any have probably been guilty more than once in their lives of an outrageously implausible boast over a Friday night pint which they either lived to regret or couldn?t remember the following morning.

And when former Bermuda College lecturer Sean O?Connell announced to a sceptical friend in the Robin Hood over 30 years ago that he wanted to become the first person ever to swim non-stop around Bermuda, there seemed no reason to suspect that this would be any different.

?I was having a few pints with a buddy of mine and we were just shooting the breeze really,? recalled O?Connell this week, still looking impressively slim and athletic for his 64 years.

?As two relative newcomers to the Island, we were talking about how fantastic it was that it was possible to swim in the ocean pretty much all year round. I then started to get a little carried away, and I blurted out that I could probably swim all the way around Bermuda if I trained up for it and he laughed at me essentially and was prepared to bet me $1,000 that I would fail.

?I don?t think he realised quite how serious I was. Something stirred inside me that night and I spent the next few days planning how I could pull it off.?

August 19 will be the 30th anniversary of the former maths professor?s unique achievement, which is featured in the Guinness Book of Records and raised thousands of dollars for the Bermuda Physically Handicapped Association.

And to mark the occasion, the Bermuda Masters Swimming Association have decided to re-enact the feat, this time dividing up the gruelling 47-mile swim into 20 separate legs, with O?Connell set to complete the final few kilometres to the finishing point at the 9 Beaches Resort in Somerset.

O?Connell is certainly touched by the gesture, while he has already returned to ocean training to ensure he is capable of bringing the anniversary celebrations to a fitting conclusion.

With two replacement knees ? the product of a long and punishing marathon career ? as well as a PHD in mathematics, it is clear that this son of a strict and religious Irish-Catholic family from Brooklyn, New York has never been one to sit still for long.

Yet to this day it is the record-breaking swim which remains his grandest feat, and O?Connell admits that he still thinks about it often and is occasionally stopped in the street by people who remember the extensive publicity that his efforts attracted.

?It?s odd really ? when I first started off I didn?t really anticipate it growing into the big story that it was back then,? he said.

?I?ve always been a person who likes to do things and keep moving. Even now I still play tennis as much as I can and travel quite a bit. But when you achieve something like completing that swim, it really does stay with you for the rest of your life.?

Connell gave himself 22 weeks to prepare for the adventure, beginning with a mere 1.5 mile stretch and building up the distance gradually week by week.

A competent, but by no means exceptional swimmer, he consulted virtually nobody and trained entirely by himself ? meaning there was plenty of trial and error and many painful lessons learned along the way.

At first he swam without goggles, but soon found his eyes burned red from the saltwater and reverted first to goggles and then a diving mask to aid visibility.

And as the distances increased, he discovered also that his lips and tongue would begin to swell painfully after a few hours in the water, making it hard for him to chew on the energy tablets he stored in a tiny water-proof container in his then trunks.

?I was learning as I went along really,? he admitted.

?I set myself up a training regime that I was absolutely determined to stick to, but it didn?t take me long to realise how unforgiving the sea can be. It would have been far easier and less painful to train in a pool, but I knew I would be doing myself no favours because the conditions could not be more different and it was important that I became accustomed to the ocean and the route I was going to be swimming.

?I made plenty of mistakes. I relied far too heavily on glucose tablets to give me the extra energy I needed when I?d been in the water for hours, but after a while they used to make me feel nauseous and I would start to vomit repeatedly. I lost around 20 pounds at one stage and for a long time I looked like somebody who?d spent ten years in a concentration camp!?

Towards the middle of his training, O?Connell began attempting a succession of open-ended swims where he would continue until he had nothing left to give, something he believed to be crucial in order to discover just where his limits were.

The first, in mid-May, 1976, had to be aborted after 12 hours because of a stomach upset, the second a week later after 18 because of yet more nausea and vomiting.

Yet sickness was certainly not his only problem.

Stung repeatedly by Portuguese men-of-war on many training swims, O?Connell would have to force himself to press on through the agonising pain ? which would eventually subside after a few minutes ? while he also had a very close run-in with a huge barracuda one afternoon just off The Reefs, when it passed within inches of him as he attempted to make his way back to shore.

And there was the time when, swimming in open water between Spanish Point and Commissioner?s Point, an enormous container ship crossed his path about a hundred yards ahead, oblivious to his presence.

?I shudder to think what ?I shudder ro think what might have happened if that ship had left the Hamilton docks three minutes earlier,? he said.

