Baron Ambrosia Swims Again; This Time Camden’s Cooper River

Baron Ambrosia enjoys a nice home brewed beer after swimming the entire length of Camden's Cooper River. / Photo Credit: Christopher Beauchamp Photography
Baron Ambrosia enjoys a nice home brewed beer after swimming the entire length of Camden’s Cooper River. / Photo Credit: Christopher Beauchamp Photography

Baron Ambrosia has swum yet another river against all odds.

Last year Baron was the first person in recorded history to swim the entire length of The Bronx River and now he’s the first known person to have performed the same feat in Camden’s Cooper River.

The New York Times reports:

With a Forbidden Swim, Shining a Light on a City’s Verdant Waterways – NYTimes.com

CAMDEN, N.J. — At 5:48 a.m. on Wednesday, under the half-light of an eclipsed moon, a Bronx man known as Baron Ambrosia slipped into the Cooper River here. Wearing a short wetsuit and goggles, he began doing a freestyle stroke in the murky water. “Ooh, just touched something really gooey,” he said, coming to a sudden halt.

So began one man’s quest to paddle through Camden, known more for its high crime rate than its verdant waterways. With his five-mile swim along the Cooper, a tributary of the Delaware River, Baron Ambrosia aimed to change that.

“I’m trying to do something good for the city,” he said, highlighting urban exploration and environmental renewal. Born Justin Fornal, he has made a career of celebrating the gritty, most prominently as his alter-ego Baron, a fancifully attired Bronx foodhound with his own eccentric cable series (recently spotlighted by Anthony Bourdain on his CNN show). Last year, Mr. Fornal, 36, swam the Bronx River to promote his home borough, the first person recorded to do so. This year, asked by friends where he might take another dip, he settled on Camden as a similarly unsung landscape.

Head on over to the NYTimes and read the rest of this adventure!

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Ed García Conde

Ed García Conde is a life-long Bronxite who spends his time documenting the people, places, and things that make the borough a special place in the hopes of dispelling the negative stereotypes associated with The Bronx. His writings are often cited by mainstream media and is often consulted for his expertise on the borough's rich history.