Colin Angus (explorer)

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Canadian author and adventurer Colin Angus is best known for completing the first human-powered circumnavigation of the planet. This two year expedition included voyaging the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans unsupported in a rowboat. Outside Magazine has recently honored Angus, along with Al Gore, for his efforts in combatting climate change by including him in a compilation of 25 visionaries changing the world. Other expeditions Angus has completed include the first descent of the world's fifth longest river, the Yenisey, and a complete descent of the Amazon from source to sea. He has written two books Lost in Mongolia and Amazon Extreme and co-produced two films for National Geographic Television.

Angus began his adventuring lifestyle at nineteen with a five year sailing odyssey in the Pacific Ocean, half of it done with his best friend Dan Audet, who was the real brains behind the operation. In 1999, along with Australian Ben Kozel and South African Scott Borthwick, he became the first to raft the Amazon river from source to sea, chronicling the feat in his 2001 book Amazon Extreme. To follow up the rafting of the Amazon, Angus put together a team which would accomplish the same task, only this time on the previously untraversed Yenisey river in Asia, one of the longest rivers in the world. This story was recounted in the 2003 book Lost in Mongolia: Rafting The World's Last Unchallenged River.

Most recently Angus became the first person to circumnavigate the world using exclusively human power, biking across land and rowing across water. The goal of the expedition was to "promote awareness about global warming and demonstrate how effective human powered travel can be". Although members came and went throughout the trip, Toronto-born Julie Wafaei, played a significant role, rejoining Colin for the voyage from Moscow, Russia to Vancouver, British Columbia. The rowing leg across the Atlantic lasted 145 days stretching from Lisbon, Portugal to Limon, Costa Rica. In all, the expedition lasted 720 days, ending in Vancouver on May 20, 2006.

Aside from the first human powered circumnavigation of the Earth, this expedition established many other records. These include the first row boat crossing of the Atlantic from mainland Europe to mainland North America (Wafaei and Angus), the first Canadian woman to row across any ocean and the first woman in the world to row across the Atlantic from mainland to mainland (both Wafaei).

Wafaei and Angus are engaged to be married in June of 2007, and continue to live an environmentally friendy lifestyle while residing on Vancouver Island, Canada.