Wild Ideas Worth Living · Tuesday, September 1, 2026
Rob Lea recounted how his wife, Caroline Glyk, encouraged him to schedule the remaining swims and climbs for his "Double Seven" project. Glyk, who was also running for US Senate, noted the long waitlists for some swims, like the Strait of Gibraltar, which had a five-year backlog.
“Caroline finally looked at me after I think I'd done one or two more swims and said, "Hey, like, we got to like, put all of these on the calendar. Otherwise, we're going to spend our entire life doing your projects here."”
“And she basically said, "If we're going to do this, we're going to do it." And a lot of these swims have really long wait lists. Like I was on a wait list for swimming the Gibraltar for five years.”
“You have to do it with the federation and they just had a huge backup from A, the COVID years and B, the migration, immigration issues they have between Africa and Europe.”