Man used balloons to fly from Nelson Mandela jail island to Cape Town

A South African man has become the first person to float from Robben Island to Cape Town using only helium balloons. Matt Silver-Vallance, 37, who now lives in Coventry, took around an hour to make the 3.7 mile crossing above the Atlantic. Wearing a wetsuit and a harness attached to 160 balloons, the adventurer flew above shark-infested waters to raise money for the Nelson Mandela children's' hospital. He carried bags weighted with water to adjust his height, and an air gun and makeshift spear to pop the balloons.

Mr Silver-Vallance, a marketing manager at a medical device company, said that he had come up with the idea while watching a television program about astronauts, and thought of different ways to defy gravity. But with no test run ahead of lift-off, Mr Silver-Vallance did not know what to expect. "Then I started coming down again, that's when it got hairy," he said. Mr Silver-Vallance tried to pop some balloons to descend, but the pellets just bounced off them.

He had to resort to spearing 35 of the balloons, leaving him exhausted. With his support team having decided that landing on a hard surface would be too dangerous, Mr Silver-Vallance dropped down a rope and then slid down into a sea rescue craft, which had been following his trajectory. "Wow, that was crazy," he said. "Don't try this at home!" The crossing was the first of its kind from Robben Island – the land mass off Cape Town where Nelson Mandela was held prisoner for 18 years, from 1964. The island has now been turned into a museum.

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The stunt was designed to raise 10 million rand (£72,000) for the Nelson Mandela children's hospital, which will be built in Johannesburg. "We're trying to raise as much money as possible for the hospital and we really see this project as a catalyst," Mr Silver-Vallance said ahead of take-off. "The risks that I'm taking are tiny compared to the risks that he took," he said. He added that he hoped the flight "could bring a smile to Mandela's face". Later, after the flight, Nelson Mandela was discharged from hospital after being admitted 10 days ago for a bout of pneumonia.