Emergensea Duo

📣 Announcing our rebrand and next adventure. 😍

🚨Nerd Alert! Whilst I (Charlie) won a free pastry at Lidl, Adam has been named a winner in Cardiff University’s 2025 30(ish) awards, which celebrate alumni making a positive impact on their communities. ‘The awards honour change-makers, innovators and trailblazers from Cardiff’s global alumni network’ This year over 200 nominations were received. The award reads:

‘Finding himself feeling unfulfilled working in emergency medicine, Adam made the bold decision to switch to palliative medicine, while he was rowing 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean.

He has pursued this path with exceptional intensity. Within two years, Adam completed a PgDip, earning the Cicely Saunders Medal as top-performing student, and received a high commendation in the global Masters Student of the Year award. Named Emerging Leader of the Year by Hospice UK, Adam introduced and published world-first processes for hospice patients and achieved a Guinness World Record as part of a hospice fundraiser.

Adam is recognised for questioning practice and pushing boundaries to improve patient care. He is also one of a handful of people to complete an ice swim in both polar regions wearing only a standard swimming costume – raising over £55,000 for charity through extreme challenges.

Currently writing a book on assisted dying, Adam seeks to encourage a more nuanced and compassionate debate on this emotive topic. He continues to inspire others to think differently and act boldly in pursuit of better care and deeper understanding.’

Thank you again to all our followers for supporting and donating for all our challenges. You’ve made the world of difference to our amazing charities.

🙌

We had the honour of being invited to the BBC Radio Devon Making A Difference Awards yesterday evening and were presented with this high commendation award for our Archipelago Yachts Polar Swim Challenge that raised over £17,000 for Weston Hospicecare & Ocean Conservation Trust. It was amazing to meet so many people doing wonderful things across Devon. Thank you so much again to everyone who donated and supported us along the way.

Continuing to push outside our comfort zone. Adam is doing something a little different at the moment. Alongside his boss he is writing a book titled ‘To The Last’ which will be an exploration of assisted dying. What it means to live and to die. The book will debate both for and against assisted dying to provide a more nuanced discourse and will attempt to challenge the superficial polarisation often seen.

Adam’s interview with the Times is published today and available online and in print. The book will hopefully be published early next year so keep your eyes peeled.

📚

📣 The Adventure For Good Grant is back open!!

was our chosen fundraising platform for our Archipelago Yachts Polar Swim Challenge. This grant made it all possible!

They've noticed that 77% of applicants are male and so this year, their grants are focusing on amazing women taking on extraordinary challenges for charity.

Last year, someone who spotted our post about the grants went on to ski to the South Pole!

So if you crave adventure and are passionate about driving positive change in the world, head to https://info.givestar.io/adventure-for-good-grant to apply.

If you live in Devon and would like to hear our tales from the extreme, you can catch us for free:

📅 23/01/2025, Ocean Conversations with Ocean Conservation Trust. National Marine Aquarium, Plymouth. Doors open 1730

📅 30/01/2025, Winter Warmers Series with AS Watersports, AS watersports, Exeter Quay. Starts at 1900.

We will be discussing cold water immersion, ice swimming and what we learnt from completing an ice swim in both polar regions.

You will have an opportunity on the evenings to donate to our amazing charities, to date we have raised over £14,000 for Weston Hospicecare & Ocean Conservation Trust

📢 £14,074

That's what you lovely lot have helped us raise for Weston Hospicecare & Ocean Conservation Trust FROM THE BOTTOM OF OUR HEARTS THANK YOU!!!

We have a few speaking events outstanding that we are hoping will nudge us up a little more.

Over the last few years, we've been relentlessly asking for donations and you've all been so so
generous supporting all our challenges. We've now raised over £55,000 for charity.

This challenge was really brutal - the rewarming process is actually one of the hardest aspects. You are so vulnerable, your skin is so sensitive and the pain secondary to the cold and the intense shivering makes it extremely hard. Thankfully, we had help. Here's a picture of Adam enjoying the Stoov - heated cushions Homey to warm himself with some cheeky penguins over his right shoulder.

A huge thank you again to all our sponsors:
Archipelago Expedition Yachts
Central Technology Ltd
Clifton College
Stitch 2 Print
Ollie King Studio
Fishtank Agency
ZEN8
Surf-Reports
givestar
Speedo
Shackleton
Ecosurety
Stoov
Solum SW

Here are some fun facts about the Archipelago Yachts Polar Swim Challenge:

• The tips of our fingers and toes are completely numb following the Antarctica swim. The sensation will hopefully return slowly over the next 2-6 months.
• A few hours after each swim, we were both very hot to touch. Our core temperature set point controlled by our hypothalamus had risen and we remained febrile (without infection) for the next 24 hours.
• We also likely experienced anticipatory thermogenesis where our core temperature increased just prior to each swim.
• Through training, we were able to mitigate our cold water shock response, meaning that we were able to start swimming within a couple of seconds of entering the ice cold water.
• During our Antarctica swim, we had rafts of penguins swimming around us 🐧.
• We both had periods of amnesia after each swim ranging from 15 minutes to 1 hour.
• The recovery took between 1-2 hours for each swim.
• Towards the end of our swims as our bodies started to become hypothermic, our heart rates slowed to 36 beats per minute. Benign heart arrhythmias are incredibly common in cold water immersion.
• Adam's face became so numb that he was unable to tell when his mouth was above or below the water line leading to the odd mouthful of ice cold water!

