Tied to 200 multi-coloured helium-filled balloons, a man floated over shark-infested waters from the island where Nelson Mandela spent 18 years in prison to Cape Town.
South African Matt Silver-Vallance, aged 37 and dressed in a wetsuit, undertook the stunt from Robben Island to the mainland to raise funds for the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund.
Following the challenge, Mr. Mandela, 94, was discharged from the hospital after receiving treatment for pneumonia.
The 6 kilometer journey above the Atlantic took roughly an hour.
However, Mr. Silver-Vallance’s experience was not without its challenges.
“I was ascending, reaching approximately one thousand feet [above sea level], about the altitude of Table Mountain,” he recounted.
“Then I began to descend again, and that’s when it became precarious.”
To lower his altitude, Mr. Silver-Vallance had to pop some balloons and ended up spearing 35 of them after the pellets he fired failed to work.
Instead of landing on a hazardous hard surface, he descended by climbing down a rope into a rescue craft.
Mr. Mandela spent the majority of his 27-year imprisonment at Robben Island, where he was taken in 1964, which has since become a museum.
The purpose of this trip from Robben Island was to aid in fundraising for a new children’s hospital in Johannesburg, which will honor the name of the 94-year-old former president and anti-apartheid figurehead.
“The risks I’m taking are minimal compared to the risks he faced,” he expressed.
Yet he concluded, “Would I do it again? Probably not.”
