Neil has previously opened up about experiencing extremely vivid hallucinations during his 2021 swim from Sicily to Malta, which set a world record for the longest non-stop unassisted swim.

“I started seeing a soft toy ball with polka dots on it, but then it had a body of a fish and the wings of a parrot. There were so many of them everywhere and I was really concentrating to try and see them,” Neil said during an interview on Jon Mallia’s podcast.

“I saw them at the bottom of the sea; it wasn’t really the bottom but I thought I saw sand and these fish. After really concentrating, I thought that those aren’t really fish, those are people.”

“They had helmets on as aqualungs and it was a whole community, like Atlantis underneath me. There were people walking, holding hands, lying down on sunbeds, by a bar and waving to me.”

“The people on sun-beds covered themselves with sand when I approached them and I saw their eyes blinking through the sand like they were hiding from me.”

 

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He credited these visions to Iemanjá, a Brazilian spirit of the sea, who he said he connects to while meditating and swimming.

Neil has now mangled to eclipse his 125.7km swim from Sicily to Malta by swimming for 142.3km around the Maltese Islands in what is set to be a new world record. He started his swim in Mellieħa, then circumnavigated both Malta and Gozo, followed by another near-half swim around Malta before finishing at Għar Lapsi last night .