Adventure Kayak’s do-it-yourself EXP EDI T ION GUIDE WHERE TO GO


Madagascar, New Zealand, the Faroe Islands, the Aleutian Islands, Chile, somewhere in Asia, a big river trip in Siberia or Alaska. —JUSTINE CURGENVEN


Looking for trip ideas? We asked top expedition paddlers to list their favourite trips and dream destinations. Want to do something completely new? Try crossing the Pacific via the Aleutians, paddling the coast of China, circumnavigating Madagascar or all of Africa.


Scotland’s Western Isles, through Orkney, Shetland, Faroe Islands; Iceland; South Georgia Island; Chile; east coast of Baffin Island; Greenland. —NIGEL FOSTER


Madagascar, Iceland, outer coast of B.C. and Alaska, Queen Charlotte Islands. —LEON SOMMÉ


Iceland; Great Britain tidal races; Spitzbergen, Norway; Faroe Islands; Queen Charlotte Islands; Vancouver Island; Falkland Islands; Cuba; Madagascar. —SHAWNA FRANKLIN


The Tatshenshini River, the Stikine River and the entire B.C. coast; the west coast of Tasmania; Chile; the Outer Hebrides; Japan. —DAN LEWIS


“The biggest unknown trip in sea kayaking is from Russia to Anchorage via the Aleutians. The only reason I’m telling you this is because I’m too scared.” —JON TURK


“I wonder if anybody will ever paddle around Africa.” —CHRIS DUFF


British Columbia, China, Cambodia, Vietnam and the South Pacific Islands. —JOHN DOWD


P R O T I P JUSTINE CURGENVEN


Freelance adventure filmmaker (www. cackletv.com). Produced the kayaking DVDs This is the Sea and This is the Sea 2. Solo circumnavigated Iceland’s West Fjords. Led the first all-female team to circumnavigate Tasmania.


ON STARTING SMALL An expedition can be a six-month journey or an overnight camping trip to a small island one kilometre offshore. The planning, the sense of adventure, the self-sufficiency and the excitement of sleeping under the stars are the same. Start small and grow from there. If you go on a small trip near to home, you’ll also get better at things like packing your kayak and you’ll work out the best combination of clothes to take. I soon realized that no matter how much kit you have, there’s always room for a bottle of red wine right besides the skeg box! So don’t be intimidated and think that you could never do a big long trip. Each great journey starts with one small step, you just have to be brave enough to take that small step and who knows where you’ll be in a few years time!


P R O T I P DAN LEWIS


Owner of Rainforest Kayak Adventures. Has spent nearly a year of his life on trips longer than three weeks, mainly in B.C., and has circumnavigated Vancouver Island.


ON WHAT IT TAKES You’ve got to have people you can get along with. That is the key thing. Second would be the planning—your charts, your tides, your guidebook, the coast pilot. Just knowing what the weather and ocean conditions are going to be, when to go, navigational planning. I like to sit down and spread the charts out and pore over them before I go. The third thing would be the gear. That for me means not tak- ing too much. On the shorter trips you figure out what you did not use, and how likely you are to need it. The last thing is training. You need to go out and get fit and go through rescues with the team.


Wisdom EXPEDITION


I wanted to step out, for a time, from behind the safe and familiar world of the civilized, to experience, up close, the awesome power and beauty of a wild coastal environment.


—Mary Jo Cullen, two solo circumnavigations of Lake Superior in a homemade baidarka


I dislike the phrase expedi- tion because to me it’s more of a reprieve or a retreat than it is an expedition, even some of these big trips, they’re just time to think clearly.


—Chris Duff, circumnavigated the British Isles, New Zealand’s South Island, Iceland


An expedition is just a series of weekend trips strung together one after the other. —Nigel Foster, circumnavigated Iceland, Baffin Island to Labrador crossing


I can look at a globe and say I did that under my own steam. And that’s a great feeling.


—Dan Lewis, circumnavigated Vancouver Island


Seeking adventure is like listening to music—the novelty of discovery is pleasurable in itself, and needs no further justification. —Mike Petzold, owner, Caribou Expeditions


After a week of paddling you start to talk to yourself. After a month you begin to listen. —Star Swift, circumnavigated Lake Superior


After a while the expedition becomes your “real life” and you let go of all that superfluous stuff that made it hard to get away in the first place. That’s the feeling that keeps us going out again and again.


—Rob Walker and Karen Holm, Chilean Passage Expedition


Clear away everything else. Quit your job, sell your house and car, and take off. —John Dowd, Singapore to Java, Venezu- ela to Florida, Punta Arenas to Puerto Montt


Adventure Kayak || 31


ALUN HUGHES


BONNY GLAMBECK


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