Pirate attack discourages fund-raiser

Picton-based canoeist Kelvin Oram has abandoned his Paddle for Kids fund-raiser after a pirate attack on the Amazon River.

In an email to his parents in Picton, he said he feared for his life during an attack by men in a motorboat as he travelled solo down the Amazon River in a remote inland region of Brazil, near the Peruvian border.

"They rammed me and capsized me and then proceeded to try to drown me with their paddles and to hit me with their motor. It was all a bit scary. I thought my time was up."

Mr Oram said he swam for his life, finally making it to shore on a long beach.

"I ran for ages along the beach thinking they might try to catch me and clobber me so I couldn't report them to police."

He eventually found refuge in a little village of the local Ticuna tribe. However, the incident left him "shaken" and "desperate to get away from the place".

He said it was a sad end to his journey, which had taken him along six of the world's seven most challenging rivers - the Murray, Mekong, Kinabatangan, Ganges, Nile, and the Amazon - since he left Picton last October on the self-funded Paddle for Kids, Save the Children Fund fund-raiser.

Mr Oram's mother, Dorothy Brewer, said the incident occurred in country similar to where Team New Zealand's America's Cup hero Sir Peter Blake was murdered by pirates.

The attack came hard on the heels of a previous close call on the River Ganges, where Mr Oram and a friend were robbed at gunpoint.

Mrs Brewer said some of the private pledges for her son's adventure were huge but until he returned it would be difficult to know how much he had raised.

"We think he's done an amazing thing. We were worried when he decided to do this, but you wouldn't want to stop somebody who wants to help children in Third World countries.

"People ask, 'What can we do?' Well, he's done something. We think he's very, very brave," she said.

- NZPA