Please keep the donations coming, and don't forget to bid in our amazing charity auction. Links in bio.

A huge thank you again to all our sponsors and everyone who has donated.

We have completed the Archipelago Yachts Polar Swim Challenge!!! We are now part of only a handful of people to complete an Ice swim in both polar regions. 🥳

Charlie
Arctic swim 78.39°N Nordenskiöld Glacier: 1400m, water temp 3.3°C, windchill 5°C, 32 minutes 46 seconds.
Antarctica test swim 64.30°S Portal Point: 250m, water temp -0.4°C, windchill 4°C, 5 minutes 10 seconds.
Antarctica main swim 64.49°S Port Lockroy: 750m water temp -1.4°C, windchill -5.6°C at 35 km/hour, 21 minutes, 38 seconds.
Charlie’s official distance is calculated as a straight line from the start to the finish, however she had to take quite a meandering course to swim around large blocks of ice that were drifting across the swim course from the high winds. Her GPS suggests that she swam just below 1km.
🏆 This is the coldest EVER official International Ice Swimming Assocation event swim!! -1.4°C is mindblowingly cold even before you consider the outrageous windchill. To put this into context the water in Antarctica freezes around -1.8°C and human blood freezes around -2°C. Adam’s swim was postponed after this as the conditions were considered ‘unswimmable’.
Total official distance swum in the polar regions: 2400m

Adam
Arctic swim 78.39°N Nordenskiöld Glacier: 1700m, water temp 3.3°C, 55 minutes 48 seconds.
Antarctica test swim 64.30°S Portal Point: 250m, water temp -0.4°C, 5 minutes 12 seconds.
Antarctica main swim 74.43°S Danco Island: 950m, water temp -0.8°C, windchill 0°C, 28 minutes 48 seconds
Adam was incredibly close to the 1km marker but was assisted into a support boat just before for his safety as his stroke started to fail.
Total official distance swum in the polar regions: 2900m

At the moment we have raised around £10,000 for Weston Hospicecare & Ocean Conservation Trust. Please help give us one final boost (link in bio), we really have given this challenge our absolute everything pushing our bodies and minds to the limit.

A massive thank you to our title sponsor Archipelago Expedition Yachts and all our sponsors who made this possible. Their support has been unbelivable and we will be forever grateful to the following:

Archipelago Expedition Yachts
Central Technology Ltd
Clifton College
Stitch 2 Print
Ollie King Studio
Fishtank Agency
ZEN8
Surf-Reports
givestar
Speedo
Shackleton
Ecosurety
Stoov - heated cushions
Solum SW

Today’s the day we start our boat journey down to Antarctica. We will be taking some seasickness tablets soon ready for the infamous Drake passage- Let’s hope we get the Drake lake not the Drake shake!

We’ll arrive there around the 11th with a provisional swim date between the 12th - 14th. Current estimated water temperatures are between -1°C and 0°C.

We will have no comms from here out so our next update will likely be on the 19th - 20th.

We can’t quite believe we are about to do this! Thank you to everyone who has made this happen and for all the donations. We are currently £10 short of reaching £8,000 for Weston Hospicecare & Ocean Conservation Trust.

Please keep those donations coming. We would love to hit £10,000 by the time we get back.

A huge thank you to our sponsors:
Archipelago Expedition Yachts
Central Technology Ltd
Clifton College
Stitch 2 Print
Ollie King Studio
Fishtank Agency
ZEN8
Surf-Reports
givestar
Speedo
Shackleton
Ecosurety
Stoov - heated cushions
Solum SW

We are officially at 'the end of the world'!!

We arrived today in Ushuaia in Patagonia, Argentina. The second photo is in front of a famous sign that reads 'fin del mundo', translating to the end of the world.

It also happens to be Charlie's 35th birthday, what a place to spend it. 🥳

Tomorrow, we start to make our way to Antarctica via boat across the infamous Drake Passage, notorious for rough seas all year round.

Thank you so much for all the recent donations. You could make Charlie's birthday by helping us nudge just over the £8,000 fundraising mark! (Link in bio)

A massive thank you to all our sponsors:
Archipelago Expedition Yachts
Central Technology Ltd
Clifton College
Stitch 2 Print
Ollie King Studio
Fishtank Agency
ZEN8
Surf-Reports
givestar
Speedo
Shackleton
Ecosurety
Stoov - heated cushions
Solum SW