French athletes swim 8,850km across the Pacific

Benoît Lecomte will swim from Japan to the US in the journey of crossing the Pacific Ocean 8,850 km long with an estimated time of 6 months.

Beno Lecomte began a journey of more than 8,850km yesterday's trans-Pacific swim off Choshi City near Tokyo, Japan, according to Business Insider. If everything goes according to plan, Lecomte will arrive in San Francisco, California, USA, after 6 months. On this long journey, the 51-year-old French athlete will encounter many marine animals such as sharks and jellyfish, endure cold temperatures and cross the giant trash island.

"Why join the trip? It is a very reasonable question, I asked myself from time to time. I started to have passion for the ocean, passion for the sea" , Lecomte share.

Lecomte's journey across the Pacific.(Video: Seeker).

After completing his journey across the Atlantic in 73 days in 1998, Lecomte said the next target was the Pacific Ocean. But marriage, childbirth and many other factors make the trip more than a decade slow. About 7 years ago, he began to focus on preparing for a new journey. Lecomte collaborated with Seeker and Discovery in a project called "The Swim" . He hopes the project will help raise awareness about environmental protection, especially the problem of pollution of plastic waste in the sea.

During the trip, Lecomte and his escort ship on the journey will collect specimens and inspect the water, examine everything from radioactivity after the Fukushima incident to the existence of micro-plastic in the Pacific island of garbage."For me, this is a better opportunity to draw attention to the ocean and the state of the ocean by doing something crazy like this swimming," Lecomte said.

To implement the project, Lecomte plans to swim 8 hours a day, passing about 48km after each swim. He will spend the rest of the time sleeping and eating. The escort ship equipped with GPS satellite navigation, whereby the crew could monitor where Lecomte emerged from the water every day and return to that point to swim the next day.

Lecomte will need to eat 8,000 calories / day to be able to carry out the journey. His meal consisted mainly of dry and frozen food divided into several meals when he was on board. In addition, Lecomte will eat soup and other liquid food when staying underwater every 30 minutes. Lecomte says he doesn't eat sweets but will consume a lot of fat.

For swimming, Lecomte will carry flippers, snorkels and diving suits, essential equipment when he gets close to American waters, where cold water can cause body temperature to drop to dangerous levels."The biggest difficulty is temperature," Lecomte said. The waves as high as 15 meters are also a big challenge, especially the waves can make Lecomte difficult to maintain distance from the ship.

Lecomte plans to swim 8 hours / day, passing about 48km after each swim.

Another risk is attention from such a curious shark herd. The ship has an electromagnetic field transmitter to prevent sharks from getting too close and Lecomte also wears a magnetic ring that can drive them away. He knows he will meet sharks by traveling through the area where white sharks migrate. Lecomte can also encounter poison and dolphins along the way.

To prepare for health, Lecomte focuses on training to help the body get used to working continuously for 8 hours at 60% of maximum heart rate. He swim, bike or jog 3 - 5 hours a day, and try to maintain the heart rate at 120 beats during exercise. In terms of the brain, Lecomte said he "trained to separate the mind from the body". He hoped to think and focus on something every day that would help himself deal with the neurological challenge of swimming 8 hours underwater.

The project has the participation of many partners, including 27 scientific organizations such as the US Aerospace Agency (NASA) and Woods Hold Oceanographic Institute. Lecomte and the crew on the ship will collect more than 1,000 specimens, allowing scientists to learn more about plastic waste pollution, mammalian migration, plankton, tolerance in extreme conditions.