35 days and 33 minutes.

That’s how long it took Charlie Pitcher to row solo across the entire Atlantic Ocean – a daring and lonely expedition that would sink most mortals somewhere in the wide open seas.

Pitcher’s time was a whopping 5 days, 9 hours, and 6 minutes faster than the old record, and 17 days faster than his previous ocean rowing effort in 2010.

“I didn’t think that 35 days was possible,” Pitcher told BBC News of the journey which began at La Gomera in the Canary Islands, and ended at Port St Charles in the Barbados. “I thought I might beat the record by a day,” he said.

To power across the rough Atlantic, the 50-year-old oarsman had to consume 7,000 calories a day – nearly 3-times the average daily American intake. He needed it to take on the intense ocean rowing turbulence, heat and exposure. An MP3 player stocked with thousands of songs also pushed him along (ABBA songs, Pitcher notes, were involved in the journey). And so did his boat, an ultralight custom-built Rannoch.

Learn more about this amazing, record-breaking journey at Pitcher’s website.