The sea kayaking Guiness World Record for "longest solo journey" has been broken by British TV personality Helen Skelton.

We don't know much about Skelton except that she's a presenter for a show called Blue Peter, the press calls her a wag (she's the girlfriend of soccer player David Graham), and googling her name autoloads the words "cleavage, oops, pics, amazon, blue peter, hot, legs, facebook, feet and tights" in that order.

Skelton set the record by kayaking 1,000 miles (and counting) down the Amazon River.

This particular record is infamous for having been awarded to Daniel Bloor in 2006, a 24-year-old student from Manchester who paddled and pub-hopped 526 kilometres of canals from Cumbria to London (as reported in Adventure Kayak Spring 2007).


One BBC article did give nod to the fact that some sea kayakers "have claimed to kayak further in the past" (um, yeah, like across the ATLANTIC and AROUND AUSTRALIA for starters) but said, "Helen will become the official Guinness World Record Holder."

After investigating the Bloor incident in '07, we figured out the loophole. None of the longer expeditions have bothered to contact Guinness and submit the necessary proof. Hard-core Skelton is at least deserving of the recognition. She is paddling the whole Amazon River, and previously became the second woman ever to complete the 78-mile Namibia Ultramarathon.