Being the first person to paraglide at 4000m for 30km over Cook Strait - one of the most dangerous and unpredictable stretches of water in the world - was a piece of cake, Matt Stanford says.
"There was a big element of risk, and what we noted was that through the planning and prep, we managed to mitigate that risk and in the end the actual jump went so smoothly that it was a relatively relaxing thing to do."
But he admitted to being "quite anxious" in the early stages of planning the ambitious task.
The British expat spent the past 14 months planning the flight, and over summer almost lost hope as poor weather and problems getting a pilot hampered his preparations. almost dashed his dream.
He and a friend concocted the plan after realising such a flight had never been done.