In 1986 seven men, one woman and 50 sled dogs set off from Ward Hunt Island to make the grueling 500-mile trek from the northernmost point in North America for the North Pole.

In 1986 seven men, one woman and 50 sled dogs set off from Ward Hunt Island to make the grueling 500-mile trek from the northernmost point in North America for the North Pole. In 1977 Robyn Davidson trekked 2, 835 kilometers across the Australian outback with four camels and a dog. This journey took her nine months, but at least she had the company of her animals. Some travelers are less sociable. A 71-year-old Frenchman has found a new way to cross the Atlantic Ocean. He will make the journey in a barrel. The adventurer, Jean-Jacques Savin, set sail from El Hierro, the smallest of the Canary Islands, the Spanish archipelago west of Morocco. He will attempt to reach the Caribbean with only ocean currents and winds propelling his capsule. Mr. Savin has already crossed the Atlantic four times in a sailboat, and many adventurers have made the journey by swimming, rowing or windsurfing, and even kite flying, but these achievements used human control and mechanical power. He will keep us informed of his progress on his Facebook page, and he plans to post daily updates including GPS coordinates tracking the journey. He is a former military parachutist, pilot and park ranger in Africa. The last time anyone has tried to do anything similar was when on October 20, 1952, Alain Bombard, another Frenchman and a young doctor and biologist, left the Canary Islands on a rubber raft to cross the Atlantic Ocean under the conditions of a shipwrecked ship. He wanted to show that a man can survive on a boat, if his morale is good, without carrying water or food and only using the resources of the sea. He survived on seawater, plankton and raw fish. After more than sixty days at sea, he reached the coast of Barbados in December. Mr. Savin, who hails from the oyster-farming town of Arès, in the southwest of France, hopes to make the crossing in about three months. It has been reported that Savin’s $66, 000 trip was paid for entirely by Crowdfunding and a sponsorship by a French barrel maker. His vessel, which he built himself in a small shipyard in Arès, is an orange barrel-shaped capsule about 3 meters long and 2. 10 meters wide. It is smaller than a pickup truck and concrete ballast holds it upright. Many people have crawled into barrels to go over Niagara Falls in New York. Some have survived. No one is known to have tried to cross the Atlantic in a barrel made of plywood. The capsule has been built to resist waves and potential attacks by orca whales. A solar panel generates power for communications and electronics on board. Mr. Savin describes his journey as a “crossing during which man isn’t captain of his ship, but a passenger of the ocean. ” He expects to drift south and west from the Canary Islands. On Thursday, after traveling one to two kilometers per hour for a day, he was about 19 kilometers from his origin. He posted a selfie from inside the barrel, assuring his followers that "everything is going well today. " With his favorite quote of “Help Yourself and Heaven Will Help You”, we can see that he is a man of great faith and strength.