taught himself to swim when he was 6 and became a professional marathon swimmer in 1978. Martin holds several world records for endurance swimming including some Guinness Book world records. Some of his achievements include:

• 2000 - Martin first made the Guinness Book by becoming the first person to swim the entire 1867 miles of the Danube River from source to estuary.
• 2001 - Martin swam 313 miles non-stop in 84 hours 10 minutes, setting the world record for the furthest distance.
• 2002 - Martin swam the entire 2360 miles of the Mississippi River in 68 days, making him the first person to swim the river from source to estuary and putting him in the Guiness Book again.
• 2003 - Martin become the first man to swim the entire 1200 miles from Iguazzu Falls to the center of Buenos Aires in the Rio de La Plata.
• 2004 - Martin swam 2488 miles of the longest Chinese river and received another entry in the Guinness Book of Records.

According to his website, Martin is dedicating this feat to the preservation of the rainforest, to raising awareness for Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, and to promoting telemedicine as a valuable tool in bringing modern medicine to remote areas.

I think this is a great story and I wish him the best of luck. And I thought running 50 marathons in 50 days was tough…