His clothes, permeated with salt, refused to dry. [14], On September 3, 2017, Doba completed his third solo transatlantic kayak trip when he kayaked into a port in Le Conquet, France from Barnegat Bay, New Jersey in May 2017. That October, he paddled from Senegal to Brazil in 99 days. To be precise: I was a Jew with the flu about to go kayaking in Poland in January not a setup likely to end well. His odyssey concluded that September when he paddled into the port in Le Conquet, France. Mr. Dobas three trans-Atlantic voyages earned him Guinness World Records titles, and in recent years he enjoyed celebrity status in his native Poland. Shoot, the devil says. When Aleksander Doba kayaked into the port in Le Conquet, France, on Sept. 3, 2017, he had just completed his third and by far most dangerous solo trans-Atlantic kayak trip. He did it three times, setting records and becoming a national hero in Poland. So Doba moves toward the crisis, just as he moves toward the suffering. People ask me how old I am, and I say, I am not old! Then Doba sketched out a design for a new boat that could make the trip. Replies: 5 Views: 2,045. . On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Eco-friendly burial alternatives, explained. But storms and equipment failure threw Doba off course, tacking an additional 1,300 miles and two months onto a journey that already would have broken the record for the longest ever solo kayaking voyage. Aleksander Doba (9 September 1946 - 22 February 2021) was a Polish kayaker known primarily for his long voyages crossing oceans.In 2010 and again in 2013 he kayaked across the Atlantic Ocean westward under his own power. One of the last people to see Mr. Doba alive was a Polish climber named Boguslaw Wawrzyniak, who was also summiting Kilimanjaro that day. A Polish adventurer who crossed the Atlantic three times by kayak unaided has died climbing Kilimanjaro, his family said on Tuesday. NYTimes.com no longer supports Internet Explorer 9 or earlier. Doba flew back to Poland; returned to his hometown, Police, in the countrys northwest, where he had been managing maintenance and repairs at an enormous chemical factory; and swore off kayaking with a partner ever again. After a while, the boys began to mutiny. When does spring start? The huge group of his supporters keeps growing . An elementary school honored him with a statue in his scruffy, bearded likeness. A sea kayak or touring kayak is a kayak developed for the sport of paddling on open waters of lakes, bays, and the ocean. The idea was to do the crossing unsupported. The Pole has announced that he will set off in May on what will be his third - and possibly toughest - Atlantic Crossing. The first time I visited my future mother-in-law, she served ducks blood soup. Create Biography . Along with jars of his wife's plum jam, he subsisted on freeze-dried goulash and porridge, chocolate bars . Aleksander Doba Olo . A crisis, in Dobas worldview, is an opportunity for triumph. If you have a crisis in the middle of the Atlantic and the closest land is the bottom, she asked, what will you do then? Doba said, There will be no such crisis. She knew she couldnt stop him. He was a few days shy of his 71st birthday. Gabriela traveled to Denmark to study how European Union countries handled problems like unemployment, alcoholism and lonely young mothers. Long COVID patients turn to unproven treatments, Why evenings can be harder on people with dementia, This disease often goes under-diagnosedunless youre white, This sacred site could be Georgias first national park, See glow-in-the-dark mushrooms in Brazils other rainforest, 9 things to know about Holi, Indias most colorful festival, Anyone can discover a fossil on this beach. "Na szczycie Olek poprosi o 2 minuty przerwy, usiad na kamieniu i po prostu zasn", "Kayaker, 64, completes marathon paddle across Atlantic", "Landfall: Aleksander Doba reaches South America", "Kajakarstwo - Aleksander Doba przepyn Atlantyk", Unofficial blog for Aleksander Doba Transatlantic Kayak Crossing, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aleksander_Doba&oldid=1104141716, Recipients of the Order of Polonia Restituta, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 13 August 2022, at 00:00. So he stayed on the water nearly another week, in the one-meter-wide boat where hed endured towering waves, in the coffinlike cabin where he spent almost four months not sleeping more than three hours at a stretch, where he severely tried his loved ones patience in order to be lonely, naked and afraid. Then the AA batteries for his SPOT personal tracking device failed, and the retired engineer had to rig a new, delicate connection using AAAs. What most of us experience as suffering he repurposes as contrarian self-determination, and that gives him an existential thrill. F. He tried to drill holes in the rudder and attach the rudder to the stern with plastic ties. She threw herself