LIMITLESS – A UNIQUE EXPEDITION
Nuala Moore is an Irish open water swimmer, adventurer and holds two Guinness World Records for extreme cold-water swimming. She is a pioneer, a cold-water safety specialist, coach, mentor and an incredible endurance swimmer who has pushed the boundaries for women in extreme sports. He memoir, Limitless, was published in September this year. Here she shares an extract with Outdoor Swimmer
Nuala says hello to the local wildlife
The Round Ireland Swim team
“Whenever feasible, pick your team on character, not skill. You can teach skills: you cannot teach character”
Ranulph Fiennes
The marine perimeter of Ireland is roughly 800 nautical miles (or 1,482 kilometers as the crow flies) but we would probably swim twice that and more.
The plan was to swim a GPS coordinate measure route of 20-25 miles of open water each day as a team. We would travel out to a selected point by boat, drop into deep water and swim in a clockwise direction. The back-to-back immersions in water this cold would be a constant challenge. The expedition would demand huge amounts of passion, expertise, trust and humility, as well as the ability to quickly reassess and change plans and, perhaps to accept defeat. The fact that we were even attempting it was thanks to a strong team who all believed it was possible.