This ... would not be a fun thing to learn while swimming.
Marathon swimmer says he quit Lake Michigan swim after going in wrong direction with dead GPS
A man attempting an epic 80-mile (128 kilometer) 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 (96 kilometers). 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 (37 kilometers) to go. Instead, I had 47 miles (75 kilometers) to go, and the weather window would soon close.”
