Fleetwood man aims for Guinness World Record after becoming the first person to swim from mainland UK to Isle of Man

Former army captain Adam Diver successfully swam 32 miles from St Bees in Cumbria on May 29 to Port Mooar in the Isle of Man on May 31, becoming the first person to complete the challenge.

Not wanting to stop there, he has been in talks with Guinness World Records about hopefully gaining a place in the organisation’s coveted book.

Adam, 48 told the PA news agency: “I brought it up to Guinness on two occasions and on the second occasion, I said that I would do the challenge and get back to them once it was done.

“At the moment I am not sure where I stand with it, but we will see what happens.

“If they want to add this into their book, then that’s fantastic but if they don’t – the world record is still there and we have set it and completing this challenge was the main thing.”

He hopes that by completing the swim, it encourages others to try to take it on to set a faster time, adding: “Somebody may even take 24 hours off what I did and then hopefully we can have some sort of leaderboard.”

Reflecting on the swim, which he had unsuccessfully attempted the year before, Adam said that the last five miles were “horrendous”.

“I couldn’t really enjoy it until I was about 200m from the shore when I could hear people on the shore and the kayakers were saying ‘I can see your family’.

“When I got to the end, the emotions came out – there were quite a few tears as this has been three years in the planning", he said.

The idea behind the swim came from his 14-year-old son Dexter during lockdown.

Adam explained: “One day when we were out swimming, you could see the outline of the Isle of Man and he said, do you reckon we can swim over to see nan and grandad.

“It was from there that the seed was planted, so I went back home and spent a lot of time on the internet, having Zooms with open water swimmers and people who have swum the channel before.”

More than £16,000 has been raised from the challenge for the veterans’ community interest company Healthier Heroes, which he is a trustee for, with mental health awareness being at the heart of the swim.

Adam was joined by a team of ex-military members who have all suffered from mental health conditions including anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder,

He says that doing the challenge with them was “the most memorable” part, and they helped get “each other through the dark times”, including issues such as when the generator to cook meals went down, meaning they “went for quite a long time without food or drink”.

Adam added: “It’s just getting through these little battles, to get to the end and achieve our aim.”

Now working as a cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) therapist after leaving the army four years ago, he said it feels like a “full circle moment” after going through mental health struggles himself.

Adam Diver’s GoFundMe page can be found here.