Seven kitesurfers are on track to complete a world record 1000-kilometre expedition on the Great Barrier Reef on Friday afternoon, having survived shark attacks, blistering sun and exhaustion to reach the tip of Cape York.
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They have left behind fellow traveller and event organiser Alex Unsworth, who wiped out and broke his femur early in the epic adventure he had spent the past year planning.
Since they launched north of Cairns on Thursday last week, the group has raised more than $88,000 for the Motor Neurone Disease Research Centre at Macquarie University. Research leader Dr Nick Cole, who is among the kitesurfers, is attempting to explain the mysteries of the fatal disease by genetically modifying zebra fish so they become transparent with spinal cords that fluoresce, so his team can watch neurons dying "in real time".
The only woman on the expedition, Jess Digs, broke the women's kitesurfing endurance record of 251 kilometres last Sunday – on the same day she had a close encounter with a shark.
"I felt a big thump on my back," she reported. "It properly winded me."
It was only at the end of that day's kitesurfing – 188 kilometres over nine hours on the water – that she found bite marks on her backpack and iPhone.
"Proper teeth marks," she had said. "I'm a bit shaky from that … Tell Mum I won't be able to text her from the finish line."
The team passed the Guinness World Record of 826 kilometres on Wednesday. They have reached top speeds of 50km/h and are averaging about 25km/h. Striving for height is normally the focus of the kitesurfer – and one of the party, Jesse Richman, is the world-record holder with 240 metres – but their sole ambition on this adventure is distance.
From a hospital bed in Cairns, Alex Unsworth is able to track each of his fellow kitesurfers' locations on GPS.
"Totally gutted – over a year of training and planning," he wrote on the KiteTheReef Facebook page. "On the bright side, I will be fixed up soon, in six weeks I will be walking again … If I had MND, I would be facing a 27-month death sentence. I am lucky."
Among their supporters is Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group and a kitesurfer, who has posted: "Together they are pushing the frontiers of science, charting uncharted territories, and overcoming great adversity, all in the name of adventure and a good cause. I wish that I could be there to join them."
Their fundraising target is $200,000.
