Josef Köberl experiences horror stories. Those where it runs cold over your back. And not just because of the temperatures where these adventures take place. There was this painful encounter with a lion wheels, the umbrella of which measures up to one meter. 150 tentacles, each up to 30 meters long, not life -threatening for humans, but extremely uncomfortable. “She met me head -on to the chest, I got slower, I was sick, but I didn’t stop,” says Köberl. And then the clash with the tides that pressed him against the Scottish rocks – grazes included: “I couldn’t go back to the boat in the water. Only a wave freed me. I was completely finished, physically and mentally,” he says.
It doesn’t sound like a relaxed weekend work. And yet the Grundlseer loves what it does. And that’s mostly: swimming. Where others are already dealing with fear on the ship. Until last weekend, only 174 people had crossed the North Canal, a foothills of the Irish lake that separates Scotland from Northern Ireland. Köberl was the 175th and the first from Austria. The 48-year-old was on the road exactly 14 hours, five minutes and 40 seconds. He did not see much – at least on the first part of his journey, which he had started in absolute darkness. The start was shortly after 11 p.m. local time near Bangor on the Northern Irish Ards Peninsula.
Köberl was able to comfort himself that there was no serious difference between water and air temperature: 13 degrees in the Scottish lake, 14 degrees on the mainland. But these thoughts were not really warming: the Grundlseer only wore swimming trunks, a bathing cap, swimming goggles and earplugs. The regulative of the “Ocean’s Seven” does not give more-no George-Clooney film, but the seven major routes of extreme swimming. Compared to the highest mountains in the world, the north canal is probably the K2. Not as popular as the English Channel, but much more demanding.
Köberl has now achieved four of the seven routes with the successful crossing. And his personal north channel screwed himself in length: the route he had to cover grew out of almost 35 to exactly 41.21 kilometers due to the currents. So a marathon – just in the ice -cold water.
Kaltenbrunner and Köberl?
For the Grundlseer, who crossed Lake Hallstatt lengthways and discovered his passion, the success in Great Britain is also a personal conclusion: eight years ago, the first attempt first stopped the jellyfish and then the hypothermia. The 48-year-old is not just about the record hunting. He keeps it with the German philosopher Richard David Precht: “The highest thing you can reach is serenity.” Swimming led to make him calmer, more prudent, more focused. Köberl told the OÖN three years ago: “I would say that I found what I was looking for all my life.”
However, the end station is not the north channel: Köberl wants to become the first Austrian to complete all seven extreme routes. Perhaps Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner is also a role model: she was the first Austrian to climb all 14 eight -thousanders. And the air in the ice -cold water can also become as thin.
Source: Nachrichten
