Satoru Yahata, a sea kayak instructor based in Okinawa, arrived in the eastern Taiwan port city of Hualian on June 18, after rowing 700 kilometers in a solo kayak trip from the northern Philippines.

He is the first solo kayaker to successfully complete the trip.

Yahata, 32, says it took him 16 days to make the voyage with his 5.5-meter boat, at an average speed of 6 km per hour. Last June, he paddled his kayak across almost 300 km of sea from Hualien to Ishigaki Island in Okinawa.

Yahata had stated previously that he is planning to complete a kayak tour from Australia to Japan if he succeeded in crossing from the Philippines to Taiwan.