NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) – Legendary long-distance paddleboarder Larry Capune, who splashed through more than 16,000 miles of U.S. coastline during a series of epic journeys that captured the imagination of surfers everywhere, has died at age 61.

Capune died of cancer Tuesday at his Newport Beach home, according to his twin brother, Marty.

He had made his last, and most difficult, paddleboard trip 17 years ago when he splashed his way east from Chicago to Washington, D.C., traveling the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence River, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Atlantic Ocean, Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River between May and October 1987.

Although he covered 4,090 miles on that trip, it was not his longest. That one took place between July 1975 and May 1976 when he paddled from Portland, Maine, to Corpus Christi, Texas, a distance of 4,255 miles.

Capune was one of a kind, said Steve Pezman, co-publisher of the Surfer’s Journal, who noted that there have been other great paddleboarders, like Gene “Tarzan” Smith, who paddled from Oahu to Kauai in Hawaii in 1940.

“But no one’s done the coastlines of the United States like Larry Capune,” Pezman said. “That’s an original feat and has never been duplicated.”

Capune, a lifeguard and recreational director, was working at Southern California’s Carpinteria State Beach when he took his first long-distance journey, 542 miles from San Francisco to Newport Beach, in September 1964.

His motto was, “You can do anything if you think you can.”

Not that it was easy. Over the years he reported being bitten by a sea turtle, a bluefish and a dog, struck three times by ships, lost 13 times at sea and hit by a bottle thrown by an irate pier owner who accused him of scaring fish away. One time he delayed a missile launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base on California’s central coast.

During a 1972 Maine-to-Miami trip, he stumbled ashore in Massachusetts and, lost and tired, knocked on the door of the Hyannis Port home of President Kennedy’s mother, Rose. He was allowed to stay for two days.

Using an 18-foot board made for him by another California surfing legend, Hobie Alter, Capune normally covered 20 to 25 miles a day over eight to 10 hours.

He would travel anywhere from 100 yards to 10 miles off shore, carrying such supplies as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cans of soda and a portable radio in a waterproof pack.

Although he made his last major trip in 1987, Capune continued to paddle four miles a day every day until failing health forced him to stop six months ago.