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Campbell Island

From Openwaterpedia
Swim dates, location and latitude of The Five Swims in Antarctica for 1 Reason by Lewis Pugh
The Five Swims in Antarctica for 1 Reason by Lewis Pugh in Campbell Island at 52º South, Cape Adare at 71º South, Cape Evans at 77.6º South, Bay of Whales at 78.5º South, and Peter 1 Island at 69º South

Campbell Island (Motu Ihupuku) is an uninhabited subantarctic island of New Zealand, and the main island of the Campbell Island group. It covers 112.68 square kilometers (43.51 square miles) of the group's 113.31 square kilometers (43.75 square miles), and is surrounded by numerous stacks, rocks and islets like Dent Island, Folly Island (or Folly Islands), Isle de Jeanette-Marie, and Jacquemart Island, the latter being the southernmost extremity of New Zealand. The Island is mountainous, rising to over 500 meters (1,640 feet) in the south. A long fjord, Perseverance Harbour, nearly bisects it, opening out to sea on the east coast.

Campbell Island is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was discovered in 1810 by Captain Frederick Hasselborough of the sealing brig Perseverance, which was owned by shipowner Robert Campbell's Sydney-based company Campbell & Co. (whence the island's name). The island became a seal hunting base, and the seal population was almost totally eradicated. The first sealing boom was over by the mid-teens of the 19th century. The second was a brief revival in the 1820s. The whaling boom extended here in the 1830s and 1840s. In 1874, the island was visited by a French scientific expedition intending to view the transit of Venus. Much of the island’s topography is named after aspects of, or people connected with, the expedition. In the late 19th century, the island became a pastoral lease. Sheep farming was undertaken from 1896 until the lease, with the sheep and a small herd of cattle, was abandoned in 1931 as a casualty of the Great Depression.

Open Water Swimming

Campbell Island is site of the first 1 km swim of The Five Swims in Antarctica for 1 Reason, a series of 5 open water swims by Lewis Pugh in waters between 0ºC and -1.7ºC and one of the primary reasons he was nominated for the 2015 World Open Water Swimming Man of the Year. The purpose of The Five Swims in Antarctica for 1 Reason is to have Antarctica's Ross Sea declared a Marine Protected Area (MPA).

Five Swims in Antarctica for 1 Reason

External links

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