Reuters

Lone British rower conquers Pacific

By Diana Taylor

NORTH STRADBROKE ISLAND, Australia, March 30 (Reuters) - Lone British rower Jim Shekhdar became the first man to row unassisted across the Pacific Ocean, but only after his boat was swamped in sight of land and he was forced to swim ashore.

Shekhdar, 54, finished the epic 275-day journey when he swam ashore on a windswept North Stradbroke Island off Queensland state on Australia's mid-northeast coast.

He said he fought off 10 different shark attacks during the 7,900 nautical mile journey, as well as a recent life-threatening near-miss with a tanker.
"I couldn't sleep for a week after that," he said of the incident with the tanker. "It was something that affected me more than anything else."

Waves tipped over "Le Shark", his seven-metre (23 foot) boat, as the adventurer attempted to land on the beach.

Shekhdar was forced to swim about 150 metres to shore, where he was greeted by his wife, Jane, sister, Jan Bennett, and daughters, Sarah, 19, and Anna, 21, who had flown from England.

"That boat is determined to get here before me," a drenched Shekhdar told reporters and cheering onlookers who ran into the ocean to meet him.

"I was going to dress up for you -- I have a blazer and long pants back there," he said.

Shekhdar, 54, completed the first non-stop, unassisted row across the Pacific after leaving Peru on June 29, 2000, although it was not immediately clear if swimming the last 150 metres will affect his claim to the record.

FIGHTING OFF SHARKS

He declared he never doubted he would make the trip, despite having to fight off sharks with a hand-fashioned spear he had made from a stick, with a knife tied to the end.

"There were 10 sharks altogether, and one in particular which came under the boat and kept rocking it and returned a week later, so I had to stab it and then it didn't come back," he said.

The jovial Shekhdar said his most frightening experience was when he woke up in the night to see an oil tanker heading straight for his wooden boat.

"It's the only thing that made me wobbly," he said. The tanker missed by about 10 metres.

Shekhdar said he spent the nine months at sea reading books on philosophy in an experience which had changed his outlook on life.

"I thought a lot about my life. I am now going to be unchauvinistic, unarrogant, unpolitically correct ... and it will probably only last a couple of minutes," he declared.

The rower was met by a special Australian customs team who stamped his passport to officially finish the journey, which he had undertaken because "it's hard to get away from the wife on land".

Jane Shekhdar, who previously described her husband as a determined and eccentric man, ran into the surf to greet him, saying: "What a showman."

Shekhdar ordered beer and icecream for his arrival and will spend his first night ashore eating steak and chips in a five-star hotel.

About 100 people have attempted to row across oceans since 1892, with most contenders coming from Britain.
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