HE'S READY TO SEAS THE DAY

Morgan battles jellyfish in swim-around-Ireland record bid

- MARK McCADDEN

HE HAS lost count of the number of times he has been stung by jellyfish.

But Daragh Morgan won't be stopped in his bid to enter the Guinness Book of World Records by becoming the first person to swim around the entire island of Ireland.

The Dubliner, who now lives in Galway, began his tidal-assisted stage swim on May 31 and is now over the halfway mark, averaging close to 20km per day.

When we spoke on Monday, he had completed 868km of an approximately 1,600km long swim, which began from Blackrock Diving Tower in his adopted hometown.

"We passed the halfway point, which was Dublin. That was a great milestone for us as a team," he told Fitter Happier.

The endurance swimmer, tends to be in the water for six hours, then rests for six, a schedule that helps him take advantage of the tides.

Even so, the 26-year-old is battling more than just the painful whip of a lion's mane's tentacle challenging weather and shifting currents also conspire to try to knock him off course.

"We always talked about Ireland in quarters. What we realised was the first quarter was probably going to be the most challenging," Daragh said.

"Starting off is hard, whatever you are doing. That's the stage when you haven't really put the miles in.