Swimming challenge: All at sea and out on a limb – but he doesn't mind

A Frenchman who lost all his limbs in an accident has swum from Papua New Guinea to Indonesia in the first part of a challenge to swim between five continents. Philippe Croizon, who lost his limbs in 1994 after receiving a powerful electric shock while adjusting a television aerial, took seven-and-a-half hours to swim the 12-mile stretch.

"It was very, very hard," he said after the event. "It took us an hour-and-a-half more than we expected because we had to swim against the currents." Mr Croizon uses prosthetic limbs with flippers attached to swim.

The other crossings he plans to tackle are from the Gulf of Aqaba in Jordan to the Egyptian coast in June; between Gibraltar and Morocco in July; and the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia in August.