TALLINN (AFP) — Estonians Bruno Nopponen and Priit Vehm became the first people to swim across the Gulf of Finland Saturday, the organisers of the attempt said on their website.
Nopponen took 19 hours and 13 minutes to cover the 55 kilometres (34 miles) from the Finnish port of Porkkala to the Estonian village of Suurupi, and Vehm about three hours more.
Altogether six Estonians -- five men and a woman, all with professional swimming experience -- began the attempt early Friday, but the others were forced to give up and were taken aboard accompanying boats.
Hailing from one of the world's most wired nations -- Estonia has earned the nickname "E-stonia" -- Internet surfers were given a real-time update on their progress by means of a GPS tracker linked to the website www.metrotec.ee.
There are no records of a previous swim across the Gulf of Finland from mainland to mainland, though in 1931 Estonian Aleksander Laas swam 40 kilometres from the Estonian island of Naissaare to a Finnish island near Porkkala.
From World War II until 1991, the stretch of water was among the most tightly-controlled in the world, because Estonia was ruled by the Soviet Union and its inhabitants faced strict limits on their movements.
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