The Briton will swim along a river in New York for several weeks. New York (pronounced nju jork) is a state and city in the United States. Lewis doesn’t do this because he’s bored, but because he wants to make an important statement. He wants to show how important it is to protect the world’s oceans.

The planned route

Lewis is a British long-distance swimmer and environmentalist. Sunday evening, he left for a week-long trip: swimming! His journey began at the headwaters of the Hudson River (pronounced hadsn riwa), a river in New York State. Its destination is the mouth of the river, near Manhattan. The headquarters of the United Nations is located there. Manhattan is part of New York City. An estuary is a place where one body of water – for example a river – flows into another. Here the river flows into the Atlantic Ocean. In total, the route is 500 kilometers. To reach his goal on September 20 as planned, Lewis will need to swim approximately 10 miles each day.

Swim to make a statement

With this campaign, Lewis wants to set an example. He wants to draw attention to protecting the world’s oceans. There is a specific reason why he wants to finish on September 20! It was at this time that the United Nations began to sign the Treaty on the Protection of the Sea. The swimmer would like to raise awareness of this.

This exciting journey is not the first that Lewis has undertaken. He has swum very long distances in all the oceans of the world. In 2007, he also became the first person to swim a long distance to the North Pole.