Ted Erikson made the only known swim from the shark infested Farralon islands, across 31 miles, to the Golden Gate Bridge in 1967. They wiped him down in “shark repellant grease” but I wonder how he dealt with the cold. Oh nice: his swim ended at the Dolphin rowing club in SF where he took a sauna. [YouTube via Mollusk]
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Brian, re: Cold. The grease does it. Pictures of early English Channels swimmers showed them coated in (vegetable?) grease.
I read a tale years ago about a photographer visiting an Inuit village in Greenland. Backing up on a dock or a seawall to frame a shot of the settlement, he fell into the icy waters. He was transported to the village infirmary with hypothermia and there was nothing they could do to warm him up, heaters and blankets failed to stop the shivering. One of local women heard about the victim’s plight and came from her home with a can of Crisco. They stripped him bare and slathered him with with the grease (hydrogenated vegetable oil) which stopped the uncontrollable shivering and warmed him up.
This works in air too. Skiing Stowe, VT as a kid (c. 1960) in temperatures below -40 F (== -40 C) the only way to prevent frostbite on your face was to smear ChapStick or similar stuff on every exposed surface. The Ski Patrol stood at the top of the single chair and directed folks with white patches into the warming hut. About 1 out of 3 skiers had frostbite on their faces just riding up the lift that day.