One thing I have noticed about these types of people... they are too :something: to get hurt. Here is a long-winded story to explain:
I used to live in the keys in the early 90s. I did a lot of scuba diving with one of the local shops. I certified through them and I kind of paid a little too much when I bought all my gear through them. My dive instructor was a little miffed about it so for the rest of the time I lived down there, I got great deals on two-tank dives. The only catch was that if there was someone diving solo, we would have to take them on as partners so they wouldn't dive by themselves. This was a very nice deal since most people are very nice, polite, and generally know what the heck they are doing. However, there were the few that scared me. One in particular... I'll call him Clint since he looked a lot like Clint Eastwood... was to ultimate in stupidity. First thing he did was jumped right off the platform before turning on his air. Somehow he made it back up to the boat with some pretty hard kicking. The look in his eyes was priceless. That should have been the first clue that this was going to be a bad trip. We finally got him squared away, went over our dive plan, and then followed the anchorline down to the bottom. When we got to the bottom he was nowhere to be found. I could see him floating off the back of the boat. As I started to go up to grab him, he finally figured out how the get the air out of his "floaty vest thing" so he could sink. He hit the bottom with a thud in a nice cloud of sand and silt. Thank God for the current. He had a terrible time keeping up to a very leasurely pace, he tried to pet a morray eel (a big green one), and he was an environmental disaster to the reef (dragging through the sand bumping into the coral). We had to swim around the reef to the outside to see all the good stuff. I dont think he paid attention on the way out. After about 40 minutes we all surfaced to get a good bearing to go around the reef back to the boat. My regular partner Dave and I would have contests to see if we could complete the three legs around the reef and get back to the boat without having to surface. We had gotten pretty good at it and today was Dave's turn. While he was taking his headings and distances I was explaining to Clint what we were going to do. All he had to do was follow. He nodded and we began to descend back to the bottom. About halfway down I heard this weird splashing sound. I looked up to see how Clint was doing and was terrified at what I saw. He had his snorkel in his mouth and he was planning on swimming on the surface OVER the reef back to the boat in a direct line. I tried to ascend to catch him before he went over. That day, there was a pretty descent surge and the reef came to within a foot of the surface. I chased and chased and got to withing grabbing distance of his fins but with his kicking I couldn't grab hold. As the bottom got closer and closer to surface I finally gave up and let him swim over. I swam back out to Dave cussing like a sailor. I told Dave that the dive master would get all mad at me because I let this nimrod swim over the reef and cut himself into bitty piece. We continued our dive and Dave's navigation put us right on the boat. When I climbed up the platform the dive master asked how the dive was. I thought he was being funny and started in about how big an idiot Clint was. I asked if he was hurt very bad. The dive master said, "No, he's in there getting a drink." When I walked into the cabin area, Clint was back there combing his hair like Fabio. He didn't have a single scratch on him. I walked over to him to tell him how he was too stupid to get hurt but he could certainly get someone else hurt. All that I had the guts to tell him was he needed to find another group to dive with on the next dive.

Some people are just too ignorant to get hurt. They go through life in bliss. I'm anxious to see how Mr. Vann's expedition turns out. He could be very very lucky and make it all the way around with perfect weather. Maybe the Southern Ocean winter will wait an additional month until he clears that route. We'll see.