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


You Don’t Have to Quit Your


Day Job How one man pieced together an expedition on weekends and holidays


BY JACQUELINE WINDH


How many times have you heard someone say, “I would love to go on a long kayak expe- dition, but I just can’t get the time off work”? Vancouver paddler Colin Mahony didn’t let his job as a forestry consultant stop him. Colin’s dream was to paddle around Van-


couver Island—up the relatively sheltered wa- ters of the Strait of Georgia and Johnstone Strait, then down the extremely exposed icy waters of the island’s surf-washed west coast to Victoria, and finally across the Strait of Georgia back to Vancouver. Giving up his job was not an option. So he


just broke the expedition up, paddling most weekends as well as in longer stages when- ever he could get the time off. Colin set out northward from Vancouver in


early April, 2005, paddling on his days off and then finding a place to stash his boat each Sunday night to catch a ferry back to Vancouver. Over the summer, he was able to take four separate weeks off which, with weekends, gave him up to nine days of paddling at a stretch. The week that he planned to round the fearsome waters of Cape Scott, known for their nasty tidal rip and the wild weather that spins off Vancouver Island’s northern tip, the forecast called for 50-knot winds and ocean swells up to eight metres. Luckily, Colin was able to reschedule his time off and go the fol- lowing week instead.


One of the greatest challenges he found


was, after days of solitude, pushing himself to be outgoing when paddling into some un- familiar remote community. One Sunday af- ternoon near the end of the journey, he found himself on the outside of Vancouver Island, still on the water. He had to be back in the office on Monday morning. Port Renfrew lay ahead, and the one bus left there at 4 p.m. “I landed on the beach, found a phone


booth, and started calling around. I needed somewhere I could leave my boat. Someone said, ‘Call Rick.’” Rick was happy to help (it turned out that Colin had landed right in front of his house anyway) and offered him a beer. “So I missed the bus,” continued Colin,


“and got out on the road. It was getting dark, but I ended up getting a ride all the way to Victoria that night, right to my friend’s door.” He caught the first ferry in the morning, and made it to work on time. “The logistics of this trip forced me to rely


upon the kindness of others,” he said. “It cre- ated these wonderful situations where I would meet people.” Now, having completed his journey, he


says that the people that he met and the friendships that resulted are what really de- fined this trip for him. Colin paddled back into Vancouver Har-


bour on Labour Day weekend, five months after he set out. In a total of 42 days on the water, he covered 1,200 kilometres.


Colin Mahony, weekend explorer P R O T I P NIGEL FOSTER


Paddler since 1967, instructor, writer, boat designer. Circumnavigated Iceland in 1977. Most re- cent expedition: Kuujjuaq in Ungava Bay to Nain, Labrador, in 2004.


ON SELF-SUFFICIENCY I prefer to find my own way, even if it pinches a little, so I have freedom to change the parameters of a trip. If I had been sponsored to “kayak from Gander to St John’s” I would have turned down an opportunity to spend a couple of days aboard a Grand Banks fishing schooner. That added a unique facet to the trip. If you seek sponsors, listen to what they need in return, which is often visibility—in slide shows, articles, maybe in logo placements or whatever. Working sponsorship deals can take a lot of time and effort that could go to planning your trip. One time we didn’t get sponsorship we cut our kayaks in half instead and did the trip anyway because we could afford the reduced freight ourselves! And it made the trip more fun!


P R O T I P LEON SOMMÉ & SHAWNA FRANKLIN


Owners of Body Boat Blade International paddling school on Orcas Island, Wash- ington. Circumnavigated Iceland in 2003.


ON SIMPLE LIVING We live simply in our day-to-day lives. We can just leave when an opportunity comes. We live in a 12-foot by 12-foot cabin with no electricity or running water—it cost us $3,000 to build. Our overhead is low, so we don’t go broke if we leave for five months. Once you’re there, the main cost is feeding yourself. On our Ice- land expedition, we sold T-shirts (lots of them) to help pay for food and travel expenses and we had the best sponsors for equip- ment! Expeditions recharge life, and connect you to this beauti- ful planet we live on. Don’t wait until you finish school, or pay off your loans, or the kids grow up—just go NOW! Sell everything if you have to—well, not the kids—bring them along! Imagine if you could say, “Yeah, when I was five my parents sold the house and went on a trip around Madagascar.”


byNumbers EXPEDITIONS


Sponsorship proposals Kokatat received in 2005 .................................12


Expeditions Kokatat sponsored in 2005 ....5


Strokes it took Shawna Franklin to circum- navigate Iceland in 2003 ...........1,416,000


Fingers Don Starkell lost attempting to kayak the Northwest Passage ................10


Fingers Victoria Jason lost successfully paddling the same route .........................0


Days it took Hannes Lindemann to cross the Atlantic by kayak in 1956 ...............72


Days it took Peter Bray to cross the Atlantic in 2001 .............................76


Days it took Ed Gillet to paddle 4,000 kilometres from California to Hawaii .......63 Pounds Gillet lost on the crossing ...........25


Calories burned per hour when paddling at 4 knots ............................................500


Snickers bars’ worth of energy to paddle around Vancouver Island ...... (1.8 bars/hr) 339


Capsizes on Chris Duff’s circumnavigation of the South Island of New Zealand ........17


Metres paddled vertically on a rough day during the same expedition ..............8,640


Years for a water molecule to travel around Lake Superior .........................199 Days to paddle around Lake Superior ......70


Work weeks per year consumed by a 40-minute commute to work ..................8


Weeks to paddle around Vancouver Island ...8 —Conor Mihell


Adventure Kayak || 33


JACQUELINE WINDH


LEON SOMMÉ AND SHAWNA FRANKLIN


THOMAS AHLBERG


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