I am currently living in Norfolk, Virginia, a place I used to consider the armpit of Virginia but I’ve grown to love over the past year. Its residents are passionate and deeply care about Hampton Roads and their love for their home is incredibly contagious. I recently moved into an apartment with an incredible view overlooking the Elizabeth River and truly consider it my home. For someone who really likes being settled, the past few years have been a little disorienting for me. I’ve moved a lot, lived out of my car for several months, and been temporarily without a home several times. So it’s really nice to have a place to call my own and get settled in.
Tag Archives: Atlantic Ocean
Sea Fever
Awesome, awesome video from Alastair Humphreys. No loud music, no catchy action sequences. Does a great job illustrating the beautiful monotonous slow pace that dominates life on most adventures. Making me really excited for a simpler life out on the Appalachian Trail this summer.
Open water: Kayaking to the Bahamas
A fishing captain looks at me, his thirty-two foot boat getting thrown about ten miles off shore in giant swells, and asks “What the hell are you doing out here?”
Me in my kayak bobbing around like a piece of Styrofoam, “I was asking myself that same question.” Continue reading Open water: Kayaking to the Bahamas
“A leap of logic”
Andrew McAuley suggested that sea kayaking was the new mountaineering. For him it was, and it is luring me in too. But for some reason it isn’t drawing the crowds that a new frontier maybe should. It is baffling how many untouched adventures exist on the open water. But even many serious mountaineers draw the line at an open ocean crossing. 95% of the ocean has yet to be explored and until recently, more was known about the surface of the moon. The water turns people away and rightfully so. It has been hundreds of millions of years since we were residents of an aquatic environment. It is foreign to us, unstable. We are not the top of the food chain in the ocean. In fact, we are so outnumbered that an open ocean swimmer is as easy of a meal as a pork tenderloin on your dinner plate. We can only be visitors to the ocean, and that humility is something foreign to the designed environments. Continue reading “A leap of logic”
Kayak sponsons, kayak outriggers, and self-righting
Recently I have been studying the exploits of some incredible adventurers, specifically solo explorers in small water craft crossing bodies of water that regularly sink much larger vessels. The designs and the different methods of accomplishing similar goals are so vastly different that I find myself absolutely fascinated and curious as to what is the absolute best method.
The reason this is all of interest to me is because I am also exploring the possibility of embarking on one of these long distance adventures, one that I can only find record of one other person attempting, albeit with a companion and in a canoe. This man, Verlen Kruger, paddled from Florida to Venezuela, and that is exactly what I hope to do. Verlen completed the trip with assistance for long open ocean crossings, something I cannot expect nor intend to receive.
Continue reading Kayak sponsons, kayak outriggers, and self-righting