In the span of 93 days, Chris Bertish crossed more than 4,050 nautical miles of Atlantic Ocean — and he conquered this lonely crossing standing up. When the South African surfer entered English Harbour on the island of Antigua on Thursday, he was riding the same massive stand-up paddleboard that bore him from Morocco's Agadir Marina roughly three months ago.
"My craft was taking on water, I couldn't open my hatches, I was underwater most of the time and I don't think most people understand the severity of that kind of problem," he continued. "I have a sea grass growing on my entire deck because it's underwater the entire time."
"I pretty much ate exactly the same thing every single day for 93 days," he told a crowd assembled to greet him Thursday, as he was settling down to his first meal on land in quite a while. "A lot of the kids we're doing this for don't even have enough money to go to school."
Bertish added: "Every time I'd look down at the same packet of food I was going to have to eat another day in a row, I tell myself: 'Shut up, you've actually got food to eat.' These kids have nothing."