into her work, which had become far more rewarding than she ever imagined it could when she trained as a social worker in the 1970s. "Video: People's Choice Adventurer of the Year Aleksander Doba", "Aleksander Doba Completes His Third Atlantic Crossing in a Kayak", "Police. . A former chemical plant engineer who lived in a little river town, Mr. Doba had long been the most accomplished kayaker in his country. Along the way, he was thrown from his kayak in a storm. In 2010 and again in 2013 he kayaked across the Atlantic Ocean westward under his own power. While the distance does not compare with the record for the longest ocean-crossing by kayak, held by Poland's Aleksander Doba for a 6558-kilometre journey from Portugal to Florida via Bermuda, the Tasman Sea is notorious for its unpredictable, difficult weather conditions. Unauthorized use is prohibited. I was in a pickle! To avoid the nightmare of quiet conformity, Doba told me he said to his mother-in-law, This is a good soup! His 12,417 kilometer journey began in Lisbon on October 5, 2013 and ended in Florida on April 17, 2014. In 2010 and again in 2013 he kayaked across the Atlantic Ocean westward under his own power. Then shed leave. He died like an adventurer after . It was like my wishes came true. Doba traveled an average of 30 miles a day, often paddling at night, when the temperatures dropped. The first person in the world to paddle from Europe to America in a kayak across the Atlantic Ocean's widest point, Aleksander Doba also holds the record for the number of days (142) spent in a kayak in the ocean. Then I asked the local guides with him, Do you know who this man is? And they said: Yes. When making potentially dangerous or financial decisions, always employ and consult appropriate professionals. Actualizado a 24/02/2021 12:40 CET. Doba wasnt on a schedule. He did not want to be saved, so he waved the Greeks off. Then, about three weeks into the trip, more storms arrived: Winds up to 55 knots created outsize waves, mountains of water racing toward the kayak, the entire surface of the sea lurching as if a stampede of elephants were running across a giant water bed. Doba tried to sleep during the day but couldnt, so he tried to paddle during the day and nearly got sunstroke. Doba drifted around for days eating freeze-dried goulash and chocolate bars. He wasnt a man who necessarily looked forward to spending Christmas with the family, his son Czeslaw said. Three times. Doba accepted his suggestion that he paddle to Bermuda for a repair. His body appears to be assembled from parts belonging to people of vastly different ages. Me, fine, he shouted in English, pointing to himself and giving the thumbs up. Will he cross the Atlantic again? When he arrived in Brazil he weighed 64kg. Please upgrade your browser. Doba did finally accept help two weeks later. Hitting the Atlantic ocean the following day, he had waited almost a year for another chance to continue his Third Transatlantic Kayak Expedition, which began on May 29, 2016 . Me, fine, Mr. Doba shouted in English to the ships crew, giving a thumbs-up. Aleksander "Olek" Doba, a retired engineer from Poland, left Lisbon, Portugal, in his kayak on October 5, 2013. But Mr. Doba had tested the limits of possibility during his two previous Atlantic crossings. Brent Stirton/Getty Images, for The New York Times, Andrea Frazzetta/Institute, for The New York Times. Doba told his wife that he was going to try to cross the Atlantic again. The first time Polish kayaker Aleksander Doba tried to paddle across the Atlantic Ocean in 2007, he didn't get far. Sea kayaks are seaworthy small boats with a covered deck and the ability to incorporate a spray deck.They trade off the manoeuvrability of whitewater kayaks for higher cruising speed, cargo capacity, ease of straight-line paddling, and comfort for long journeys. His father built him a bicycle from scrap parts, and when he was 15 he rode it across the country. When Doba finally said, I will go on the North Atlantic, I said, I will not participate in this, Arminski told me. The design by British civil engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel was a . I dont know how I ended up here. The soldiers told Doba he had broken so many laws that they didnt know how to charge him. Aleksander Doba, 70, completed his transatlantic journey on Sunday after setting off on the epic quest from New Jersey in May. Can we bring a species back from the brink? Rowers whove paddled the Atlantic an easier proposition because rowing allows a person to recruit leg and back muscles have strapped themselves to the floors of their cabins to avoid being bounced around during storms and concussed, or worse. His hair and beard appear to be taken from a Michelangelo painting of God. Gabriela, she says, was to be honest, a little pissed that Doba was going again. When Mr. Doba encountered border patrol soldiers, they told him that he was in serious