Hundreds of people flocked to Carrickfinn in Co Donegal yesterday to welcome home the six relay swimmers who finally completed the Round Ireland Swim - almost a month behind their ambitious original schedule.
Crowds cheered them as they came ashore on Carrickfinn's blue flag beach as others watched on from the flotilla of boats which had assembled for the occasion.
Speaking afterwards, the leader of the endurance event, Henry O'Donnell, revealed that he intends writing a book about the epic adventure that saw them complete a swim of 1,335km (830 miles) in eight weeks.
He said at times the team swam up to 30 miles in a day but the demands of the undertaking, along with some spells of bad weather, took its toll.
"On some days, it wasn't safe to have our marine support vessels out at sea, let alone the swimmers," he recalled.
He added they were delighted that the team achieved their three main objectives: becoming the first people to complete the massive undertaking; raising money for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution crew training fund; and gathering scientific material regarding both the maritime conditions and the physical effect that the swim had on the team.
"The whole trip was more interesting than we would ever have thought, and we collected a lot of very interesting research material," he explained. One key aspect of their research, carried out in conjunction with the Marine Institute, regarded sea temperatures.
When they left Carrickfinn, the water was 12.8 degrees. The coldest area was in the North Channel between Northern Ireland and Scotland, where it dropped to 11.4 degrees, while the warmest stretch of water was off the Wexford coast around the Saltee Islands where they recorded a temperature of 18.2 degrees.
In all, they had 35 days of actual swimming, and the team constantly monitored the performance of the six swimmers who had to contend with the "cumulative effect of the go-go-go nature of the swim".
The swimmers - Henry O'Donnell, siblings Anne Marie and Ryan Ward from Donegal, Tom Watters from Galway, Nuala Moore from Kerry and Ian Claxton from Dublin - have been given the medical all-clear, although the sheer demands of the swim could hit them yet.