Most people stay out of the alligator-infested waters of Lake Monroe in Sanford.

But this morning, four men, one of them seventy years old, not only swam in the lake -- but swam nearly 4 miles all the way across it.

Tom Fromholz lives on his boat on Marina Island in Sanford, and has been wanting to check something off his bucket list for a while now.

“Every night on his house boat he tells me he looks across this lake and he says man I want to swim that someday. And he’s a swimmer. So I said oh let’s do this,” said Luther Davis, Fromholz's good friend.



But Lake Monroe stretches more than 3 miles starting in Seminole County and going across to Volusia County, and it’s filled with alligators.

But that didn't deter Fromholz, who just turned 70 last month.

“To maintain your health you need to challenge yourself and do things that stretch you a little bit, make you go a little further than you think you can go. Just makes life better,” said Fromholz.



So in what they called the “Gator Bait Swim,” Fromholz, his friend Luther Davis, and two other swimming buddies from the local YMCA jumped into Lake Monroe Saturday morning, with friends and family spectating from boats alongside the swimmers.



“We’re their cheerleaders, keeping them directed in the right way,” said Mara Adamson, a friend.



All eyes were on the water for any alligators.

“Then the sun came up, and you started seeing shadows down in the water," Davis said with a laugh. “Some uneasy feelings, but we got through it.”

But it turns out the swimmers’ biggest enemy, was distance.

“About half way across I started running out of energy, but I had some orange juice,” admitted Fromholz. “I’m glad it wasn’t another 100 yards, or I don’t think I’d have made it.”

But then one by one, the men reached the lake's shore in Volusia County.



“From now on I’ll be able to say I swam with my friends across Lake Monroe,” said Fromholz after he high-fived his supporters.



And the men may have made history while doing it for being the first non-Native Americans to swim across Lake Monroe, or so Fromholz thinks.



But either way, they can all say they did it, and walked ashore all in one piece.