Enter the Put Foot Rally for an African road trip adventure

by Kraig Becker on

Adventurous travelers looking for a unique road trip this summer may want to checkout the Put Foot Rally, which is scheduled to get underway in June. The event begins in South Africa and promises to send teams on a 7000km (4350 mile) long odyssey through the wilds of Africa.

The 17-day rally will kick off at two separate starting lines, one in Cape Town and the other in Johannesburg. Once underway, competitors will navigate on their own, and are free to take any path they like, but are required to reach certain checkpoints along the way by certain times. For instance, the first checkpoint is located at the Andersson Gate, just outside Etosha Park in Namibia. How you manage to find your way to that destination is entirely up to you, but you’ll certainly want to get there on time, as each of the checkpoints will play host to a party as well.

Subsequent CP’s will be located on the Okavango Delta in Botwsana, in Livingstone, Zambia, and on the edge of Lake Malawi in Malawi. From there it is on to Inhambane in Mozambique before proceeding on to the finish line in Swaziland. All told, counting the starting and finish line, there are seven checkpoints, and seven parties, in all.

The Put Foot is accepting just 50 crews for the inaugural 2011 rally, and as of this writing they are about halfway to filling that quota. A crew can consist of as many people as you want, but they all have to fit inside one vehicle. Speaking of which, you can also drive any type of car, truck, or SUV you want, as long as it gets you to the checkpoints on time. You can even elect to ride on a motorcycle if you prefer. Organizers of the rally estimate that about 95% of the route can be done on paved roads, which means a 4×4 isn’t necessary to compete. But part of the fun will no doubt be getting off the beaten path and finding interesting ways to reach the checkpoints. Just don’t take a wrong turn and end up in a country you weren’t expecting!
While the rally is going to be great fun, and will certainly provide plenty of opportunities for amazing travel experiences, it isn’t being run just for the adventure. The Put Foot Rally organizers have joined forces with the Bobs For Good Foundation to raise funds and awareness of that charity, which focuses on providing shoes for underprivileged African children. Many of those children might not ever own any kind of footwear under normal circumstances.

If you’d like to put your own crew together and enter the Put Foot Rally, you can register for the event, which gets underway on June 22nd, by clicking here. Be warned though, this is no organized jaunt down the well marked highway. It is instead a self guided safari through some of the wildest places in Africa, and if you’re not prepared for the challenges you could find yourself in real trouble. That said however, if this sounds like your kind of adventure, the rewards could be amazing as well.

Personally, I think Team Gadling would rock this rally!

It’s time to end Indian Ocean “Adventures”

by Jon Bowermaster on

With news that seven Danish sailors, including three children aged 12 to 16, had been captured by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean on Thursday, February, 24, it’s time to reevaluate the legacy of four Americans shot to death by pirates in those same waters off eastern Africa just two days before the Danes issued their distress call.

In the obituaries of the four Americans killed aboard their sailing boat in the Indian Ocean this week each was praised for being “adventurous,” “great sailors,” having a “zest for life” and “passion for the high seas.” They were not “thrill seekers” and “knew the risks involved and accepted them.”

While not wanting to intrude on the mourning of their friends and relatives, having spent time in the Indian Ocean at the height of pirate season two years ago, watching cargo boats and tourist boats being wrapped in broken glass and razor wire and armed to the teeth with mercenary gun crews, all I could wonder when I first read the account of the “Quest” and its crew being taken hostage was … What were they thinking?Apparently headed for Djibouti, the four sailors knowingly sailed alone – rather than in a pack or “rally” of private yachts, which they had previously joined – into the most dangerous waters on the planet. Two hundred and seventy five miles off the coast of Oman they were caught and boarded by a mother ship carrying 17 pirates. Despite the arrival of a U.S. Navy ship, within 24 hours the four were shot dead.

With monsoon season over, the Indian Ocean is calm again, making this prime time for piracy. The four sailors aboard the “Quest” could not have missed the news that ships are being hijacked in that part of the ocean on a weekly basis. There are currently more than 800 hostages still being held, most crewmen of freighters and oil tankers. Private yachts are increasingly being attacked; a British couple was recently released after one year in captivity and a $1 million ransom paid, raised by friends back home.

