Two decades ago, Ben Lecomte became the first person to swim across the Atlantic Ocean without using a kickboard. He did it to test his limits and raise money for cancer research as a way to honor his father.

Now 51 years old, the Frenchman is taking on another never-been-done ultra-swim: Crossing the Pacific Ocean.

Lecomte set off on June 5, and plans to spend six months swimming 5,500 miles from Chōshi, Japan, to San Francisco.

“The mental part is much more important than the physical,” he told AFP. “You have to make sure you always think about something positive.”

During the attempt, he will swim for eight hours a day, and sleep on a yacht named “Discoverer.” The trip has taken him six years to prepare for and train for, and knowing shark encounters are likely, the goodbye to his wife and two children was difficult.

“During the drive to the beach, my children and my wife didn’t say much, it was an intense quiet moment, no word could have made the situation less painful,” he wrote in his logbook. “…I asked Ana and Max, my children, to wait until I was ready in the water to join me and swim the first 50 meters with me. The water was cold, I wore a wetsuit but they did not. Max was a little hesitant at the beginning then he dove and lead Ana and me toward the open ocean. I had to grab his leg twice to put him in the right direction as he was swimming straight toward some big rocks. Once we were out I stopped them and the three of us hugged one last time. They turned around and I waited for them to reach the beach before swimming off.”

Five hours into the colossal swim, Lecomte saw a three-foot long shark, and his support crew received word of a five-foot shark nearby, so a medic on a kayak dropped off a “shark protection device.”

 

 

Why take on such risky challenge? It turns out, Lecomte is the associate director of sustainability services at a consulting firm, and he’s raising awareness surrounding plastic pollution.

Each day, Lecomte and his support team will take samples of water to test levels of plastic pollution. They will also catch fish in order to get an idea of how much plastic is infiltrating the food chain. Not only will researchers from scientific organizations, like NASA and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, receive samples, but health and wellness researchers will be collecting data on Lecomte’s physiological and psychological state.

Want to follow Lecomte’s quest? You can do so on a live tracker.