FORMER ROYAL MARINE PREPARES TO COMPLETE A 17,500-MILE OCEAN VOYAGE

A Devon man with two decades of service in the Royal Marines is nearing the final leg of an extraordinary ocean feat that has already consumed more than 300 days of his life. Dave "Dinger" Bell, 54, set off from Lima, Peru, on November 9 of last year and is now 900 nautical miles from the Kenyan port of Mombasa, where he hopes to arrive in early October.

If successful, Mr. Bell will become the first individual to complete an unsupported rowing journey connecting South America and Africa. The expedition has taken him across the Pacific and Indian Oceans in what experts have described as a "superhuman" feat.

Bell has rowed the distance without accepting physical assistance or setting foot on land throughout the entire journey, which covers approximately 17,500 miles.

The magnitude of Bell's effort is evident in the numbers: his journey spans 15,500 nautical miles in total, sustained entirely by the 750 kilograms of provisions he loaded before departure. Upon completion, his achievement would far surpass the existing record of 6,140 nautical miles set by American rower Jacob Adoram in 2019, according to the Ocean Rowing Society.

However, the expedition's conclusion remains uncertain. Georgie Vintner, Mr. Bell's partner who helped plan the trip, warned that adverse ocean currents pose a "risk" of sweeping him toward Somalia instead of his intended destination.

"It’s not over until you set foot on land," she told *The Times*. "He absolutely does not need to go to Somalia. If he makes it to Kenya, I’ll be there on the beach, ready to give my crazy boyfriend a wash." The expedition serves as a fundraising effort for Rock2Recovery, a veterans' charity for which Mr. Bell has already raised over £36,000. Having completed 20 years in the Royal Navy, he expressed from his 8.3-meter carbon-fiber boat, "Billy No Mates," that he felt "humbled and grateful" to have left the service in good health and wished to give back to those less fortunate.

However, Bell acknowledged that philanthropy represents only part of his motivation. "But I’ll be brutally honest: I’m motivated by the difficulty of the challenge itself, the discomfort, and the sense of achievement you get from taking such a huge risk—the risk of failure."

The start of the journey proved emotionally challenging, with Mr. Bell describing the moment his partner disappeared from view as the most "heart-wrenching" part of the entire expedition.

"I distinctly remember the last time Georgie looked over her shoulder and walked away from me. It tore me apart," he said. "In the first few weeks, I really struggled with the lack of purpose in what I was doing. I knew what I was doing was selfish. It would be foolish to argue otherwise."

After his initial doubts, Mr. Bell settled into a routine of rowing 12 hours a day toward Australia, a 7,500-nautical-mile stretch. Human interaction has been minimal throughout, with his closest encounter occurring in the Coral Sea, where the crew of a Chinese fishing vessel expressed surprise when he declined their offers of food in order to maintain his unsupported status.