(NEWSER) – Martin Strel swims with a knife strapped to his right leg—in case he encounters sharks, “vampire” fish, and other deadly marine life in the world’s wildest waters. Yesterday, the 60-year-old marathon swimmer from Phoenix announced the toughest feat of his life: a 10,000-mile around-the-world voyage on water to draw public attention to increasing aquatic pollution. “And for peace and love,” Strel added in his native Slovenian. He aims to circle the globe in about 450 days, starting in Long Beach, Calif., on March 22 and passing through oceans, rivers, canals, and other bodies of water in more than 100 countries. He’ll swim about five to 12 hours each day, depending on the weather and changing currents; an escort boat will offer emergency support and space for small breaks.
Since 2000, Strel has swum the entire length of five rivers—the piranha-infested Amazon, the Danube in Eastern Europe, China’s Yangtze, the Parana in South America, and the Mississippi, earning him the nickname “Big River Man.” On his South American swims, he watches out for the candiru, the “most dangerous fish on the planet” (it bores into every human cavity and grows by feeding on human flesh and blood); says piranhas “are OK”; and isn’t freaked out by sharks, which he says leave him alone if he swims in the same direction as them and doesn’t confront them. He’s still finalizing details of his adventure, a multimillion-dollar jaunt that will once more include the Panama and Suez canals, the English Channel, and the Amazon, as well as the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the Red Sea. Strel says he welcomes anyone who’s interested to join him for stretches of the route.

Is this going to be a trend now? old people swimming long distances? Look I’ve had a bone to pick for a longtime now and i just didn’t find the right time to say it. I sense this little publicity stunt was birthed since that lady Diana Nyad had that record for swimming from cuba to the very bottom end of Florida. Honestly I was gonna write this blog on one of the few years anniversary but she was insignificant in my life but since that happened on August 31, we’re only a couple weeks behind.

That shit was such a publicity move for such a lame thing to applaud her for accomplishing. Im sure she feels good about it, and im not saying she shouldn’t. Swimming burns cals like a wildfire in a dry forest. But the world made it seem like the biggest deal on the planet at the time when really it wasn’t. First off, it was her 5th attempt. The bigger applaud should just be not giving up after failing 4 times but all of that aside the asterisk on her swimming was only because she did it without a god damn giant cage that floats around her like this 

Yea the excitement of her possibly being eaten by a shark or stung by jelly fish it would’ve been awesome but if we’re talking about just the swim, then im just not impressed. Besides that she had a team of people swimming around her just tossing jelly fish aside and fucking up any marine life that came in her path. Its basically the same thing. Theres been a ton of speculation that she cheated a bit with people wanting all the gps data and shit but that doesnt even matter to me Because it was this ladies 5th attempt at something that was kind of already done and a bit more impressive years ago.

What we know for sure is Diana Nyad had a 35 person team with her. Pretty much a god damn party pulling her along the way with a complete like Aqua man suit to prevent her to get stung by jelly fish so the cage is relatively inconsequential at that point, and swam 110 miles in 53 hours.  Well guess what, this distance had been done before in a billion times faster by this chick names Susie Maroney.

KEY WEST, Fla., May 12— Battling nausea, stinging jellyfish, high seas and hallucinations of monkeys, an Australian swam 118 miles from Cuba to Florida today to become the first woman to cross the shark-infested straits.

Susie Maroney’s team said she was the first person to swim the Florida Straits from Cuba to the Keys, a claim that was disputed before she even reached land.

About four and a half hours after Ms. Maroney, 22, finished, she fainted on live television while talking to reporters on the beach. Her doctor said that she was dehydrated and immediately regained consciousness and that she returned to her hotel room to rest.

She swam for 24 1/2 hours inside a 28-by-8-foot cage for protection from sharks before climbing out of the surf at Fort Zachary Taylor State Park in the Florida Keys, badly sunburned and covered with welts from jellyfish stings. Her tongue was swollen from the salt water.

”It was the best feeling in the world,” she said. ”I was so glad to touch sand. Definitely, your dreams can come true. So many times you think, ‘I just don’t want to keep going.’ ”

Walter Poenisch made the crossing in 1978 at age 64, but critics said no independent observers watched the trip to verify that he had been unassisted all the way. Unlike Ms. Maroney, he used flippers. His time was 34 hours and 15 minutes.

Ms. Maroney said her team worked with the Guinness Book of World Records to make sure she met all requirements, including having an independent observer aboard an escort boat. Guinness officials could not be reached for comment.

Ms. Maroney’s trip began at about noon on Sunday when she jumped into the water at Havana’s Malecon sea wall after being slathered in petroleum jelly to fend off jellyfish, protect her from the sun and keep her body warm.

The 5-foot-6, 127-pound marathon swimmer made the journey inside her cage attached to her escort boat. She was helped by a swift current and relatively good weather but had to contend with 15-foot seas.

She said she replayed in her head episodes of ”Seinfeld” and her favorite pop songs to keep her spirits up.

Photo: Susie Maroney, 22, was helped to shore yesterday after successfully battling seas and currents to swim from Cuba to the Florida Key. (Associated Press)

Boom. Did it like 20 hours faster and 8 miles longer than Diana and she did it by picturing Seinfeld episodes in her head. I love it. Team Seinfeld will always prevail to me. So yea theres an obvious age gap but like i said, things are already in question about how she did the race but cmon 20 hours faster in one attempt will always trump 5 attempts, 50+ hours, a 35 man crew to move all things in your path. So fuck the age thing. People act like Nyad was the first person to ever do it when she wasn’t. The bigger kicker is she had cerebral palsy! I mean cmon if you give Nyad a huge ovation for doing it despite her age, then Susie Maroney should get a standing O from the world for doing it with a brain movement disorder. I’ll NEVER be team Nyad. Im not gonna be some lemming succumbing to the news and pop culture when theres always something better or more impressive out there.

Oh and as for Martin Strel, he’ll probably die.