What would Shackleton have said? The legendary explorer made one of the most epic survival
sails of all time from an ice flow in Antarctica to South Georgia earlier this century. It’s amazing he and his crew
survived, but I would guess that it would hardly have crossed his mind to get paddle the island in a kayak…on purpose.
Well, now a group of kayakers who set out in October completed the first
circumnavigation of South Georgia.
Their site with photos and updates can be seen here. This is a truly
amazing feat. The island is smack in the center of some of the roughest, coldest seas on the planet. We are talking
wicked conditions. Obviously the crew was well-equipped with state of the art GPS and technical gear, not to mention
fancy yellow dry suits, but you have to allow your jaw to drop in awe. This was ballsy.
Paddling Croatia with Jon Bowermaster
I’ve been following the paddling
peregrinations of kayaker and adventurer Jon Bowermaster for a
while now. I had the good fortune of meeting him at the
Adventure Expo in New York a year ago. Cool guy. Laid back, self-assured. Smart.
His epic Oceans 8 project has taken him and his team of
photographers, filmmakers, thrill-seekers to distant, watery corners of the globe, as they explore the world’s oceans
by sea kayak. We posted about his altiplano paddle a while
back…a trip that must have furrowed brows since the altiplano is not really an ocean…not the last I checked, anyway.
Still, the photos from that trip were eye-buggingly good. Now he’s pulling strokes through Croatia and Nat Geo
Adventure has got videos and
photos (check this one out) of the trip
to prove it. A series of written and audio
dispatches takes you along on the trip…albeit
sans your own sun, water and view.
Folks interested in more about Bowermaster might also check out his DVD called
A Slow Boat to Somewhere, which I watched
and reviewed not long ago. It provides an excellent
glimpse of life in a part of the world that most of us desk jockeys will never
know.
Greenland or Bust
It’s getting far too cold right now to entertain a destination like
Greenland, but that doesn’t detract from its ultimate allure. I confess
I’ve had Greenland on the mind for several years now, and have long imagined setting up a trip with friends to paddle
there, especially around Kangia fjord, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In the spirit
of great adventures, then, let’s head to Greenland via this fine piece
at MSNBC.
Greenland, you probably already know is not very green (and the name “whiteland” was already taken by a small band
of extremists in Idaho). But it is the world’s largest island, and as such there is bound to be some tourism there,
albeit not much. Just 30,000 tourists visit Greenland each year, with the bulk going to the city/town/village of
Ilulissat, a word meaning “icebergs” in Greenlandic, a language
you probably never learned in high school….unless you are Inuit.
Well there is a fair amount to do in Greenland…though perhaps not commensurate with its size. In that sense you
might compare it to, say, the moon. But you can still kayak, hike, fish, build an igloo, explore the history of the
place. In short, there’s enough to keep you busy and make you tired so that at night, as you settle down in a warm
place, the Schnapps will taste extra good going down.
Paddling the North
With the help of two friends, Scott Miller paddled a canoe for over 2,250 miles, plying the rives and byways of the
North like a modern-day explorerer. He paddled rivers and lakes, covering an expanse of watery highway from St. Cloud
to Hudson Bay, Canada, all in the name of a similar trip that was made 75 years ago two Minneapolis teenagers named
Walter Port and Eric Sevareid.
If the name Sevareid sound familiar, well it is. Sevareid went on to become a big shot TV journalist. But he also
authored a famous travel book called “Canoeing with the Cree.” Miller’s epic adventure is documented on a
website, and using a laptop, solar panels and a satellite phone to
stay hooked up in the backcountry, Miller and friends kept in touch with the world and filed dispatches about their
cool trip, which ended last August.
Galapagos in Wanderlust
Well, even though one of the islands in the Galapagos might be erupting, you can still go…but
maybe you should wait a bit. Anyway, I did some across this
article on the islands in this month’s issue of Wanderlust, a UK-based travel magazine.
Now, taking a trip to the Galapagos along with Charles Darwin’s great great great grandson is unlikely going to be
your experience. But the wildlife there, assuming they are glad you’ve come, will be plentiful. And according to the
article, they are. Iguanas and tortoises are teeming over the islands, and the place has more boobies than a Hooters
convention. So now I’m back on the Galapagos bandwagon. Ready to set sail, volcano or no.