breach of the law. Watch. In mid-September 2013, Doba still did not possess all the gear he wanted to take on his trip. National Geographic . Trans Atlantic kayak completed by Aleksander Doba. He died while climbing Kilimanjaro after reaching the mountain summit. In video footage of the hour before he left, Doba looks wrecked exhausted and on the verge of tears. The most serious trouble came for Doba when he hit a storm that lasted two days. Those were very, very hard times for both of us. However, in general, from my very low point of observation, the ocean looked clean. (This worked a little, but not entirely.). Mr. Dobas three daring voyages earned him Guinness World Records titles, and in 2017 he became the oldest person to kayak across the Atlantic. His fingernails and toenails just about peeled off. Heres why each season begins twice. Kayak fishing became very popular during the recession of around 2008-2010 when gas prices were soaring and recreational boating was becoming too expensive for . Contribute to chinapedia/wikipedia.en development by creating an account on GitHub. He was, by then, 90 percent of the way across the ocean but had spent the last six weeks paddling in circles in the Bermuda Triangle, trapped by wind and currents. He was named 2014 Adventurer of the Year by National Geographic . Within a week, however, Doba let go and agreed to have a freighter that was passing nearby pluck him out of the water and repair his rudder with its welding tools. Before the second expedition, there were similarly heavy struggles between us. The brain is removed from the process. Alone at sea without his hearing aids, Doba joked, he grew so disoriented that he started shouting at himself so that I could hear. (Doba is fairly deaf but didnt bring the aids along because theyre expensive and not waterproof, and there was no one to talk to anyway.) In 2010, when he kayaked from Senegal to Brazil, his skin broke out in salt-induced rashes, his fingernails nearly peeled off, and his eyes suffered from conjunctivitis. Her department grew to 100 people from five. He told me that he took his father to the airport for his most recent crossing. Hed been at sea 110 days, alone, having last touched land that May at New Jerseys Barnegat Bay. The devil says, It means that life is meaningless but when you jump you will look very chic, very modern. So the Frenchman jumps. Id been feeling buried, by stuff exactly as predictable as youd imagine for a working mother of two kids. The adventurous Pole always had a thirst for what he called katorga (hard labour), says Elizabeth Weil on The Daily. I was the one who would have to pay! he says. Gabriela joined us to talk at the dining table, where she had set bowls of peanuts, raisins, chocolates, cookies and cake and French presses of coffee and tea. In truth, my own trip had not been as peaceful as Id hoped. An ocean crossing is not something to undertake lightly. In recent years, Mr. Doba enjoyed celebrity status in Poland. I joked with Gabriela that this was her Atlantic. There were spiders. Sometimes he took his young sons, Bartek and Czesiek, born in 1979 and 1982. 1,277 talking about this. The 69-year-old man. The Search for Joshua Tree's Missing Hiker. June 09, 2016. The fabric smelled horrendous and aggravated his skin, so he abandoned clothes. Aleksander Doba is no stranger to long ocean crossings. On it, he has written the names of rivers he has paddled. His chest looks 50. Juan Villarino waits for a ride in the Namibian desert. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Around noon, we pulled onto a riverbank along with the rest of the group to toast sausages and bread over a fire and eat little cookies shaped like croissants. But. He had always planned to go on three crossings: South, Mid- and North Atlantic. [18], Doba died while climbing Kilimanjaro on February 22, 2021. Nie chce byc malym szarym czlowiekiem, he told me. AD: When I was alone on the ocean I had no fear for my life. Doba was born in 1946 in Swarzedz, Poland, right after the end of World War II, when the country had been run over by the Soviets and the Germans, then bombed to dust. He married Gabriela Stucka in 1975, and they settled in a town called Police, where he got a job at a chemical plant. The new year once started in Marchhere's why, Jimmy Carter on the greatest challenges of the 21st century, This ancient Greek warship ruled the Mediterranean, How cosmic rays helped find a tunnel in Egypt's Great Pyramid, Who first rode horses? The primary challenge is not physical. His eyes blew up with conjunctivitis. The Daily. End of the expedition Doba had only wanted his phone repaired. His desire to conquer the sea grew from an innocent idea that gradually consumed him: He had kayaked everything else, so why not the Atlantic Ocean? In photos from the ends of his trips, he looks ecstatic and feral, in the best possible sense, intrinsically wild and