In 1994, Jason Lewis and Steve Smith set out to circle the Earth using human power rather than engines or sails. Thirteen years later, Lewis completed the expedition after travelling 46,505 miles across five continents and numerous seas and oceans. In 2005, on the Cape York Peninsula in Australia, Lewis encountered a crocodile he estimated at 15 feet long. He knew estuarine crocodiles populated those waters. In his first-person account published by Sidetracked under the title “Crocodile Attack”, Lewis described how the crocodile followed his kayak to shore, attacked his paddle before retreating into deeper water. The encounter became one episode in his extraordinary 13-year circumnavigation.
How did Jason Lewis survive the crocodile attack
One of the most dangerous episodes came on 13 May 2005 at Cape York Peninsula in Australia. Lewis recalled seeing two eyes and a snub nose gliding behind his kayak as he approached shore. He had already paddled twenty-two miles in five and a half hours, while a leak in the canvas hull had forced him to bail frequently. He described the experience as the “primal, fundamentally hard-wired horror of being hunted and considered prey”.Reaching the beach did not end the danger. Lewis wrote that the crocodile, which he estimated at 15 feet long, moved through the surf towards his kayak. Using the hull as protection, he prodded its snout with his paddle, but the animal opened its mouth, hissed and lunged at him. Its jaws caught the paddle blade, beginning a struggle in which Lewis eventually thrust the blade into its throat and struck at it, breaking the paddle. The crocodile then turned and slipped back into deeper water.
Jason Lewis survived the night 25,000 miles from home
After the crocodile retreated, Lewis contacted John Andrews in Cairns using his satellite phone. Andrews warned him to leave the beach and seek higher ground, telling him that if he remained there overnight, the crocodile could wait until he was asleep. Lewis followed the advice and carried his equipment up the steep path to the top of the headland.By then it was dark. Lewis described his feet as swollen and said he was utterly spent as he sat in the windswept grass while mosquitoes gathered around him. Below, he could see the crocodile’s eyes moving in the darkness. In his own account, he later reflected on how he had ended up “25,000 miles from home” on the cliff above a “man-eater”, after years of the expedition.
PC: Kenny Brown; Sidetracked
Jason Lewis became the first to circle Earth by human power
The Cape York encounter formed part of a much longer expedition that ultimately lasted 13 years. Lewis is recognised by Guinness World Records as the first person to circumnavigate the Earth without using motors or sails. Its account says he walked, cycled and inline skated across five continents and used kayaking, swimming, rowing and a pedal-powered boat to cross rivers, seas and oceans.According to Guinness World Records, Lewis completed the circumnavigation on 6 October 2007, having travelled 74,842 kilometres, or 46,505 miles. His route passed through antipodal points and covered more than the Earth’s circumference of 24,900 miles, or 40,075 kilometres. The journey that began from Greenwich in 1994 therefore ended 13 years later with Lewis completing the first individual circumnavigation of the globe using human power.