He racks up swim feats to raise awareness of water survival skills

Malaysian is first to complete routes linking mainland Terengganu with 3 popular islands

- Shannon Teoh

LANG TENGAH, Terengganu "Maybe I should swim backstroke?" asks Mr Ridzwan Rahim, as he treads water in the South China Sea off Terengganu, on Malaysia's east coast.

It is a couple of hours before dawn on July 14, and he is ahead of schedule, even though the waves have rocked him more than 3km off his intended swimming course - a 10km straight-line path from Redang island to Lang Tengah island.

Yet, this would be considered good conditions overall. He ends up treading water in the dark for an hour before landing safely at Lang Tengah in the morning light with his support boats.

The swim took him six hours, seven minutes and 21 seconds.

This was the easiest of what the technical writer by day has coined the Wonderful Terengganu Four Swims (WTF Swims), a marathon linking up the mainland of the east coast state with three of its most popular island getaways - Perhentian, Lang Tengah and Redang.

He is the first person to complete these routes.