Reza Baluchi, whose attempt to “run” from Florida to Bermuda in a bubble ended with intervention from the US Coast Guard, has now resurfaced with an even more improbable plan to cross the Pacific.
Baluchi first attracted attention in Bermuda in 2014 when he attempted to travel from Florida to the island inside a homemade human-powered vessel he calls a “hydropod.”
The voyage ended when the US Coast Guard rescued him about 70 nautical miles east of St Augustine, Florida, after he was found disoriented and asking for directions to Bermuda.
A second attempt to reach Bermuda was stopped by the Coast Guard in 2016, with authorities describing the proposed journey as unsafe and issuing an order preventing him from departing.
Baluchi was back at sea in 2023, this time saying he intended to reach England. The Associated Press reported that the Coast Guard intercepted him about 70 miles off Georgia, with the operation taking five days before he was brought ashore and charged with obstruction of boarding and violating a captain-of-the-port order.
His public Facebook page now lists Tainan, Taiwan, as his location, and he recently announced that he was preparing for a 2026-2027 human-powered ocean expedition beginning in Taiwan.
In an interview published by Travel Grit, Baluchi outlined plans alleging that he will spend up to a year travelling about 21,000 miles in a new hydropod.
His proposed route — which is basically impossible to do in a human powered bubble — would take him from Asia through waters including the South China Sea, before continuing through the Middle East and Europe and eventually finishing in Florida.
