Swim across Lake Michigan abandoned after 60 miles; swimmer dropped GPS batteries in lake

A man attempting an epic 80-mile swim across Lake Michigan said he gave up on the third day after losing two batteries for a critical GPS device and ending up badly off course.

Jim Dreyer, 60, was pulled from the water last Thursday after 60 miles. He said he had been swimming from Michigan to Wisconsin for hours without a GPS, relying only on a wrist compass and his reading of the sky and waves.

A support boat pulled up and informed him that he had been swimming north all day — “the wrong direction,” said Dreyer, who had left Grand Haven on Tuesday.

“What a blow!” he said in a report that he posted online. “I should have been in the home stretch, well into Wisconsin waters with about 23 miles to go. Instead, I had 47 miles to go, and the weather window would soon close.”

Dreyer was towing an inflatable boat with nutrition and supplies last week. On the second day, he paused to get fresh AA batteries to keep a GPS device working. But during the process, he said he somehow lost the bag in the lake.

“It was an accident, but it was my fault,” Dreyer said of the batteries. “This is a tough pill to swallow.”

Dreyer, whose nickname is The Shark, crossed Lake Michigan in 1998, starting in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, and finishing in Ludington, Michigan. But three attempts to do it again since last summer have been unsuccessful.




(Photo Jonathan Boeve via AP)