Private boaters have been warned repeatedly by the world’s navies to stick to designated shipping lanes and to travel in groups. At any given time there are 30 warships patrolling the northern Indian Ocean – from the European Union, the United States, China, Japan, Russia, India and other nations – and still the pirates are thriving. Sponsored by mafia-like gangs onshore, the mother ships and attack boats are manned by the equivalent of street gangs: Impoverished young men with little hope, armed with increasingly sophisticated electronics, boats and weaponry.

Catching them and putting them on trial, whether in Nairobi or New York City, doesn’t seem to be slowing them down.

Which brings me back to why did these four think they could skirt danger when so many before had failed?

I am the first to encourage “an adventurous life.” But good adventuring includes knowing your limits and possessing some kind of personal radar to help recognize the boundaries between adventure seeking and foolhardiness. That the “Quest” was heavily loaded with tons of Bibles, which the retired couple who owned and sailed the ship had been distributing at stops around the world during the past six years, was not enough to save them from an “adventure” gone very, very bad.

One of the four passengers was quoted as saying, “If anything happens to us on these travels, just know that we died living our dream.”

Really? That’s your dream? To sail into the most dangerous waters on the planet, be kidnapped by a gang of thug pirates and shot to the death in the galley of your sailboat? In retrospect, of course, the dream sounds far more like a nightmare.

[flickr image via Gui Seiz]

Aleksander Doba successfully sea kayaks across the Atlantic

by Jon Bowermaster on

An obscure Pole named Aleksander Doba has pulled off a somewhat obscure first: Sea kayaking across the breadth of the Atlantic Ocean in 98 days, 23 hours, 42 minutes, the longest open ocean kayaking adventure ever.

Leaving quietly from Dakar on October 26 and spending much of the first two months fighting into relentless winds and currents which kept pushing him north, it seemed – if you followed the GPS tracker online – that the 64-year-old Doba was going in circles, or repeating some kind of weird figure-8 patterns.

A straight line from Dakar to his finishing point in Fortaleza, Brazil, would have been just less than 2,000 miles. Of course thanks to winds, storms, currents and the two hours he slept each night, there are no straight lines in ocean paddling. In the end he paddled a total of 3,352 miles (average speed: 1.4 miles per hour; average daily distance, 33.5 miles; longest day, 78.6 miles).

Doba is hardly a novice to the kind of physical strength and mental endurance necessary for long solo paddles. Though this time he embarked in a sophisticated, 23-foot kayak with monster roll bars and a pair of flotation cabins at either end – he had previously kayaked more than 40,000 miles, including a 2,600-mile trip around the Baltic Sea in 1999, a 3,300 mile journey from Poland to Norway in 2000 and a 1,200 mile circumnavigation of Lake Baikal last year.
A previous effort to cross the Atlantic, in 2004, lasted just two days thanks to an “unstable” boat. This time around it wasn’t until the middle of the expedition that he worried he might not be able to push the heavily-loaded kayak (1,200 pounds) all the way across, especially when in December he became mired in a series of storms that had him traveling in circles at the same time his automatic desalinator went down, meaning to create fresh water he had to hand pump four hours a day.

On January 8, he confessed to feeling like Sisyphus, who rolled the boulder uphill only to have it tumble backwards on top of him. “This is how I feel fighting the current.”

His expedition manager was his son, Chez, who stayed positive throughout that his old man would make it across. “He promised his wife he’s coming back. He’s not a man to break a promise, otherwise she will kill him.”

While Doba’s effort is the longest paddle yet, he now tops a short-list of other obscure long-distance paddle record holders (thanks to Canoe & Kayak):

In 1928 Franz Romer crossed the Atlantic from Portugal to Puerto Rico in a folding kayak dependent on just a compass, sextant and a barometer. After landing in St. Thomas and a brief sail over to San Juan Harbor in Puerto Rico, Romer again took to sea, bound for New York. Unfortunately, he missed a hurricane warning by one hour and steered straight into the storm. No trace of him was ever found.

