A series of splashes sends ripples of waves through the water as Yannick Bohbot-Dridi (12) speeds across the pool. His body is a well-oiled machine, refined and optimized through extensive practice.

“You feel kind of free, at least that’s how I feel,” Yannick said. “No one can see the emotions on your face. It’s really just you in the water, and the sound of the water going by your ears is just really kind of comforting.”

He fidgets with the sleeve of his PASA sweatshirt as he talks, rocking back and forth on his heels. His friends know him for this underlying energy, bordering on hyperactivity.

“Yannick is very energetic and amusing and all over the place. He’s overly energetic if we’re being realistic here,” his close friend Felix Roman (12) said. “I remember during the promotion party for 8th grade, he was dancing all over the place and I was going to tell him that it was getting boring, but I couldn’t find him ‘cause he was off someplace doing the Thriller.”

He channels his energy into his three-hour-a-day training sessions, joking that he’s always swimming, sleeping or doing homework. Through swimming butterfly — often regarded as the most difficult stroke — he has developed mental toughness as well as physical strength.

“It feels like you’re gliding on top of the water with every stroke,” he said. “In butterfly, it’s either you go fast or you can’t swim it, and that’s what I like about it — it always has to be all-out.”

But Yannick didn’t always love swimming.

“Up until the end of sophomore year, swimming was fun, but I didn’t like the hard workouts,” he said. “I didn’t feel like this was going to be a sport that I could pursue. When I started growing, it became a little easier to keep up, and also, after watching the 2016 Olympics, I realized that hard work is the only key to being successful in a sport like swimming. I wasn’t really looking for success before, I was just doing it just because. I mean, I would be pushed by my friends, occasionally my parents and my coaches, but in the beginning of the junior year, it became something that was driven by me. That’s when I started enjoying everything, and that’s when I started to get better.”

Junior year marked another turning point: the first year Yannick participated in Swim Across America. Through this event, over the past two years, he and his friends have raised $20,000 for the UCSF Children’s Hospital for cancer research.

“We [went] up to San Francisco at 4 a.m. in the morning,” Yannick said. “We [went] off a boat that [dropped] us off under the Golden Gate Bridge with some 300 other people who are cancer survivors and families of people who have faced cancer, and we [swam] in honor of everyone who has battled cancer.”

After taking the frightful leap off the boat into the San Francisco Bay, Yannick immediately felt a rush of cold. But soon, his instincts took over.

“When we got into the water, we could barely breathe because it was so cold,” he said. “It’s like that feeling when your lungs feel like they can’t expand. And you can’t see anything. You can’t even see a couple feet in front of you — I couldn’t even see the swimmers in front of me, nothing. Every ten or so strokes, you have to lift yourself out the water and tread water a bit to see where you’re at.”

Vision muddled by the murky waters of the bay, Yannick took his mind off the swim itself and contemplated the greater purpose: pushing through adversity in solidarity of cancer survivors and their families who had done the same.

“Even though it was a small act, it was still something,” he said. “I’ve always focused on myself while I was swimming, and I never thought that I would be able to use that skill to help others. I knew that doing this, on paper, had very little benefit towards me. I was swimming in the bay in the freezing cold bay on a Sunday morning. At the beginning, I thought, ‘Yeah, I’m just going to help people,’ but I did not expect to feel so happy after. I just felt grateful.”

At first glance, Yannick, with his cheerful personality, may seem like a stereotypical athlete who’s caught up in superficial accomplishments and unaware of the gravity of real problems. However, he finds true satisfaction through applying his skills to help others. He eventually hopes to pursue a career in medicine.

“He’s one of the most caring people I know,” his friend Anastasia Cheplansky (12) said. “He always tries to makes sure that everyone’s doing okay and that they’re happy. There was something that I was really upset about over the summer, and he would call me every single day to make sure that I was okay and cheer me up.”

His sister, Hannah Bohbot-Dridi (9), shares this sentiment.

“When I was really little, he would push me around, so that I would start walking, and we could play together,” she said. “I always remember times like that where he pushed me to be my best. He still does it today.”

Additional reporting by Humans of Harker managing editor Melissa Kwan.