Remy Bricka is a pleasant man who brings to mind a cheerful uncle who would drop $5 where a kid could find it. ''He seems like such a normal guy'' is how Alice Leahey, a vice commodore at the California Yacht Club, put it.

Mr. Bricka's unassuming disposition makes his current endeavor seem all the more audacious. He is walking across the Pacific Ocean, from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia, with nothing more than a pair of canoelike skis, a double-sided paddle and a catamaran tied to his waist and towed behind him, where he stores provisions and sleeps. That is a distance of about 7,800 miles, and he expects his journey to take about six months, provided he walks 14 hours a day.

''In this life I have flesh and bone,'' he said today by way of explanation when asked why he was doing this. ''I know our time goes very quickly. In eternity, our time is one second. In this one second, I will use my time to realize my dream.''

Mr. Bricka arrived in Los Angeles with no notice or fanfare about two weeks ago from the Alsace region of France, where he has a wife and daughter and works as an entertainer -- actually an ''homme orchestre,'' or one-man band. A few people, including Mr. Bricka himself, see his plan as a testament to human determination, while others see it as quixotic at best, foolhardy and dangerous at worst. Some see it as a mixture of all three, and in the crowd of about 40 well-wishers who came to the California Yacht Club to see him off today, it was uttered more than once in a baffled, astonished tone: ''He's crazy.''