Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
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Different Strokes Martha's Vineyard's Dean Bragonier takes on sharks and rough seas in his quest to swiM around the island to raise Money for students with dyslexia. by jared bowen photography by Ken richardson When asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, British mountaineer George Mallory famously replied, "Because it's there." Dean Bragonier is just as straightforward. On July 11, he'll suit up in his Speedo, dive into the chilly waters off Ma r t ha's Vineya rd, a nd st a r t to sw im. A nd sw im a nd sw im a nd sw im. I n a n ef for t to ra ise money for Not iceAbilit y, t he non- profit organization he founded to serve children with dyslexia, Bragonier plans to become the first person to swim around the island. It's a 50 -mile route through shark-inhabited waters that should take the 42-year-old just over a mont h. T he idea occu r red to h i m la st su m mer when a f r iend who rel ishes extreme sports invited him on a two-mile swim between the island's East and West Chops. "That one [stretch] is not Herculean, so I thought, Let's push t he envelope," Bragonier says. "You have to do t he whole t hing if you're going to do it." Mallory would be proud. Tall and lean with leading-man looks, Bragonier was to the water born. Raised in Manhattan by a journalist father and a child psychologist mother, he spent his first three years on a houseboat docked at the 79th Street Boat Basin. "They put me in a harness with a dog leash attached to the mast so I wouldn't go overboard," he says. Weekends were spent sailing off to islands a ll a long t he Nor t heast coast. "I feel more at ease, ca lm, a nd g rounded when I'm in proximity to water," says Bragonier, who today splits his time between Cambridge and a family retreat on Martha's Vineyard. His memor ies of t he isla nd a re especia lly fond g iven t hat much of his childhood was clouded by the humiliation he felt from an early diagnosis of Growing up with dyslexia, Dean Bragonier—seen here at his home in Cambridge—learned how to keep his head well above water, and now he's teaching his strategies to others. PEOPLE Spirit of Generosity 64 bostoncommon-magazine.com