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Displaying items by tag: Coliemore Dalkey

#IrelandSwim - The main challenges confronting two swimmers who aim to become the first to circumnavigate the entire island of Ireland this summer will be stormy seas, rough weather and stinging jellyfish, writes The Irish Times.

David Burns from Coleraine and Maghnus Collins from Limerick are seasoned adventurers having kayaked the Yangtze river, ran across the Sahara desert and cycled from Cape Town to Ireland in recent years.

The pair set off from Coliemore Harbour in Dalkey earlier on Wednesday for the first 20km stretch of a gruelling itinerary which will see them swim 1,600km clockwise around the south coast, up the west and past the north before finishing back in Dublin in around four months' time.

Despite their significant endurance tests of recent years, they are of the firm belief that this latest task will provide the greatest obstacle so far.

For more on the story, click here.

Published in Sea Swim

About Commander Bill King, Solo Circumnavigator

William Donald Aelian King was the last surviving submarine commander in the Second World War - in charge of the British Navy's T-class Telemachus that sank a Japanese sub in the Strait of Malacca, between Malaysia and Sumatra, in 1944.

Decorated many times for his service by the end of the war, King became a trailblazing solo sailor.

At the age of 58, he was the oldest participant in The Sunday Times Golden Globe Race sailing Galway Blazer II, a junk-rigged schooner he designed himself.

After a number of abortive attempts, including an incident with "a large sea creature", he finally completed his solo circumnavigation of the globe in 1973.

Beyond his aquatic escapades, King settled with his wife Anita (who died in 1984, aged 70) at Oranmore Castle outside Galway after the war, where he later developed a pioneering organic farm and garden to help tackle his wife's asthma.

The round-the-world sailor and Galway native Bill King died on Friday, 21 September, 2012, aged 102.