Swim the Atlantic

I first read about this journey on kottke and then on Boing Boing.

If you ask Google maps for directions from Cardiff to New York, Google does its magic calculates the route, draws a map and prepares driving instructions.

Examination of the map reveals a thin blue line stretching across the Atlantic.
The written guidance suggests that travellers "swim the Atlantic", starting at Le Havre and ending at Long Wharf, New York.

Someone at Google obviously has a wonderful sense of humour.
I've explored a little and have discovered that this magical advice is offered for routes starting in most of Northern Europe, it works from Moscow but not from Baghdad!

According to Google the journey would involve 4095 miles of travel with 3,462 miles of swimming; a journey that would take about 29 days 13 hours of travelling.

In 1998 when Benoit Lecomte swam the Atlantic without the benefit of Google his epic swim from Cape Cod to Quiberon in France took 72 days.

Lecomte competed his swim, which is more than can be said for Jon S. von Tetzchener CEO of Opera software who set out in 2005 to swim the Atlantic in response to the success of Opera 8.