LONDON (CNN) -- British tycoon Richard Branson crashed back into reality Saturday with a hot bath after seven days in a balloon attempting to fly around the world.

It was just ten miles off Hawaii that the Branson dream of becoming the first to circumnavigate the globe in a balloon ended with a bath of another kind.

Branson and his co-pilots -- American Steve Fossett and Swede Per Lindstrand -- touched down in the Pacific Ocean after being forced to abandon their flight when weather conditions blocked their high-speed trip in the jet stream winds.

"Right now I'm just delighted to be alive and to have had a nice long bath," Branson told BBC radio in an interview from Hawaii.

"We had a most magnificent adventure for seven wonderful days," he said, looking back on the high-flying venture that had to be aborted on Friday because the balloon couldn't get out of a troublesome low pressure area over the Pacific.

"Ballooning is a battle against the elements. If the wind doesn't want to go where you want to go, then you don't go and there is no way of steering around it."

But Branson was uncertain whether he would attempt what for him would be a third shot at completing the flight.

"Normally after these trips my most immediate reaction is never again and I suspect that's what it should be but it's just too soon to decide really."

Two U.S. Coast Guard helicopters pulled the trio to safety Friday after they jumped into the water from their capsule, which was dragged bouncing across rough seas for a couple of miles by the giant balloon.

All three were unhurt but Branson said that when the capsule failed to separate from the balloon when they went into the Pacific, they had been "holding on for dear life."

"Obviously we are disappointed about not making it when we had it in our grasp," Branson said after arriving at a Coast Guard station on Hawaii's Oahu island.

Lindstrand said: "We were so close. Another three days and we would have made it."

The balloon, which took off from Morocco on December 18, had traveled some 8,200 miles (13,120 km) -- about half the distance of its intended journey -- when Branson decided to abandon the record bid.

Branson, head of the Virgin Group business empire, said the low pressure trough which stopped their progress was "like a solid brick wall."

East winds taking the balloon to the U.S. coast turned south, and with no way through and only four or five days' fuel left, the trio was forced to abandon their flight and head for the safety of Hawaii.

Crossing the world's biggest ocean was always going to be the most dangerous and daunting hurdle for Branson and his colleagues. But until then, the biggest headaches had been political.

Over China on Tuesday the balloon drifted off an agreed course. Beijing ordered the balloon to land but after the intervention of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and others, the Chinese relented and allowed the balloon to float on.

It then managed to avoid North Korea, which had refused permission to enter its airspace.

Branson was forced to alter his original flight path to avoid U.S. and British bombing strikes on Iraq. The team also had to negotiate a narrow corridor between Russia and Iran, both of which refused use of their airspace.

The bid was the latest of almost 20 attempts at the round- the-world record.

A similar attempt by Branson ended last year when his balloon snapped free of its ropes and flew off without him.

Fossett was almost killed in August on a round-the-world attempt when his balloon was caught in a thunderstorm and plunged thousands of feet into the South Pacific.

Reuters contributed to this report.