At Galaxy, the adventure starts with you. Our passion for the outdoors and our desire to live at harmony with nature inspired us in the world of kayaks. You only need to dip a toe into the kayak community to hear inspirational stories of endurance and exciting journeys on the water. Often, it’s the solo trips that resonate – one person on top a kayak in the middle of the ocean is both a physical and mental trial. The ocean can be a lonely and cruel place, and it’s here we dive straight into some examples of the most inspirational solo adventures ever taken on a kayak.
Freya Hoffmeister – 15,000 miles of South American coastline 2011-2015
“Thank God I am still alive”, German paddler Freya Hoffmeister wrote on her blog, after kayaking 15,000 miles of South American coastline. Back in 2015 she’d just completed her trip, which took four years and a staggering 857 days on the water. A true endurance feat. Hoffmeister was no stranger to pushing the limits of kayak adventures – she also holds the title of first woman to kayak solo around Australia, back in 2009.
Hoffmeister began her South American trip in Buenos Aires, Argentina in the August of 2011, aged 50. In a clockwise direction via Cape Horn, she paddled around the continent, braving the treacherous waters of the Drake Passage and passing through the Panama Canal. During the initial stage of her trip in 2011 and 2012, Hoffmeister became the first ever paddler to successfully beat the aggressive, swell beaten coastline of Tierra del Fuego, which is at the southern tip of South America. Hoffmeister chose to follow a longer and more exposed route along the coastline here, instead of picking the more sheltered and calmer Straights of Magellan. After a catastrophic attempt to land her kayak at Cape Horn, she shattered her paddle and spent five days stuck there. A couple of years later, when she was paddling the Amazon, a wave came crashing in and swept her five miles up a shallow river mouth and cast her aground a sandbar, where Hoffmeister had to wait for high tide to return her. But this arrived in the form of an almighty three foot wave. “I was fearing for my life,” said Hoffmeister, before she was eventually spat from her kayak and pushed by the wave onto a quiet stretch of sand and had to dig herself out with a spoon.
If there’s an adventure to feel in awe of, it’s this one.
Aleksander Doba – 6,000 miles across Atlantic 2013-2014
Spending six months at sea and braving the powerful force of arguably the roughest ocean, a 67 year old Polish adventurer paddled his kayak 6,000 miles from Portugal to Florida. It’s the longest open-water kayaking expedition across the Atlantic in history. Aleksander Doba spent six months at sea, back in 2013 and early 2014, battling severe weather conditions which also forced him to spend a month in Bermuda fixing the rudder on his kayak.
Doba paddled around 30 miles a day, usually at night when the temperatures dropped. Doba had stuffed his 23 foot long kayak with food rations to last five months, as well as vital equipment. Riding 30 foot waves and spending 40 fretful days and nights battling winds and currents that lead him paddling in circles around the Bermuda Triangle, Doba managed to stay roughly on course. Two months into the voyage, when Doba was in the middle of the Atlantic, his satellite phone stopped working and his personal tracking device failed. It was 47 days before Doba was able to communicate again but continued his journey when his technology rendered him completely alone in the open ocean.
Surprisingly, though he seemingly took his adventure in his stride, Doba didn’t train for his journey. In fact, it wasn’t until he was 34 that Doba took up the sport of kayaking. His only physical problems on the trip were skin rashes from the lashing of salt water.
Doba said he lives by the motto “It’s better to live one day as a lion than a thousand years as a lamb.”
Ed Gillet – 2,200 miles from California to Hawaii 1987
Our final shout out goes to an adventure taken almost 30 years ago. Paddling solo, unsponsored and completely self-supported, Ed Gillet took an epic journey proving that nature could be conquered. Travelling 2,200 miles from Monterey, California, to Maui Hawaii, Gillet was undoubtably craving a challenge. Fresh from paddling up the Pacific coast of South American just a couple of years earlier, Gillet embraced this adventure. Not only did he face the relentless swells of the ocean but he was shot at and taken prisoner during his voyage, being freed after a few hours only to jump straight back into his kayak to continue his 63 day journey.
Just a few days into his trip, heading south from Monterey, Gillet was faced with his first challenge – the howling winds and fifteen foot swells that threatened to swallow him whole. Gillet said, “I needed every bit of the skill and strength I had acquired from years of kayaking to stay upright.” Aboard his 20 foot kayak, Gillet has since explained he was most concerned about starving to death, as his trip was taking longer than he’d originally planned.
Gillet reported he was tormented daily by salt water sores and at one stage, had an adverse reaction to a sleeping pill he had been taking to ease him into rest. Tortured by symptoms of depression, Gillet managed to continue his journey but on the 60th day, he ran out of food. On his 63rd day, Gillet glimpsed the mountainous range of Haleakala and completed the mission.
So, where will your kayak take you?
