The dissident’s lone regret after his 200-mile escape across the Yellow Sea was not taking night vision goggles.
Nearing the end of his jet ski journey out of China last summer, Kwon Pyong peered through the darkness off the South Korean coast. As he approached the shore, sea gulls appeared to bob as if floating. He steered forward, then ran aground: The birds were sitting on mud.
“I had everything — sunscreen, backup batteries, a knife to cut buoy lines,” he recalled in an interview. He was prepared to signal his location with a laser pen if he became stranded and to burn his notes…
