British officials on Thursday called off the search for two men who had gone missing while jumping into the English Channel on Christmas Day as part of an annual tradition, Sky News reports.
“After extensive shoreline and offshore searches, the HM Coastguard part of the search was stood down at 5pm,” said a Coastguard spokesman, nearly 7 hours after they were called to the scene at 10:25 AM when dozens of locals braved the rough waves near the town of Budleigh Salterton in Devon. It’s not clear why the hell these men actually “swam” when video shows the others simply jumping into the extremely turbulent water and then back out, which was insane enough itself.
Cops urged Brits to avoid swimming on Boxing Day given the “punishing” conditions.