To Raise Awareness For Climate Change, 50-Year-Old Makes Bid To Swim Across Pacific 
 
 Enlarge this image toggle caption Seeker.com Seeker.com 
 
 On Tuesday, 50-year-old swimmer Ben Lecomte will push off from a beach in Choshi, Japan, wearing a shark repellent bracelet and an armband to track radiation in the ocean. He hopes to reach San Francisco in six months as the first person to swim across the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 A successful 5,500-mile journey will be a feat of athleticism and a major scientific opportunity. Lecomte, a Frenchman now living in Texas, is traveling alongside a boat with a six-person crew. He'll swim eight hours per day on a route that includes the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and the White Shark Migration Area. 
 
 Scientific partners, including NASA and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, have provided equipment for the swimmer's crew to conduct research on his body and the ocean along the way. They'll gather over 1,000 water samples, in part to gather data on pollution and plant life. 
 
 Lecomte has been planning the journey since he swam across the Atlantic Ocean 20 years ago. This time, he'll pick up each morning exactly where he left the night before, in hopes that this swim will become an official record. Seeker.com and Discovery have teamed up to track the journey, which Lecomte is doing in part to raise awareness for climate change. 
 
 "The ocean is in peril," he says. "I think it's my duty to use my passion to make a little change." 
 
 Weekend Edition's Lulu Garcia-Navarro spoke with Lecomte as he prepares for his swim. 
 
 Interview highlights 
 
 On starting the swim 
 
 The real training will start when I jump in the water. Because it's not something you can really replicate, you know — swimming eight hours a day, sleeping on the boat and having limited contact with the outside — it's very particular. 
 
 Enlarge this image toggle caption The Longest Swim The Longest Swim 
 
 On what scares Lecomte about the trip 
 
 The sharks are there, I mean, that's their environment. But for me, the biggest concern, I think — it's mostly the cold water. Because you can do so much in cold water after so many hours in the water, and no matter how thick your wetsuit is, you get cold, and it's very, very uncomfortable. 
 
 toggle caption The Longest Swim 
 
 After his swim across the Atlantic, Lecomte said "never again" 
 
 It didn't take that long for me to change my mind. Three, four months afterwards I was already thinking about my next adventure and doing something kind of the same. 
 
 I had the idea of the swim in the Pacific early on, but I got married and had children so I put that on the side. That was my priority, and now I come back to that dream that I had. I don't want to live with any regrets, so it's something that I've pursued, and I'm determined to do it. 
 
 On his children, who will join the last leg of Lecomte's journey 
 
 They are very enthusiastic. They are with me right now, they were on the boat last night with me and they are going to be on the boat tonight, and love it. We swim very often together, so we share the same passion. 
 
 On why he's swimming across the Pacific 
 
 The ocean is in peril. I'm very sensitive to my kids and knowing what they are going to have in their lives. I think it's my duty to try to use my passion to make a little change. We have to find what our role is if we want to preserve what we have. And that's very important for me — and for me to do that for my children. 
 
 NPR's Sophia Boyd produced this story for broadcast. 

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 Image copyright AFP Image caption Heading off from Choshi, Japan 
 
 A French swimmer has set off from Japan aiming to become the first person to swim across the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 Ben Lecomte, 51, will swim for eight hours a day for more than six months as he heads towards the US west coast. 
 
 He faces dangers including sharks, storms, swarms of jellyfish, and extremely low water temperatures. 
 
 He is hoping to raise awareness for climate change, and a team of scientists will conduct research during the 5,500 mile (9,000 km) swim. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Ben Lecomte sets off as he attempts to become the first person to swim the Pacific Ocean 
 
 They will study plastic debris, the effect of extreme exercise on the heart and examine how the Fukushima nuclear disaster has affected the ocean. 
 
 Mr Lecomte, who lives in the US, has been preparing with hours of open water swimming every day. He has also practised "visualisation and dissociation" exercises to ensure he is mentally ready. 
 
 "The mental part is much more important than the physical," he told AFP news agency. "You have to make sure you always think about something positive." 
 
 "When you don't have anything to occupy your mind it goes into kind of a spiral, and that's when trouble starts," he says. 
 
 Preparations for the trip have taken more than six years, but Mr Lecomte has been targeting the challenge for much longer. 
 
 In 1998, he made the first known solo trans-Atlantic swim covering 6,400km (4,000 miles) in 73 days. When he finally reached dry land in France, his first words were "never again", but he was soon looking for a new challenge. 
 
 "It didn't take that long for me to change my mind," he told NPR. "Three, four months afterwards I was already thinking about my next adventure and doing something kind of the same." 
 
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 Mr Lecomte's daily routine will remain virtually the same for the entire trip. He will swim for eight hours, jump onboard the support boat to eat and sleep, and then enter the water again. 
 
 To keep his energy levels high, he is aiming to consume 8,000 calories a day. 
 
 "I have a strict no sugar diet. Most of my calories will come from a high-fat diet and include a lot of freeze-dry full meals, rice, pasta and various soups," he posted during a Reddit interview earlier this month. 
 
 The support boat will be fitted with a GPS tracker and interested viewers will be able to track its progress on Mr Lecomte's website.
– Ben Lecomte has set off from Japan in an effort to swim to California, undaunted by sharks, low temperatures, fierce weather, a gigantic garbage patch—and the fact that nobody has even swum across the Pacific before. But the 51-year-old Frenchman has the right experience to attempt the record-breaking open-water swim: He completed the first solo swim across the Atlantic in 73 days in 1998, swearing "never again" when he reached land, the BBC reports. This time, he says he has been practicing open-water swimming for hours every day to deal with the physical challenges, and "visualization and dissociation" to occupy his mind during the long hours of swimming. Lecomte, who now lives in Texas, tweeted Monday that he'd been preparing for the swim for six years. He plans to swim for eight hours a day and sleep on an accompanying boat with a six-person crew—and will use GPS to make sure that he sets off each day from where he finished the night before. He plans to use the swim to raise awareness of climate change and ocean pollution. His crew will collect around 1,000 water samples for scientific partners. Lecomte tells NPR that his children will join him for the last leg of the 5,500-mile journey from Choshi, near Tokyo, to San Francisco. "They are with me right now, they were on the boat last night with me and they are going to be on the boat tonight, and love it," he says. "We swim very often together, so we share the same passion." (A 9-year-old swam from San Francisco to Alcatraz and back.)