A while back, I used to swim over a mile a day. I would have had to swim another 35+ years to equal the feat of one Leatherback Turtle. 

The Chicago Tribune on Saturday, February 9 reported that scientists tracked a leatherback turtle that swam from Indonesia to Oregon and back to Hawaii in a 13,000-mile search for food — research they hope will boost international efforts to save the species endangered by commercial fishing.

Researchers Scott Benson and Peter Dutton of the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service went to Indonesia in 2001 hoping to track turtles using satellite transmitters. Their research, published in the journal Chelonian Conservation and Biology, showed the animals ranged from the South China Sea to the Sea of Japan and the North Pacific.

One adult female began her journey in 2003 on a nesting beach in Indonesia’s Papua province, Benson said. He and Dutton tracked the turtle for 647 days until the transmitter’s battery ran out just off Hawaii. During her travels she swam as far north as Oregon