Didn’t someone paddle from Germany to Australia? Only to get arrested when he got to Australia?
@Johnysmoke said:
Didn’t someone paddle from Germany to Australia? Only to get arrested when he got to Australia?
Yeah Nazi Oskar Speck kayaked to Australia in the late 1930s from Bulgaria and was put in prison internment camp when he landed on shore until the end of WWII. He jumped ahead in Cyprus over the desert and got into the Persian Gulf mid way during the trip.
I just saw the Reel Paddling Film Festival road tour screening of paddling-related short films last weekend. One of the films was about a pair of septuagenarians who paddled the 425 mile length of the Noatak River in the Brooks Range (most northerly river in Arctic Alaska) twice, once when they were younger in a tandem folding kayak (I think it was a Folbot but might have been a Klepper) and the second time in a Pakboat folding canoe.
By the way, check the Reel Paddling Film Festival web site for screenings near you and try to catch it if you can. Wonderful collection of stories and footage. Well worth the $15 for nearly 3 hours of diverse entertainment and inspiration.
Per one of the posts above, spend this season paddling with a group and getting basic skills down in a proper sea kayak. As well as endurance. 16 ft or so, perimeter rigging 2 preferably three bulkheads and skeg or rudder. And especially if you are athletic and a swimmer, start working on a roll right away. If you are going to paddle exposed water solo you should have that under your belt, at least to be successful in more favorable conditions, so you don’t tense up if things change surprisingly. With a calm head you can go to Plan B or C. If capsizing is a new and alarming experience when alone in open water you are screwed.
Your goals are fine. But no one does the Race Across America (if that is still running) just after buying a city bike they picked up at the local Dick’s Sporting store. Trying to launch an expedition like you said in a recreational boat as a beginner is about the same thing.
Jon Turk is an internationally known adventurer and author. But he’s lucky to have survived his first sea kayak trip, which he described in his book “Cold Oceans.”. Although he had never sea kayaked before, he decided that he wanted to paddle from Puerto Natales in Chile through the Straits of Magellan and south through the Tierra del Fuego Archipelago to Cape Horn, a 500 mile trip through remote and uninhabited islands with lots of very bad weather. He couldn’t get anybody to go with him, which is often an indication that there is something wrong with the proposed trip, or there are issues with the personality of the trip proposer. He traveled to Puerto Natales, hauled his kayak and gear down to the shore, and while a group of locals watched, he loaded his gear into the kayak and headed south. He said “I had never been in a sea kayak before.” After a series of harrowing experiences and close calls, he made it to within 75 miles of Cape Horn before he got shipwrecked and his kayak was destroyed in the surf. Fortunately he was able to hike back to Puerto Toro.
My suggestion is, don’t be like Jon Turk. Take a couple of years to assemble the equipment and develop the knowledge,.skills, judgment, and stamina to do a long sea kayak expedition, before you head out on the expedition.
On a positive note, Jon Turk survived his attempt to paddle to Cape Horn, and after a series of expeditions which he undertook with little experience, and which are described in “Cold Oceans,” he became a very experienced adventurer. Twenty years later, he and a friend returned to South America, and he repeated the trip and succeeded in paddling to Cape Horn. But he could easily have disappeared without a trace on his first sea kayak tri[p