People often forget that polar bear are marine mammals, just like seals and walruses. And they are the best four-legged swimmers in the world, by far. Very, very far.
[Need a little snack before the swim though.]
So what kind of good is “good” ?
It is actually very good.
They can easily — again: easily — swim 100 kilometers (62 miles) in one sitting in open sea.
One female bear holds a totally incredible record in which she covered 400 miles (687 kilometers) in one single venture. But that wasn’t the end of it:
She swam in the icy cold water of the Bering Sea. After taking rest for few hours she resumed her journey and covered another 1,100 miles (1,800 km).
She swam for nine full days without seeing land — that’s 216 hours for you, by the way. “Icy cold water” means about -2°C (28°F), by the way.
As marine mammals, polar bears spend about half of their life in water, which is yet another fact which surprises me.
But I know you are still about the frozen water, right ?