O for awesome

Yesterday Shaun Quincey, 25, arrived back in NZ under his own steam, having rowed all the way from Australia - 54 days, almost 4000 kilometres, 17 kilograms lost (but plenty of muscle, by the look of him, gained) and a family record matched. His father was the first to row solo across the Tasman to Australia; Shaun's the first to row the other way. It's a feat that's hard to imagine - though the very readable Oarsome Adventures of a Fat Boy Rower by Kevin Biggar has given me some idea (though he wasn't rowing alone). I like that people are still doing such adventurous things.

For myself, however, I prefer my ocean rowing to be a much tamer affair, as it was when I went out one evening to kayak with Outdoor Discoveries over to Brown's Island in the harbour for a sunset picnic. It was a lovely thing to do, despite the wayward steering and unitasking co-paddler (and unscheduled landing on a nudist beach): calm seas, colourful spinnakers, cheese and wine and real coffee, sunset over the city, watching all the lights come on, and then, a first for me, phosphorescence in the water on the way back in the dark - or bioluminescence as it's called these days. Whichever, it's fascinating, spectacular and fun, all at once. Just thinking about it makes me want to do it again.