TAGBILARAN CITY, Philippines — Pinoy Aquaman, lawyer Ingemar Macarine, greeted the New Year with a 6.8-kilometer swim across the rough Calape Sea waters of Calape, Bohol, in two hours and 26 minutes in the early morning of December 31.
The experience reconnected the Pinoy Aquaman to his first successful channel crossing three years ago when he braved the 4.8-kilometer sea from Basul Island to Mainland Surigao City, as the first man to swim the distance in two hours on December 30, 2013.
On January 7, Pinoy Aquaman will make his 25th channel crossing—and his first for this year—from Camiguin Island to Balingaon in Misamis Oriental. It would be intended to promote tourism in Camiguin and for cleaner seas, Macarine said.
Pinoy Aquaman made his 2016 Independence Day swim on June 12, crossing the 16.83-kilometer Cebu Strait. It was his “first ever successful solo swim” and unassisted, braving the thunderstorm in 5 hours and 49 minutes from the lighthouse at Barangay Cabacungan of Cabilao Island in Loon, Bohol to the shores of Barangay Bulasa in Argao, Cebu.
Macarine’s crusade for clean seas pushed him to several open sea swimming that earned him the “Aquaman” tag. For his “lifetime advocacy for clean seas and beaches” the World Wildlife Fund-Philippines conferred him the “Hero of the Environment” Award in November 2015. — (FREEMAN)