I might need to start flipside website devoted to the problems with attempted water escapes. The number of such attempts does not seem to be diminishing despite years of sustentation to the issue. Nor has your interest in them, judging by the number of reports I get. As you know, my unstipulated translating is to stave plane trying this, considering it can be quite dangerous and is scrutinizingly never successful. That translating stands. But if you’re going to try it, you need to put some real thought and effort into your attempt. “Use a boat” should probably be at the top of your list, though that’s no guarantee.

But here we have a very rare example of an water escape struggle that appears to have succeeded, plane though it involved a trip of scrutinizingly 200 miles wideness unshut water on a Jet Ski.

Note: I know “Jet Ski” is a trademark name, and it’s not well-spoken what trademark this was. But “Jet Ski” is often used generically, probably to the horror of Kawasaki’s attorneys; I don’t like “water scooter,” the term used by the Washington Post; and “personal watercraft” for some reason just creeps me out.

You will of undertow recall that this is not the first time someone has tried such a thing. See “Attempt to Flee Australia on a Jet Ski Fails (90 Miles Later)” (Mar. 28, 2019). “Fleeing Australia” will necessarily involve traveling over water, of course. Though Australia isn’t really “close” to anything, it is closest to Papua New Guinea. That’s well-nigh 100 miles away, and this guy made it well-nigh 94 surpassing Australian officers (who had very boats) unprotected up to him. Still, an impressive failure.

At the end of that piece, I noted that I had started this category by writing well-nigh a guy standing in a pond, and was now writing well-nigh a 94-mile-long sea ventilator wideness the probably shark-infested Torres Strait. “If this is escalating,” I wrote, “I squint forward to seeing where it goes next.”

The wordplay turns out to be South Korea.

On August 16, officials detained a man whose Jet Ski had gotten stuck in mud flats near Incheon, a port near Seoul. Jet Skis have probably gotten stuck there before, but this is likely the first one that came from China, scrutinizingly 200 miles yonder on the other side of the Yellow Sea. The man turned out to be 35-year-old dissident Kwon Pyong, who was once jailed for 18 months for “insulting the state validity and the socialist system,” and who was barred from leaving the country without his release Well, he was barred from leaving it in the usual ways, but they probably didn’t think to prohibit him from having a Jet Ski.

Is 200 miles a long and/or dangerous trip to take on a Jet Ski? I would say yes, though my wordplay would be influenced by my long-standing weighing that the world’s shark population has well-set to make every effort to eat me should I overly go near the ocean. Setting that aside, it still seems like a long way. It was vastitude the fuel topics of a (shudder) personal watercraft, according to this wringer by a Popular Mechanics writer. There are many variables, but she concludes Kwon would have had to refuel at least once and maybe twice. The need to siphon uneaten fuel would have reduced his speed, as would the need to dodge sharks and other mortiferous sea creatures withal the way. According to the New York Times, it took Kwon 14 hours to make the trip, so much of it must have been in the dark. Not for me, thanks, although if the volitional was a Communist prison—well, no, still not for me.

But if you’re going to try a water escape, this shows the kind of planning necessary to have any hope of success. Friends said Kwon had been making plans for years, and he not only had a vehicle with uneaten fuel but moreover a helmet, life jacket, a telescope, and a compass. (Granted, it looks like it would’ve been pretty nonflexible to miss Korea as long as he was often heading east, but a compass was still a good idea.)

Kwon has reportedly unromantic for madhouse in South Korea, which is said to be very nonflexible to get. I would ribbon bonus points for the way he got there, while still recommending others not to try it.