Sea Kayak

Until recently I thought Freya Hoffmeister, with her 27,000km multi-year voyage around South America held the record for the longest trip ever.  Not so! 

Vanity Fair just published a remarkable story about Oskar Speck, who in 1932, paddled away from the bleak prospects of a Great Depression wracked Germany down the Danube River.  Seven years and 30,000 miles later, he arrived in Australia, just in time to be interned as a enemy alien at the outbreak of the Second World War.

I don't usually list non-surfski videos, but this one is exceptional.  The location is Bundeena: a village on the outskirts of southern Sydney (29 km south of the Sydney central business district), in the state of New South Wales, Australia. 

The poster, Mark Sundin, is a well known explorer, kayak instructor and paddler in Aus.  He's part of Expedition Kayaks, based in Sydney.

The comment on the Expedition Kayaks Facebook page says it all: "Nick, Rob & Andrew having a great time out on the residual groundswell from Sydney's 'Big Tuesday'. It's a reminder of the virtue of shorter, manoeuvrable playboats with volume for absolutely rocking it in the surf, rather than just hanging on & surviving it."

For me, as a surfski paddler, some of the interesting points are:

• It looks as though they have the rudders up most of the time.  Is this a Sea Kayak "thing" for playing in surf?
• Watch how they're not just using their paddles to brace but actually to steer on the waves.  I'm not sure this would be possible on surfskis!
• One of the guys capsizes - but of course, being an expert sea kayaker, he simply rolls upright again.
• Not all sea kayakers are "sunday drivers"!  Respect!

But this looks like an absolutely awesome location to take a surfski - in the right conditions!