Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Paddling On Faith- Jon Turk

Rating **

Paddling on Faith is an article written by Jon Turk about a kayaking adventure he went on. He started at Port Vila, an island in the south pacific ocean, and planned on paddling to the remote northern islands of the Vanuatu, then to Santa Cruz island and then to the Solomon islands. In the article he talks about his kayak from an island called Maewo to Gaua Island. He has to paddle 48 kilometres this day, and it is a lot harder than he expected it to be. The strong winds keep blowing him off course westward so he finds it hard to paddle. He made an outrigger for his kayak the day before out of a few pieces of wood that he thought would give him stability so that he could sleep. It wasn’t working for him and he had to cut it loose after 8 miles. He uses a GPS with waypoints in it to help him find his way, but it becomes more difficult after dark. He has to push his body to exhaustion to keep paddling and not give up. Eventually after many hours of paddling in the darkness, he manoeuvres around the coral reef barrier of the Gaua Island and reaching the shore.

This guy definitely loves a challenging adventure, and I think he is a little bit crazy to go out and paddle so far all by himself. He was prepared with the bare minimum of tools to help him survive. He brought with him a knife, a GPS, head lamp, sail, a life jacket and a can of peanuts as his food to help energize him.



Turk, Jon. "Paddling on Faith." Adventure Kayak. Summer 2010. Print
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1 comment:

  1. BuckShotJune 2, 2010 at 6:56 PM

    Rating ***

    This article demonstrates the true power of will as Jon Turk set out on a task which he was determined to complete regardless of the adversity that he met. Whether it be the weather, his physical exhaustion or even lack of tools he was able to conquer every obstacle that approached him and more importantly stay true to himself.

    On another side I believe that this man was slightly foolish to attempt a feat such as this alone as the water is unpredictable and as accidents are magnified by the wilderness he put himself in extreme danger.

    This article was no doubt interesting and expanded my views on what it means to challenge yourself and thankfully for Jon Turk he was able to meet his expectations and did not end up sleeping with the fishes.

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