In 1956 Hannes Lindemann spent 72 days paddling from the Canary Islands to the British Virgin Islands in a store-bought folding kayak, subsisting primarily on beer, evaporated milk, rainwater and speared fish. His mantra? “West … Never give up … Never give up.”

In 1987 Ed Gillet’s left from California heading for Hawaii; the crossing took him 63 days. Out of radio contact for eight weeks, he ran out of food, endured a 40-hour stretch of sleep deprivation and winds that nearly drove him north of Hawaii. He was described as being in a “hallucinatory state” when he arrived at Kahului Harbor on Maui.

Englishman Peter Bray was the first to paddle west to east across the Atlantic in 2001, without the tropical trade winds to ease his passage. His first attempt nearly cost him his life: Asleep after his first day at sea, he awoke to find his cockpit three-quarters filled with water and his pumping systems inoperable. Bray survived 32 hours submerged in 36-degree seas and spent the next four months learning to walk again. A year later, he launched again from St. John’s, Newfoundland, reaching Beldereg, Ireland, 75 days later.

In 2007 Australian “Adventurer of the Year” Andrew McAuley attempted the relatively short (1,000) crossing of the very wild Tasman Sea, from Tasmania to New Zealand. In 29 days he got to within one day – 30 miles – of Milford Sound, New Zealand where his wife and young son waited on the beach for him. He disappeared on that last day; his boat would be found, but never any sign of Andrew.

In late 2007 a pair of young Australians – James Castrission and Justin James – successfully crossed the Tasman Sea in a custom-built, double-kayak, in 62 days.

[flickr photo via jurvetson]

16-year old looks to become youngest to North Pole

by Kraig Becker on

16-year old Parker Liautaud has set some rather large goals for himself. While many young men and women his age are concerned with getting good grades and who they’ll be taking to the dance on Saturday night, Parker is busy planning and training for an expedition to the North Pole. His second such expedition in fact.

Liautaud is hoping to become the youngest person to travel to the Pole on foot, and in two weeks time he’ll set out for the arctic to do just that. He and his guide, polar veteran Doug Stoup, will make a “Last Degree” journey from 89º North to the top of the world on skis. In the process, he hopes to raise awareness about the growing impact of global climate change on our environment, while also inspiring other young people to go out and do great things as well.

Parker attempted this same journey last year, but came up just short of his goal thanks to a combination of extremely bad weather, negative drift of the ice, and large sections of open water. Despite their best efforts, Parker and Stoup came up 15 miles shy of the finish line, and had to be airlifted to the North Pole via helicopter to catch their plane ride home. This year they hope to finish what they started in 2010.

While on the journey north, Parker and Stoup will be taking measurements of the amount of snow on the arctic ice. That data will be shared with the University of Alberta upon their return with hopes that it will offer insights into the short and long term impact of climate change on the region.

When he sets out in two weeks you’ll be able to follow Parker’s progress via his website, Facebook page, and Twitter feed. It should be quite an expedition for the young man.

National Geographic covers the Japanese tsunami

by Kraig Becker on

It is hard to believe that it has only been a week since the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, devastating a number of areas in that country. Over that time period, the world has watched as the Japanese people have struggled to get back on their feet, while dealing with the threat of an equally dangerous disaster in the form of a nuclear meltdown. Earlier this week, National Geographic posted several updates on the situation in Japan, helping to bring a bit of clarity to what has happened there.

Nat Geo’s coverage of the Japanese tsunami and its aftermath began last week with early news and images from the scene. That was followed up with ongoing coverage of the struggles to prevent nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. But as we all know, amazing photographs have always been the signature of National Geographic, and perhaps their most compelling coverage came in the form of an online gallery featuring 20 heart wrenching images that show the aftermath of this natural disaster.

In the wake of this catastrophe, there have been a number of charitable and relief organizations that have gone into action in Japan. Nat Geo has also put together a list of such organizations that they recommend, with information on how we can contribute to their efforts. To find out more about those relief agencies, and how you can donate directly from your mobile phone, click here.

With the amount of destruction and ruin that these disasters have brought on, it could be years before Japan completely returns to normal. Lets hope that further problems will be avoided in the days ahead, and that the country can get on with the business of rebuilding itself.

[Photo credit: Asahi Shimbun, Reuters]