free. Aleksander Doba, 68 years old is the first to complete the longest open-water kayaking expedition across the Atlantic. Trans-Atlantic kayaker Aleksander Doba, 67, was 110 nautical miles southwest of Bermuda on Wednesday [Feb 19], paddling towards the island to affect repairs to the rudder of his kayak. Aleksander Doba was the most accomplished trans-oceanic solo kayaker in the world, who continued setting records into his seventies. I was not sure if they would leave me alive. During the third rescue attempt he yelled a Polish vulgarity. Someone had forgotten to fund the prepaid credit card that covered the bill. When he gave me a last hug, maybe he didnt cry, but I saw his eyes, Bartek said. He refused. My flu lingered. I am not German always 9 a.m. paddle, he explained. [4] He quickly started going on kayaking expeditions regularly. He then sat down on a rock and "just fell asleep".[19]. Explore. Neither Gabriela nor Bartek took him to the airport. He said many times that he didnt want to die in his bed, his son said. He woke up on shore to the sound of screaming his own. Doba began planning it, of course, a few days after he returned from Florida. *Oficjalny fanpage Aleksandra Doby. This was his second crossing, and he estimates that, due to his drift in currents, he paddled some 7,000 miles - this from a 67 year old man sporting a long, grey beard. The next time I visited, my mother-in-law did not prepare that soup. UPDATE: The votes are inmore than 521,000 of them, more than ever beforeand we have a winner. Aleksander Doba in 2016. Every three weeks there is a storm with waves that can capsize the kayak. Three times, he paddled 200 to 300 miles, only to get pushed back by the winds and currents. . Nonetheless, Gabriela was not prepared for Dobas first trans-Atlantic expedition. For Aleksander Doba, pitting himself against the wide-open sea storms, sunstroke, monotony, hunger and loneliness is a way to feel alive in old age. Nae redakce mla tu est udlat s Olekem rozhovor v roce 2015, kdy zskal ocenn Dobrodruh roku od National Geographic a kdy ml za sebou teprve dv peplavby Atlantiku. Once he was out past the Statue of Liberty, Doba turned on his GPS. From what we gather, he was euphoric to reach the summit. (Very fine, he said. These animals can sniff it out. He lost 14kg in 14 weeks of the journey. Aleksander Doba, a Polish traveler, adventurer, and world record holder who in his 60s became the first person to kayak unaided across the Atlantic and set the world record for the longest open-water kayaking expedition, has died while climbing Mount Kilimanjaro: The 74-year-old - once named by National Geographic as its Adventurer of the Year - had been "fulfilling his dream . He was at sea for 110 consecutive days. Doba has a deep, almost performance-art-like sense of this. He waited three days and still had no signal, so in hopes of getting Gabriela or Arminski to look into his phone problems, he pressed the help button on his SPOT device, a piece of gear that has become de rigueur among adventurers, as it can send emergency messages and GPS coordinates when a person is far off the grid. First, five bandits robbed me for three hours. To go into the sea and die that would be a problem for my family and a problem for Andrzej Arminski, too, Doba acknowledged. AD: I'm not going to repeat paddling the Atlantic Ocean, but paddling something else maybe. MARCH 22, 2018. Then Doba cut the bent portion off the pin with a hacksaw blade hed brought along and jury-rigged a way to control the rudder with carabiners. Absolutely no. Doba maintains that his need to cross the Atlantic in a kayak did not originate within him. Recently, just before his 71 st birthday, he sailed single-handed across the Atlantic for the third time in his kayak. How a zoo break-in changed the life of an owl called Flaco, Naked mole rats are fertile until they die, study finds. After taking in the view, he sat on a rock to rest. In 2010, Doba spent 99 days of the First Transatlantic Kayak Expedition paddling 3,400 nautical miles (3,913 miles) across one of the narrowest points of the Atlantic, between Dakar, Senegal, and Acarau, Brazil. He also snacked on dried fruit and his wifes plum jam, but he ran out of that halfway across the ocean. [4] He used a 23-foot kayak, weighing 1500 pounds when fully loaded. Aleksander Doba, a 74-year-old retired engineer with a thick white beard and a piercing gaze, was a popular figure in Poland. Id never seen him like that. The wild-bearded Polish super-kayaker Aleksander Doba died as he lived, in pursuit of adventure, passing away on the very summit of Mount Kilimanjaro at the age of 74. I dont know how I ended up here.. Polish long distance kayaker Aleksander Doba was planning to set off to attempt an Atlantic Ocean crossing alone at the age of 69 years. Aleksander Doba, a 64-year-old native of Poland, took off from Dakar, capital of the west African nation of Senegal, back