Bertish Conquers The Atlantic - with a Paddleboard

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.

Still, if Bertish's equipment wasn't much different from when he started, his place in the record books now certainly is: On Thursday, Bertish became the first person in history to make a solo trans-Atlantic journey on a stand-up paddleboard.

"Across the entire Atlantic Ocean and I am finally here," Bertish wrote Thursday on Facebook. "I don't need to be strong and keep it together any longer; it's been 93 days and it's done and I let it all go... I am home!"

By the time he made it to the West Indies, battling fittingly windy and rough conditions," SUP Magazine reports he had already faced down "shark encounters, equipment failures, unfavorable trade winds, loneliness and huge swells."
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