Brett Kruse will attempt to become the eighth person to swim around Hong Kong Island on Friday, and is aiming to raise HK$100,000 for a local charity that teaches the city’s migrant domestic workers and refugees to swim.
The city resident wants to tackle the 45-kilometre challenge in about 13 hours, despite having never swum longer than 3½-km before moving to Hong Kong with his wife and children two years ago.
Kruse originally planned to dive into the South China Sea at the Sai Wan Swimming Shed on November 20, but an incoming typhoon pushed it back three days. The arrival of two People Liberation Army warships then forced him to postpone once more.
“I assumed swimming around the island was an event that people signed up for,” said Kruse, who is swimming for the Splash Foundation.
“I thought ‘Oh, that’d be an amazing experience’, [and] I don’t know how long I’m going to live in Hong Kong for, so to have that accomplishment would be great.”
Circumnavigating the island, known as the Hong Kong 360 Swim, started in November 2017, when Splash Foundation founder Simon Holliday completed the feat in 12 hours and 34 minutes, raising more than HK$1.1 million in the process.
