John Munro, 52, took about 36 hours to make the crossing from Sackets Harbor, N.Y. to Kingston.

"I'm tired, I must admit," Munro said, minutes after he emerged from the lake Wednesday evening to the cheers of a crowd of onlookers. "It was a long haul, a little longer than I expected."

Munro had hoped to make the 56-kilometre crossing in about 30 hours, but the lake didn't always co-operate.

"We had some challenges to face out there," he said. "There was a lot of currents and waves and shift of winds and so forth, but that's all part of it."

Munro was coached on the swim by his wife, marathon swimmer Vicki Keith, who has herself swam across Lake Ontario.

She paddled alongside Munro in a kayak and, at one point, spent two hours in the water with him.

"I really felt he needed somebody to get his stroke up, to help his pace go, to get things going," Keith said.

"He was exhausted and he kept on plodding away."