A SCOTTISH adventurer who has marooned himself on a tiny ledge on a rock about 260 miles out in the Atlantic said he has been cheered by messages from other daredevils.

Nick Hancock, who hopes to spend two months on Rockall and began his solo stay last week, said he had been contacted by TV hosts Bear Grylls and Ben Fogle as well as polar explorer Ben Saunders.

Messages reached the Edinburgh-based chartered surveyor on social media yesterday, who is staying in touch with the outside world via a satellite internet connection and living in a converted water tank dubbed the Rockpod.

Mr Hancock told his support team that bad weather saw him celebrate a week on the rock by being pod-bound adding: "I have also made contact and been emailing Niall Iain Macdonald who's rowing across the Atlantic as I type this."

Mr Macdonald, an Inverness-born BBC Gaelic presenter, set off from New York last Thursday and hopes to reach Stornoway in about three months.

He is also battling bad weather out from the US east coast and had made no progress in 24 hours but instead reported he was being pushed backwards by enormous waves.

Mr Hancock, from Ratho, near Edinburgh, was forced to abandon a similar attempt in June last year because of heavy seas.

After abandoning the bid, he made the long boat trip back to Leverburgh on Harris.

Rockall, an eroded volcano, lies 260 miles west of the Western Isles. Above the sea, the rock is just 100ft wide and 70ft high.

The record for longest occupation of the rock was set in 1997 by three Greenpeace campaigners who lived there for 42 days.

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