A man has spent three nights sleeping on the beach building an unusual vessel, and it's all for a good cause. It looks like a Ferris wheel out in the ocean, and close up it's still difficult to pinpoint exactly what it is.
The mastermind behind the man-propelled bubble, Reza Baluchi, calls it his Hydro Pod; he plans to travel inside it from Pompano Beach, Florida, to Bermuda, Haiti, Cuba and Puerto Rico. The first leg alone is about 1,033 miles.
"Mind is power. It's 85 percent your mind. Anything you can do," Baluchi said.
This type of adventure isn't unusual for the endurance athlete, who said he has survived weeks in Death Valley, biked across six continents and run around the perimeter of the United States.
In 2014, he tried to run across the sea in a similar bubble, but a distress signal notified the Coast Guard and Baluchi had to terminate his trip.
"They burst my bubble, and now I put signs up that say 'please don't burst my bubble,'" he said with a laugh.
Baluchi has been working the last couple of years to perfect the Hydro Pod. Each side has 36 buoyancy balls, and he has a life jacket that has a water filter, a GPS tracking device and even shark repellent.
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To survive at sea, Baluchi filled backpacks with endurace bars, seasickness gum and tied Gatorade bottles with pantyhose to the Hydro Pod. His eventual goal is to run through every country in the world and raise money for children in need.
"I try to do the best thing from my heart. Giving help to children," Baluchi said.
