Leaving a legacy that is known and carried on by members outside your family is truly something. Those individuals who do often touch people in profound and innumerably funny and memorable ways.

Brian Curtis was one of those people.

His legacy is alive, well and memorialized in the Brian Curtis Mile in the Western Cape of South Africa.

Curtis was one of the founding directors of Cadiz Financial Services in 1994. As a director of Cadiz and an excellent swimmer, his motto “To infinity and beyond”, from Buzz Lightyear of Toy Story, captured his attitude to life.

In November 1998, he died in a motorcycle accident, leaving behind a wife and three daughters. Ram Barkai, John Green and Curtis’ family decided to capture his passion for swimming and life than an open water event that has become the biggest open water inland swim in South Africa’s Western Cape.

As a seeded event for the Midmar Mile, the event offers a 200m fun swim, a 400m school relays, a 1-mile swim, 2-mile swim, 3-mile swim and a 4-mile swim.

Copyright © 2012 by Open Water Source