Record breaker plans to row across the Pacific

A CYPRUS-born 15-time Guinness World Record breaker is planning to row across the Pacific Ocean.

Erden Ertunç will start his new rowing journey next week from California to Hong Kong, according to an interview he gave with Turkey’s Anadolu Agency.

The report said that Mr Ertunç is planning to become the first person to row from North America to Asia across the Pacific Ocean.

If all goes to plan, he will reach Hawaii by the end of August and leave Guam and the Mariana Islands behind in January to dodge the Pacific hurricane season, reaching Hong Kong by March 2022.

But he will not stop there: after arriving at Hong Kong, Mr Ertunç will then travel around the globe to complete his “Six Summits” project, which he started in 2011. The challenge involves scaling the tallest mountains on six continents using only human power.

The gruelling expedition will be Mr Ertunç’s tribute to friend Goran Kropp who died in 2002 while climbing with Eruç in Vantage, Washington, in the US. He said it will also raise awareness about marine pollution caused by plastic.

Mr Ertunç has already climbed the Denali in Alsaka (6,190m), Australia’s Mount Kosciuszko (2,228m) and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania (5,895m) during a circumnavigation that took “five years, 11 days, 12 hours and 22 minutes” to complete.

Mr Ertuç said he then plans to visit Turkey in 2023 where he will speak to children about his experiences.

The adventurer, who was born in Cyprus in 1961, is the first person to solo circumnavigate the globe by human power and holds the record for doing this in the shortest time.

He is also the first person to row across the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans and spent 844 “career days” as a solo ocean rower, the highest total to date.

His other records include the greatest distance rowed across the oceans as a solo rower (33,000 miles) and the longest distance rowed across the Atlantic Ocean.