A Hungarian adventurer has become the first person to paddle by canoe across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe to the Caribbean.

After 76 days at sea Gabor Rakonczay, who began his adventure in Lagos, Portugal, on December 21, and stopped for several days in the Canary Islands for rest and supplies, reached the island of Antigua on Sunday, he said.

He was isolated and incommunicado for nearly 50 days after his seven-metre canoe capsized at sea, damaging his communications equipment and leaving him without contact with his family since February 6.

Mr Rakonczay made the journey without a satellite tracking system which would have allowed him to signal that he was all right. So his wife, who stayed behind in Hungary, could only hope for the best.

“The supplier raised the price at the last minute and I decided to leave without one because it was not possible to postpone the trip,” the 30-year-old said from Nelson’s Dockyard in southern Antigua.

“This trip was the first time I didn’t have a tracking system and the first time I really would have needed one.”

While he lit smoke flares on three separate occasions to signal ships passing nearby, he was not able to communicate with any of them.

“Some slowed and even changed direction as they likely picked me up on their radars,” Mr Rakonczay said.

“But I was often surrounded by waves four metres high and the canoe is less than one metre high, so it’s most likely that they simply weren’t able to see me.”