RALPH BAN­WARIE

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

John Pro­cope had the na­tion gripped yes­ter­day as they fol­lowed him on Face­book live, on GPS, and through very vi­brant What­sapp groups as he swam from To­ba­go to Trinidad unas­sist­ed. For near­ly 24 hours Pro­cope paced him­self through the wa­ters, but nev­er ful­ly touched land be­cause of rough seas and poor light­ing on shore. Nev­er­the­less, the swim was a suc­cess, and even if he is not the first to do it he con­sid­ers him­self proud of his achieve­ment. In a video on Face­book, he's asked if he'd do it again, to which he re­spond­ed with an em­phat­ic, no!

"It takes a good swim­mer to ac­com­plish what 51-year-old John Pro­cope did on Thurs­day," said his sis­ter, Re­bec­ca Pro­cope. John­ny, as he is known, comes from a fam­i­ly of swim­mers, and she was over­joyed to see him achieve his goal of swim­ming from To­ba­go to Trinidad against rough wa­ters.

Just two days be­fore, he had told her about his plans and want­ed her there, but the swim was resched­uled to Thurs­day.

A "Tri­ni to the bone," John­ny lives in To­ba­go with his close friend, Day­mor, a Ger­man na­tion­al and fel­low swim­mer. Re­bec­ca ful­ly sup­ports him and is proud of his com­mit­ment to de­vel­op­ing young swim­mers and pro­tect­ing the en­vi­ron­ment. He runs a swim­ming school in To­ba­go, where he is beloved by the youth.

John­ny at­tempt­ed this swim from To­ba­go to Trinidad twice be­fore but was thwart­ed by strong cur­rents. How­ev­er, he re­mained re­silient with a pos­i­tive at­ti­tude, nev­er giv­ing up un­til he suc­ceed­ed. His suc­cess­ful swim on Thurs­day is a tes­ta­ment to this de­ter­mi­na­tion, his sis­ter said.

John­ny's love for wa­ter be­gan ear­ly, as they fre­quent­ly vis­it­ed rivers, beach­es, and pools with fam­i­ly and friends. "I swim too, but not as well as he does. We all learned from our par­ents, but John­ny kept pur­su­ing it."

"We are all proud of his re­mark­able achieve­ment and pro­vid­ed him with moral sup­port through­out."

John­ny start­ed his swim from Scar­bor­ough, To­ba­go, around 8:30 pm. He was trailed by a boat the en­tire time to en­sure his safe­ty.

He is one of the few ever to com­plete the chal­leng­ing jour­ney from To­ba­go to San Souci, Trinidad, in 28 hours, cov­er­ing about 60 km.

This marks a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in his life, Re­bec­ca said.

"Every­thing hap­pens for a rea­son. I planned to vis­it To­ba­go for the week­end, and now I have the chance to cel­e­brate his achieve­ment with fam­i­ly and friends."