After 274 days at sea, Jim Shekhdar became the first person to row across the Pacific single-handedly, finally wading ashore in Queensland, Australia. In the tradition of great and eccentric travellers, his journey started badly when he was refused permission to set off from Chile; when he departed from Peru, he realised he had set off without a tin opener, and then ran out of cooking gas. The journey became more perilous when he had to fend off sharks with a makeshift spear, when his telecommunications equipment failed and when an oil tanker nearly ended his life.