What a spooky day it has been. It started when I woke up to the sound of an alarm. We had lost GPS and the system kept on dropping the signal each time Yoav rebooted it.
I stepped on deck to have my breakfast and saw a curtain of fog on our starboard side, the moon barely piercing through the clouds on our port side, and no wind on a glassy sea. I sat down with my 1/4 of coffee and a big bowl of oatmeal. I was looking at the sunrise, then the sunrise was behind me before it reappeared in front of me, the boat was making big circles.
Those conditions didn’t last, the wind started to pick up, waves were rising and it started raining before I jumped in the water. The water temperature was higher than the ambient temperature, it felt like I jumped in a warm bath.
Paul and Maria were in the dinghy and under the rain for the first two hours. The waves and wind picked up and moved eastward, in the same direction I was swimming, they were giving me an extra boost. I could feel big waves thrusting me forward. Paul moved the streamline from the port side to the starboard side to keep it more parallel to the RHIB. The direction of the waves and current pushed it under the dinghy.
I had been doing great progress during the day, I was on my eighth hours when I felt the push of a wave carrying me forward. At the same moment, a bad maneuver was made on the dinghy which propelled it in reverse right over the streamline. It was too late when I saw the grey side of the RHIB, my head was already by the propeller. I felt my forehead hitting a hard surface and immediately grabbed my forehead. I was hurting but it wasn’t an excruciating pain. When I removed my hands, blood starting to drip.
Paul quickly reached for me and pulled back my hoody to checked the extent my injuries. He was relieved, he did not see any big openings, it appeared to be only superficial. I heard Maria saying multiple times: “I am sorry Ben!”
Paul asked me to come on the dinghy and had radioed the rest of the crew on Seeker about the situation to get them ready.
I wasn’t feeling dizzy, so I took the time to removed my wetsuit and equipment in the water and rinsed myself before hooping in the RHIB. During that all time my blood dripped in the water and I wandered if a shark would smell it.
Once on Seeker, Maks took care of my forehead, no stitches were required. He cleaned everything and did a full assessment before I went to lay on my bunk.
In the evening, during our daily meeting, we spoke about what happened earlier and Paul showed me the snorkel I wore during the crash. The propeller made a big cut in the snorkel, right in front of my nose. Had I not worn it, my nose would have been split in half…
Mark gave me my answer about the shark. After he finished filming Maks assessing me, he went back on deck and saw a shark passing next to our sailboat. Maybe just a coincidence?
I started my day by eating some fresh yogurt. Maria made it with our powder milk and some yeast. This was quite tasty but I have to admit that eating anything different from our regular plan meals taste good anyway. For dinner we had also a treat, Maks caught a mahi-mahi and Gonzo prepared it … Continued
For the past two days, the wind has been too strong to swim. It started with 20 knots of wind, jumped to 25 and then 30 in a matter of seconds accompanied by heavy rain. The rain fell so hard that the visibility dropped to less than 50 meters. Had I been in the water … Continued
Unfortunately, the dinghy was still out of operation and I had to use the kayak to pace me. Swells pushed us in the right direction, south east. Some of them were cresting, giving me a good push. Maria, in the kayak was surfing as well and managed to keep the kayak up almost through the … Continued
I started the day with Maks doing an echo of my heart. GE put at our disposal a very compact and mobile unit, the same kind the astronauts use in the International Space Station. We go through the same procedure and get data and images to monitor any changes in the structure of my heart. … Continued
I was finally back to my painful routine. Today we started the swim with some wind and big swells, they were coming from opposite directions and created choppy conditions. I used Seeker’s tracker, mine refused to charge in the morning. I hoped this was just moisture and after cleaning the connections it would be back … Continued
Well, today wasn’t the return to swimming I had hoped for. Overnight the wind dropped and even using the engine this morning was not enough to cover the 50 miles that separated us from our destination. I used this extra day to make some modifications on my fins. The foot packets on some of them … Continued
Today with strong winds we were able to maintain a speed of 9 knots for most of the day. We had put some fishing gears in the water and even at that speed, we caught two big mahi-mahis. We had a fresh and delicious lunch and dinner. Yoav estimated that we should be back to … Continued
We started the day with a great news from our weather routing partner; the super typhoon had been moving north west, away from us and we could now turn around and sail back to our swim point. The weather had changed also, the wind speed had decreased and it was finally sunny. This boosted everybody’s … Continued
Today, Yoav got a new weather maps for the next 5 days. As I clicked on them watching one day after another, I looked at the progression of the super Typhoon and noticed a change in its course. It seemed to be moving north west. If the forecast held, this would mean that the system … Continued
The next two days were about the same, with waves and high winds. The crew was in a pure sailing mode, which meant different watches and a different life on the boat altogether, no swimming nor data collecting. The only data collected were my microbiome. WRI, our weather forecasting partner kept on updating us about … Continued
Yesterday, right after we stopped the swim, we received some information from our routing team about a strong system moving our way in addition to the smallest one we knew was coming. We decided to follow their advice and sail south-east. The winds picked up during the night and became stronger early in the morning. … Continued
The conditions became a little more challenging today but it was still swimmable. Ty was in the dinghy with Brian and I knew I could rely on them to make everything possible for me to swim even in those very difficult situations. Some of the waves were crashing on me and in the dinghy, they … Continued
Get in touch with the team! We'd love to hear from you; Whether you have a question, want to schedule an interview, or become involved in the project.