on Oct. 26. And he began preparing to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, an expedition that had long been on his bucket list. After the transition, as the Poles call their countrys change to a democratic government in the early 1990s, Dobas trips became more extreme. Medicine! she said. [15][16] He has also jumped 14 times with parachute, piloted gliders for a total of 250 hours, and practiced cycling. It looks good, it smells good, probably everybody likes it. Then she sat me down at a nearby restaurant, ordered pierogies and borscht and told me a joke. ) so that she could compare it with the condition of her children upon their return. You can be made small by life or rage against it. On Sunday, May 7 2017, Alexander "Olek" Doba, took off from Sandy Hook Bay in New York City in his well-known kayak "OLO". Alexander Doba returns to the Atlantic. I even do oceanic expeditions as a tourist. I read a post on Men's Journal from 2014 that recounts Doba's paddle across the Atlantic from Portugal to Florida. Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Agence France-Presse Getty Images, Mr. Doba once said that his hunger to cross the Atlantic was not really his idea. Finally, the kayaks rudder snapped in the storm, and, unable to battle against the trade winds with a broken rudder, Doba was forced to retreat to Bermuda to have his boat repaired. Every two weeks, he would make another loop. Better than sushi.). If . Bigger than the Atlantic! Doba chimed in. On the warmer part of the Atlantic Ocean, flying fish were a big, unexpected attraction. Before they left, Gabriela would make Doba state for the record the condition of the children (Bartek has a small sniffle and is tired but otherwise is well. The World's Greatest Hitchhiker [5][6], Doba's first voyage across the Atlantic Ocean was from Senegal to Brazil in 2010 and spanned 5394 kilometers. The risk of kayaking the North Atlantic, Arminski believed, was irresponsibly, even amorally high. AD: No, although 40 nights of strenuous effort to break out of the trap of unfavorable winds in the Bermuda Triangle drained me very much. He had slept only three hours the night before and had not even had time to double-check all his gear. Even with a sleek kayak I get exhausted on 20K paddles. 02/23/21 AT 12:35 PM. Three weeks later, he reached Florida. I have two sons and two granddaughters. . I hope they will learn not to be afraid to dream, turn dreams into plans, and bring plans to reality. This was not Dobas first transatlantic crossing in OLO. Aleksander Doba appears to be one such individual. In October 2010, Doba voyaged across the Atlantic Ocean by kayak, from Senegal to Brazil and completed his trip in February 2011. For 110 days, Mr. Doba paddled eastward on his specially designed fiberglass kayak, Olo. Arminski, the boatbuilder, spent many hours trying to argue Doba out of it. He kept chasing adventure. Then the devil gets to the Polish man. He tries the reasons he used on the German and French men, without success. At the age of 70, Aleksander Doba became a legend with the kayak. 70-year old Polish long-distance kayaker Aleksander Doba has embarked on a third attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a kayak, departing New York City for Portugal, on a three-month long, 3000 . Daily News. In the early 1970s, Mr. Doba graduated from Poznan University of Technology, where he studied mechanical engineering. According to multiple Polish media reports . [7] I never expected it would be so big, she said. He arrived in Tanzania last month. AD: When I packed things carefully and ate some food, I could lie down on my back. Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of The New York Times Magazine delivered to your inbox every week. Doba alerted Chmielinski, who alerted Gabriela who didnt really want to know anything about how the trip was going. He texted via satellite phone with his family and Arminski, the boat builder, who once again served as trip navigator, sending wind and weather reports. By choosing it, he casts himself in the role of hero, not victim. I consider myself to be a tourist, he explains. I dont like it at all. Polish adventurer and kayaker Aleksander Doba crossed the Atlantic by kayak a few days before turning 71 years old. (Honestly, you dont need the details.) It was his 3rd crossing without a sail. He witnessed the formation of storm clouds and the deafening calm that accompanied them. Chmielinski and others came up with what Doba describes as exotic and expensive methods of rescue. A week later, three bandits went through my stuff for half an hour. Ocean kayaking is catastrophically monotonous. Their three sons, Dobas uncles, disappeared. (He ate all the meat options first.) Photo: Wikipedia. To prove themselves, Polish people will endure everything. kontakt: aleksanderdoba@gmail.com Aleksander Doba, a 74-year-old retired . She felt bad about it, she said, and