Well, I hadn't originally planned to share this when I first found out about it weeks ago, but after seeing the thread about the LA Tech kid pilot, I figured I might as well share a UTSA story here too. Fifty-year-old UTSA alumnus Ben Lecomte, born in France, is currently trying to become the first to swim across the Pacific Ocean. He plans to swim 8 hours a day, eating 8,000 calories a day, and resting at night on a support boat. He swam across the Atlantic two decades ago to raise money for Cancer research.

His goal for the Pacific swim is to raise awareness for pollution and climate change, as he designed his route to take him through a collection of micro-plastic refuse roughly the size of France, Germany, and Britain combined, saying he fondly remembers times when he could walk a beach and not see any plastic.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/spor...ad8c5031a9

Cool stuff. But maybe he should wait until after shark week.

(07-25-2018 02:49 PM)ODU2011 Wrote:  Cool stuff. But maybe he should wait until after shark week.

No. He should try during Shark Week. it would be much more exciting and bring in more viewers.

(07-25-2018 02:52 PM)NorthTexan95 Wrote:  

(07-25-2018 02:49 PM)ODU2011 Wrote:  Cool stuff. But maybe he should wait until after shark week.

No. He should try during Shark Week. it would be much more exciting and bring in more viewers.

"Go go Gadget propellers!"

How does one avoid being eaten by sharks when swimming across an entire ocean?

(07-31-2018 08:39 PM)BRtransplant Wrote:  How does one avoid being eaten by sharks when swimming across an entire ocean?

You don't, it is just extremely unlikely.

clt would be impressed if he did this without the boat

8 hours a day? Bloody hell. It's hard to swim for 8 freaking MINUTES

Crazy! And he already swam across the Atlantic!
So the Atlantic trip was 3700 miles and took 73 days
The Pacific is going to be 5500 miles and 180 days

Yikes. About 8 minutes of swimming would have me recovering for the rest of the year. 8 hrs a day for 6 months is nuts. Good luck to him.

So it looks like he started in May right. How is he doing?

(08-01-2018 09:25 AM)DETLTU Wrote:  Crazy! And he already swam across the Atlantic!
So the Atlantic trip was 3700 miles and took 73 days
The Pacific is going to be 5500 miles and 180 days

Yikes. About 8 minutes of swimming would have me recovering for the rest of the year. 8 hrs a day for 6 months is nuts. Good luck to him.

So it looks like he started in May right. How is he doing?

According to his Twitter, most recently he's been dealing with massive typhoons which have slowed him down. Here's his Twitter link...

https://twitter.com/BenLecomteSwim

He can also be followed here...

http://benlecomte.com/#

clt is curious. How is he getting blackberry signal in the ocean?