This coming April Ben Lecomte will swim 5,500 miles of the Pacific Ocean to raise awareness and funds for Cancer research.
His swim will begin in Choshi, Japan and end in San Francisco, California some five to six months later. Nothing close to a mere “pipe dream,” Ben covered nearly 3,716 miles of the ocean when he swam the Atlantic in 1998.
During the Atlantic swim he generated much curiosity and support and shortly thereafter appeared on television shows such as the “Oprah Winfrey Show” and “Good Morning America.”
In 1991 Ben's father passed away as a result of cancer. Personally understanding what it is like to lose someone to cancer, he is putting his energy into creating more awareness of this prevalent disease. Additionally, in an effort to foster a supportive space for those with cancer and their family and friends, he and his team have created a web-site where people can come together and share their stories. Click here for more information.
Doug Stanley, Emmy-award winning producer of the “Deadliest Catch,” is producing a documentary entitled “The Longest Swim” that will follow Ben twenty-four hours a day as he undertakes this journey. Pre-production on this project began in December 2011. “I feel that Ben’s attempt at swimming the Pacific will require super-human effort. I am very excited to be a part of this grand adventure and feel that it will result in some very compelling television that will inspire millions of people worldwide.”
Ben will be connected to the television audience via technology that will allow for a live stream of this journey on Facebook. “This is the first time ever that this has been done,” exclaims Lecomte.
Serene: What are a few key things that you learned about yourself and about life in general during the Atlantic swim?
Ben: One of the things that I learned is that you never truly know yourself until you challenge yourself. It is when you are confronted with challenges that you see what you are really made of, what is important to you and what your true aspirations are…sometimes you think that you really know yourself, and then you find out that you really don’t. After I finished the Atlantic swim I said “never again,” but it didn’t take long for me to change my mind. I like to push my limits. I want to raise money for cancer research and to inspire others to follow their dreams.
Serene: How would you describe the state of mind that you went into during the swim? What did it feel like?
Ben: It is an exercise that I do to put my mind somewhere else. The feelings that I am having depend on where my mind is going to be. What I mean by that is when I am swimming and I want to disassociate, I start by engaging my senses to be somewhere else. If I start thinking of my family, I try to visualize my family, where would we be, what sounds do I hear, what smells do I smell, do I feel the sun on my skin. Even though I am swimming in the water, my mind is away from that and I feel that I am with my family. My goal is to be able to disassociate one from the other. I try to visualize being somewhere else and doing something else. When I am successful at that I feel that I am with them.
Serene: What was it like energetically for you after you reached land again? Were you ultra-sensitive to the worldly energies after having been away from the bombardment for so long? In other words: What did it feel like to reach land and have so many energies aimed at you after having been surrounded in nothing but the water for such a long time?
Ben: It was kind of funny. I was pretty tired and had been deprived of so much stimuli, so everything came at once. The smells were totally different, they were heightened. There were many people around and I was seeing many new things, testing new foods.
I could not sleep that night so I got dressed and went outside. It was raining and I spent a few hours walking around. I found that I even enjoyed the smell of the car exhaust and just being out in the rain. Depending on the way the wind was blowing, I could smell the earth, it smelled very woody and organic. After having been in the water for so long, your senses become acute. You get used to the smell of the ocean and it’s the same thing over and over again, and so when you feel a change you can pick it up really well.
Serene: Do you practice any form of formal meditation?
Ben: I go into a meditative state but I don’t follow a path that people who meditate take, like sitting in a room and getting quiet. It is when I swim that I meditate.
Serene: Based upon the great mental, emotional and spiritual strength that you accrued during your last swim, what words of wisdom could you share with others about facing life challenges and transcending any current limitations?
Ben: I think the only words that I can share came from my doctor. You don’t know how your mind and body are going to react. He said, “don’t try to fight anything just try to stay flexible and adapt your body.” He was right on. It was one of the best pieces of advice that has been given to me: stay on the schedule, adapt to what comes along the way and follow what your body tells you.
When I was training I would swim for 2 hours, take a break and then swim for another 2 hours. In the ocean it was easier for me to swim 4 hours, eat something, take a break and then go back and swim for another 4 hours. My eating habits totally changed too. I like candy bars but when I was swimming I couldn’t eat any. They gave me Snickers but I couldn’t eat anything sweet. I wanted anything that had salt in it. It was the same with coffee. In the morning I usually drink coffee, but during the Atlantic swim I didn’t have any desire to and I became a tea drinker. It didn’t take too long to get used to coffee again once the swim was over.
Serene: Have you ever had a near death experience?
Ben: No. I had a concussion once, but it was not while swimming, it was while snow skiing. I was going downhill and fell on my head. I think I blacked out. The next thing I knew I was awake and there were a bunch of people standing all around me. During the time that I lost consciousness I couldn’t remember if I dreamed. That few seconds passed by without me knowing of any changes that happened.
Serene: What is the earliest memory that you have of your father? What feelings are associated with this memory?
Ben: We were together in the ocean and he was teaching me how to swim. He was holding me up by my belly and I was trying to do a breast-stroke.
My parents put me in the water very early, and also had me skiing at a very early age. They put me on skis when I was one and a half. I was fortunate to have parents who understood the importance of exposing their kids to different sports, different cultures and different activities in order to discover what we liked and what we didn’t like. They didn’t push us, they just gave us many things to choose from.
Serene: Can you tell us what you've learned about appreciating each moment that we share with others in our lives?
Ben: The moments that you share with a person do not stop when that person is not in your life anymore. The relationship that I had with my father did not stop when he passed away. An example is me doing the Pacific swim. If I didn’t have the father that I had I wouldn’t be doing this. We had a close connection in life, and I still carry that connection in following my dream. This is because of my parents, the closeness that we had and what we share together.
Serene: What would you say to a person who says, “I cannot do it?”
Ben: These are the words that I probably dislike the most, especially when a person hasn’t tried. Everybody says it, and I have probably said it. I have two kids…one is ten and the other is four. If one of them tells me “I can’t do that,” I think it’s crazy if they haven’t even tried. It is not that they can’t do it; it’s that they haven’t tried. It is a mind set rather than anything else.
If you think you cannot do it, you set yourself up to fail anyway. Maybe it will take one more try to do it, and that is what life is about. If you don’t get it right on the first try, you try again. You keep doing it and doing it until you find success!
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