she felt judged, but here we were, werent we? My phone exploded with hysterical texts from home. Adventure paddler Aleksander Doba willed his 71-year-old body and 1,600-pound kayak through a 4,000-mile trans-Atlantic journey He did explain to her how to boil water, which to this day she finds ridiculous. But so what? Log In Once logged in, you can add biography in the database. For a while, once again, on this second expedition, all was smooth. She also left her daughter at age 8 months to go climb a mountain in Antarctica because she was trying to complete the Seven Summits, the highest mountains on each continent, and achieving that goal, at that time, felt like a matter of life or death. Doba responded, In that case, Ill be on my way.. The departure for the second trip, from Portugal to Florida, turned out to be very abrupt. This is the only one thing you can do.. [4] He studied mechanical engineering at Poznan University of Technology and worked in a chemical factory most of his life. (Photo: Iwona) A 12,417 kilometer journey between Lisbon and Florida. I am only 67 years young! This does not feel good.. Through the ocean. Adventurer of 2015 ! He is a family man, whose positive attitude to life is contagious. [1] In 2017 he completed an eastward kayaking trip across the Atlantic. An expedition, he told me. Even here at home, Dobas physicality is sui generis. Aleksander Doba (9 September 1946 - 22 February 2021) was a Polish kayaker and mountain climber. On the morning of Feb. 22, he reached Kilimanjaros summit with two guides. He intended to keep muscle tone in his legs by swimming, but he had to abort that plan because his body in the water attracted sharks. I came very close to the line of my possibility and human possibility, he told The Times. This time he would paddle from west to east, from New York to Lisbon where he would celebrate his 70th birthday after having spent . The professor eventually persuaded Doba to cross the southern Atlantic with him from Ghana to Brazil in separate one-man kayaks, lashing those kayaks together at night to make a platform on which to sleep. AD: OLO is 23 feet long and three feet wide and weighs 1,100 pounds, and I used a nine-foot-long kayak paddle. Doba declined the ropes the crew offered to throw him. She is also co-author of The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After, which will be published next month. Doba being helped by the crew of Baltic Light in June 2017, when he had rudder problems during his North Atlantic crossing. Or the afternoon, a week later, on that same river, when he succumbed to the temptation of eating pancakes, tomato soup and rice at the Milk Bar restaurant when he should have been at his campsite, by his kayak, eating cold canned goulash in order to condition his body for arctic temperatures. He is one of two people in the world to kayak across the Atlantic without a sail. They offered to throw him ropes. I did it with no stuntman, Doba told me proudly. He was a few . He spent 100 days paddling the circumference of the Baltic Sea. In 2013, when he paddled from Portugal to Florida, a Greek tanker made the mistake of trying to rescue him. Physically, Doba did not seem to experience any difficulty beyond some uncomfortable and persistent skin rashes caused by prolonged exposure to saltwater. The more you dont believe in Polish people, the more determined we are. A mans world? Doba did not consent. He spent 40 unplanned days and nights wrestling with unfavorable winds and currents that sent him paddling in circles around the notorious Bermuda Triangle. Doba does not regret this experience. He drank five cups a day of instant coffee. Kayak legend Aleksander Doba (74 years) Dies on Kilimanjaro Summit. So I thought: Well, he might not come back.. Raspberry vodka! He was named 2015 Adventurer of the Year by National Geographic. For 110 days, Mr. Doba paddled eastward on his specially designed fiberglass kayak, Olo. I am generally physically active, ride a bike, work in my garden, and enjoy walking.. When he encountered Mr. Doba at 18,700 feet, he was excited to encounter one of his homelands heroes, and he took a selfie with him on the mountain. When a few landed on my kayak, I didnt have to eat my lyophilized food for dinner that night.. But he had promised himself, when he left New Jersey, that he would kayak not just to Europe but to the Continent proper. His mean speed was 2.26km/h, and he averaged 54km per 24 hours, with a maximum 24hour distance of 126.5km. My attempt to get out of this terrible conflict was a signal strike. Doba then turned off all his communications, including his SPOT device, which uploaded his coordinates every 10 minutes. Doba also brought two sailing harnesses, which resemble climbing harnesses but are worn on the chest instead of the legs; he uses these to attach himself with a carabiner to the boat. brennan family net worth, pinellas county apartments under $700,