When David Hughes was about 3, his mother discovered he liked the water. “He would want to go to the pool, and dive, and go under the water.”

It was awful for her. She had never learned to swim, so she could only watch, Irene Marchenay said. So the Cornell University lecturer took lessons and learned.

Marchenay was raising her son in Ithaca, New York then. Now she teaches French at Wiscasset Middle High School. The twice-retired Marchenay will start her first full year in the job this fall.

Her son’s interest in swimming faded, but, while still in his youth, Hughes found another passion that has stayed with him. It has taken him all over the world and now, at 38, to the Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

At her new home on Edgecomb’s Dodge Road, the Paris, France born-and-raised Marchenay recalled her son’s journey in the sport of sailing and shared the good from it and one downside.

When she’s in Texas later this month for his team’s sendoff party, it will be the first time the two have seen each other since 2014.

“I’m very excited to see him.”

Traveling internationally to train and compete, even at Christmas, has been necessary for the University of Southern Maine graduate to reach the Olympic level, his mother said. The long span between visits is hard, she said. But they make due. “Here he is, flying and sailing all over the world, as busy as can be, and he calls me. He texts me. He’s very attentive to his mother.”

Lately, he’s also sent her presents tied to his upcoming Olympic experience. One is a jacket with the U.S. team emblem.

He told her to wear it proudly. She intends to. After Friday’s interview, she planned to wear it in public for the first time — on a trip to WalMart in Brunswick.

Is she proud of her son? “You bet, ya,” she said, not only for his accomplishments but for the man he is. “He is the sweetest, nicest man. Sometimes I can’t even believe it, that I’m the mother of such a strong person,” so focused on whatever he is doing, she said.

She cited that focus as one of the qualities that may help explain his high achievement in the sport. “He’s a meticulous young man. He thinks of everything before he does anything. He’s very precise,” she added.

It has also served him well outside sailing, even taking him to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Marchenay said her son interned for U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and then did an internship in the Chief of Staff’s Office in the White House during the Clinton presidency.

While sailing has not been his lone pursuit, it has held a strong interest for him since he took it up as a teen. He, his mother and then-stepfather moved to Maine and Marchenay was looking for something for her son to do the summer before he entered Yarmouth High School. He was not into team sports, so his mother got him into a summer program at Harraseeket Yacht Club in Freeport.

“I said, ‘It’s you, the water and the boat.’”

The combination clicked. “At the end of (the program), he said, ‘Can I go to the second session of it?’ He was hooked.”

Hughes was still in high school when he became an instructor at the club; and after high school, he served as director.

As Marchenay pointed out, the parent of a sailing Olympian is in the less common situation of not being able to watch from the stands. She’s used to it from his earlier years in the sport. “It was hard because I could not see him at his best, because they’re on the water.” For the same reason, an event didn’t always end on schedule. “If there was no wind, I had to wait and wait” for him to be able to sail back, she said.

Marchenay keeps up with her son’s competitions by tracking them online; that’s her plan for next month’s Rio games as well. He’s always surprised when she already knows how he did, she said.

This is David Hughes’ first run at an Olympic medal, but not his first trip to the Olympics. He coached one of the U.S. sailing teams four years ago in the London games, his mother said.

Hughes and teammate Stuart McNay of Providence, Rhode Island will compete together in the Men’s 470 (four meter, 70 centimeter) Two Person Dinghy event.

His sister has also chosen a path that keeps her in the outdoors. Annalisa Marchenay Carson is an emergency medical technician on the ski patrol at Mammoth Lakes in California. Their mother likes working outside, in her new vegetable garden.