Legacy of an adventurer
‘This is the last haunting self- portrait of Andrew McAuley, a man and his kayak, alone. All around, a vast seascape of emptiness. The green-grey Tasman Sea heaving, the horizon a cruel circle.
For 30 days and nights, wherever the Australian adventurer turned his salt-rimmed eyes, he understood his aloneness.
“I never once doubted he would do it,” his wife, Vicki, said yesterday. And he almost did.
[..] At 7.15pm, the New Zealand Coastguard picked up an almost indecipherable distress signal from a vessel that identified itself as Kayak 1. There were two clear words: “help” and “sinking”. Then silence.’