?Another major issue which came up when I was in the middle of my training was sharks. For the first few weeks I didn?t even think about it, but I woke up one morning to see a headline in the Mid-Ocean News which read ?Fisherman Warns of Tiger Sharks? and a few days later a picture appeared of a nine-footer that the fisherman had brought in as proof.

?It was all very disturbing, particularly as I had only recently seem the film Jaws and there were all these gory images running through my head.

?I phoned the fisherman concerned and asked for his advice, and he told me that I?d be crazy to do what I was planning to do, particularly as part of the marathon would involve swimming outside the reef late at night, which he thought would be ?suicide?.

I thought about it for a few days because I was genuinely worried about it and I considered abandoning. When you?re out there in the ocean by yourself you feel very insignificant and vulnerable.

?But after a bit of reflection I decided it had to be full steam ahead. I hadn?t done all that work to throw in the towel and I was happy enough to leave it up to fate.?

he big day arrived on July 9, 1976, and after a difficult sleep constantly interrupted by nerves and adrenaline, O?Connell made his way down to Elbow Beach at 5.50 a.m. to be met by a small band of well-wishers and a support boat, splashing off into the sea just after six.

?I felt absolutely fantastic,? he said.

?All those months of hard training, all that high-energy food I felt would pay off. The conditions were fantastic initially as well, and I was gliding along feeling very happy about things.

?I reached Paget Island by about seven o?clock that evening and was trying to reach Fort St. Catherine before sunset ? and it was then that things started to go really wrong.?

Despite swimming strongly, O?Connell soon noticed he was making virtually no headway and it became clear that a strong current was working against him.

When he could, he tried swimming close to the shore where the current is usually at its weakest, and he struggled on through the night with the sea continuously resisting his advance.

At around three o?clock the next day, the situation was becoming hopeless. He had moved virtually nowhere in eight straight hours of hard graft and his mouth and tongue were badly swollen by the salt, making communication with the support boat almost impossible, not to mention taking on the necessary food and liquid.

?I decided to stop at around five in the evening, and I remember how difficult it was to accept being hauled back on the boat ? despite everybody saying how well I?d done,? he said.

?I was enormously disappointed. I felt like I had let everybody down. But at the same time all I could think about after that was having another go.

?I knew at that point that the currents and the weather, rather than my physical ability, would decide whether or not I would do it.

?We waited until the third week in August to try again, and this time we were a lot more organised. I was to have two support boats with me all the time, while the plan was to drop dye-markers down at several critical points like Daniel?s Head and Commissioner?s Point so it was possible to see which way the water was flowing and adjust the route accordingly.

?But I cannot tell you how determined I was at the time to succeed. I knew I was going to have to take myself to the very limit of endurance and that there would be times out there where I might feel on the point of death. But I just had to do it, I just had to.?

The weather gods were certainly in a more charitable mood this time around, with O?Connell setting off on the morning of August 19 in absolute calm.

The currents were certainly still a factor at times, but where they proved strong he cut in close to the shoreline, often swimming in water so shallow that he would scrape his hands and knees on the coral below him.

?Looking back, there?s no doubt in my mind that despite all the training and the preparation, I was essentially very lucky with the weather over those two days,? he said.

t all the problem places the conditions were far easier to overcome than they ever had been before and after 24 hours, I had cleared them all and was swimming along the South Shore where I done the majority of my training. There were people swimming with me in the water, the atmosphere was very relaxed, and I felt strong.

?I reached Elbow Beach by four o?clock on the second day and decided to take on lots of sugar for energy. But again this backfired when my guts started to react and my could not stop vomiting and my energy just vanished.

?When I got to Church Bay in the middle of the night, I was on the point of total exhaustion. I?d been in the water for almost 40 hours straight and I could barely lift my arms, my lips were a disaster and I was completely disorientated.

?I was in a state of semi-consciousness for the last three miles, almost a sort of trance. I kept on swimming out to sea and was only kept on a reasonably straight path by the team in the boat continuously shining a torch in my face to keep me awake.

?This went on for what seemed like days and I was beginning to wonder whether I would ever make it, when I suddenly caught sight of the light which had been attached to the finishing marker and made a desperate dash towards it.

?I find it hard to put into words quite what an extraordinary feeling it was to lay my hands on that marker ? I don?t think I?d experienced anything like that before or since. All the work, all the pain, suddenly became worthwhile. It had taken me 43 hours and 27 minutes to complete.

?It just goes to show what you can achieve if you want something badly enough.?