On 15 July 2007, I swam across an open patch of sea at the North Pole to highlight the melting of the Arctic sea ice.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I'm a curious person, and I always like to test new waters, and I've always jumped into the cold water and then started to think about how to swim.
In the Andes and the Alps, I have seen melting glaciers. At both of the Earth's Poles, I have seen open sea where ice once dominated the horizon.
I swam in high school.
Where I live in Connecticut was ice a mile above my house, all the way back to the North Pole, about 15 million kilometers, that's a big ice cube. But then it started to melt. We're talking about the floods of our living history.
I've always walked and climbed; spent a lot of time in the arctic and places.
Going to the Arctic was immense for me.
Rivalry is one of the factors pushing me. While my back was turned, the Norwegians managed to achieve the first Arctic crossing in winter. I didn't want the same to happen in the Antarctic.
I went to Antarctica on a science research boat just to sort of clear my head.
To get the feel of the polar night, I went back to Spitsbergen in winter. I went snowshoeing in the dark and experimented with headlamps and climbed a glacier in driving snow.
I've been to the Titanic in a yellow submarine and the North Pole in a Russian nuclear ice breaker.