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Bell kicks off swim practice
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Posted on Jul 04 2008
Seventy-year-old swimmer Jim Bell celebrated Independence Day by kicking off his swim around Saipan yesterday.
Bell started the first segment of his swim at 9am Friday at Sugar Dock. He swam as far as the bench 100 yards of Hafa Adai Beach Hotel. The swim took a little bit over five hours.
“I encountered one sting ray, one barracuda, and a lot of fish. No sharks,” Bell summarized the first leg of his Saipan swim.
Bell is swimming the circumference of Saipan in preparation for his swim in the treacherous waters of the Torres Straits.
On June 9, 2008, Bell celebrated his 70th birthday swimming the five-mile channel between Saipan and Tinian. Bell made the crossing alone, with little knowledge about the current and with no escort monitoring his progress.
He left Tinian at 6am and landed on the beach of Coral Ocean Point Resort in Koblerville at 10:30am, completing the swim in four and a half hours. He had expected the crossing to take eight hours.
It was a feat he last achieved in July 1981, when he marked his retirement from the U.S. Navy by swimming alone from Saipan to Tinian. That previous effort took 12 hours.
His next goal is to cross the Torres Strait from Papua New Guinea to the Australian mainland.
