A Canadian Olympian, part of a four-man team rowing across the Atlantic, says he is glad to be on dry land after a rogue wave capsized their boat about 600 kilometres north of Puerto Rico.

“We alive, we’re safe, we’re well fed, and we’ve had a full night’s rest,” said Adam Kreek of Victoria, who won gold at the 2008 Beijing Summer Games in men’s eights.

The four endurance rowers — Kreek, Markus Pukonen of Tofino, B.C., and Jordan Hanssen and Pat Fleming of Seattle — were 73 days into a 6,500-kilometre journey from Dakar, Senegal, to Miami that was expected to take roughly 80 to 100 days. They were trying to become the first to row unassisted from Africa to North America.

Pukonen said in an email to CBC News that the team members were in good spirits.

On Saturday morning, their nine-metre ocean rowboat, the James Robert Hanssen, was hit by two rogue waves and capsized, tossing Hanssen and Pukonen, who were on shift, into the ocean.

Kreek was inside the boat’s cabin with Fleming as water began pouring in.

“I looked up and saw there was still an air bubble as the cabin was filling. I popped my head up and took a really big breath and dove underneath and I saw the light.”

They activated a rescue beacon and spent several hours trying to right the capsized boat. The crew then decided to collect supplies in their life raft and wait for rescue.

Kreek said the crew’s safety training paid off

“It was surprising,” he said. “I thought there’d be more fear and more anxiety, but it really just turned into survival mode.”

Well prepared for trouble

A coast guard C-130 aircraft crew from Clearwater, Fla., watched over members of the transatlantic rowing team until they could be picked up by the Panamanian-flagged automobile carrier Heijin.

The men arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Sunday night.

“Those saved were well-prepared with proper survival and distress signalling equipment as well as having a support team on shore. All boaters should be as well-prepared,” the U.S. Coast Guard said in a statement Sunday, a day after co-ordinating the rescue.

Kreek thanked the crew of the Heijin and its shipping line for the rescue, adding that the vessel had to divert a day off course to pick up the rowers.

The OAR (Ocean Adventure, Rowing and Education) Northwest team would have been the first crew to row from Africa to North America had they completed their journey successfully.