Now This Is An Adventure!

Meet action man Riaan Manser and wife Vasti’s new little explorer

- Colin Hendricks

WHEN he was growing up he had no family and was passed from one orphanage to the next.

“Starting my own family is something new for me,” says adventurer Riaan Manser in the living room of his home in the seaside town of Betty’s Bay in the Western Cape. His son, James Boy, is having a nap in a car seat on the floor where his dad can keep an eye on him.

Although it’s less than an hour since he and wife Vasti arrived home from hospital with their two-day-old son, the daredevil can’t wait to show off their new arrival.

“I didn’t know what unconditional love was until I held him for the first time,” he tells us. “I’d give my life for him.”

Riaan (44) and Vasti (39), an advocate, have been on many adventures together. In 2014 they crossed the Atlantic Ocean in an adapted kayak. And during their honeymoon last year they spent a backbreaking 39 days rowing from California to Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean to secure a place in the record books.