Upcoming Event: Marvelously mad Marcus Demuth on his 2010 kayak circumnavigation of Great Britain!

Not just in, but just reposted to a couple of the kayaking lists I'm on - this should be lots of fun. I'll be there if there's any way I can manage (work's been insane lately, that's the only question) - Marcus is not just a great paddler but a wonderful human being, warm & with a great sense of humor. Most of us NYC paddlers who know him feel the same way - the following "press release" was written by one of the Pier 66 crew who paddles with him & that same affection is there.

He does these crazy trips out of sheer love of being out on the water, nothing else, and that just shines through when he talks about his trips. Oh, yeah, and he's also no slouch as a photographer!

Should be a fun evening -- and might be one of our last chances to hear him speak before NYC loses him to Wales next year! :(

Right. Enough preamble, here's the announcement:

******************************
Kayaking Around Great Britain in 80 Days
Or
One Kayaker’s Search for the Best Fish and Chip Shop West of Germany

-- Marcus Demuth

When: Tuesday October 19th, 7pm to 9pm (presentation will start promptly at 7:30pm).

Where: Pier 66 boathouse, Manhattan (three blocks north of Chelsea Piers, at the intersection of 26th Street and the Hudson River).

What: Expedition presentation, slide show, charts and photos, followed by a smelly neoprene booty ‘Round Britain’ quiz and heckling from the Brits.

Synopsis
=======
In May 2010, Marcus Demuth set out from Skegness, on the East Coast of England, to attempt to circumnavigate Great Britain (GB). Since 2005, all attempts to circumnavigate GB ended unsuccessfully, mainly due to bad weather and unfavorable winds.

After 80 days of paddling and 2,468 miles, Marcus became the 16th kayaker to circumnavigate GB successfully. To put this into context for New York City paddlers, this was the equivalent of paddling 88 times around the 28-mile loop of Manhattan. Marcus took the Mayor's Cup option and paddled clockwise.

The circumnavigation should be the fastest solo circumnavigation of GB, tying the previous 80-day record of the kayaking trio of Barry Shaw, Phil Clegg and Harry Whelan in 2005. Nigel Dennis and Paul Caffyn completed the 2nd fastest circumnavigation of GB in 85 days in 1980.

Please join Marcus at the Pier 66 boathouse on October 19th to hear all about his adventure around the island that many paddlers at Pier 66 used to call home. Intertwined with Marcus' presentation about his expedition planning, logistics and the realities of the kayaking journey itself will be a few stories about the places and the people that make such formidable trips possible, bearable and sometimes a joy. Is weather really the most talked about topic in the pub? Did it actually drizzle every day? Is beer genuinely considered a food group? Do the British
intentionally deep fry chocolate bars in their fish and chip shops? Is the ‘Local Hero’ red telephone box still working up there in remote Scotland? Are you more likely to encounter a sheep than a human in Wales? How did the English cope with the USA tie in the football World Cup? Has the music moved on since The Beatles? Do the Brits really like nothing better than a hot cup of tea?

Great Britain, UK…?
==================
This nice website from a junior school in England provides some simple explanations and maps so you can see where Marcus went.

Here is the important bit:

Great Britain (GB) is an island comprising the two kingdoms of England and Scotland, and the principality of Wales.

Great Britain and the United Kingdom (UK) refer to different geographic areas. The UK includes Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Marcus circumnavigated the whole of Ireland in 2007.

The British Isles includes two large islands, Great Britain and Ireland, and lots of small islands, of which one is Jersey in the Channel Islands! Marcus did not circumnavigate the British Isles -- the slacker -- so perhaps this should be next?

People who are born in England are both English and British. People who are born in Jersey are British, but not English. The Scottish and the Welsh are British, but you had better think twice before you call them British. Definitely don't mix up the Irish in all this.

About Marcus Demuth
==================
Marcus Demuth is a local paddler based at the Pier 66 boathouse in New York City. Over recent years, Marcus has been adding to an impressive resume of international kayaking expeditions, some fully completed as planned and others abandoned at just the right time -- equally impressive in the minds of many. In 2009, Marcus Demuth became the first kayaker to successfully circumnavigate the Falkland Islands, a grueling trip of over 680 Miles in 22 days. In 2007, Marcus circumnavigated
Ireland as a fundraiser for the Royal National Lifeboat Association, a trip of over 1,100 Miles in 42 days. Other expeditions have brought Marcus to Tierra Del Fuego (2010), Iceland (2008), the South and West Coast of Australia (2007) and Patagonia/Chile (2006). When Marcus is not on a kayaking expedition, you will find him tearing up the Hudson River on his surfski, upside down in the Pier 66 embayment reminding himself that swimming is not always a good option for a solo paddler, or
loitering around the boathouse passing on his enthusiasm for kayaking to others as a Manhattan Kayak Company guide. Read about Marcus' kayak adventures, paddling tips and more at: marcusdemuth.com.

This kayaking presentation is sponsored by the Manhattan Kayak Company
and New York Kayak Polo:
(where the women are the new 2010 National Kayak Polo Champions -- great
job!!!)

See you all on October 19th!!!

Tierra Del Fuego Talk TONIGHT, 2/11/2010

D'oh! Been so caught up in ice yacht reveries that I almost forgot that Marcus & Biff are doing a presentation about their adventures in Tierra Del Fuego TONIGHT at the Pier 66 Boathouse! Should be fascinating, I'm glad it's not a close week here at work. Visit their blog for full information.

Who Hates Wind?

Who hates wind?

Marcus and Biff, that's who.

They were making fantastic progress around Tierra del Fuego for a while, but then relentless winds pinned them in place (fortunately in a sheltered bay) for 11 days straight. When the possibility of a helicopter ride out of there unexpectedly materialized one day, they weighed their options & chose to abandon ship (literally, they left their kayaks behind).

Can't have been an easy call. It takes courage to do the sort of thing they were trying to do. It also takes guts & a good dose of common sense, in the end, to say "OK, this isn't working out, our options are getting slimmer with each passing day, we have been granted this opportunity to get out with no further risk to life & limb - let's take it."

I think back to Marcus's early days & laugh. He had a number of us women of the barge in full mother-hen mode because he seemed to be fearless. That might sound like a compliment, but I think fear, at a controllable/overrideable level (not unreasonable fear or panic, those are no good at all, just a healthy respect for the overwhelming power of wind & water & all the other hazards out there) is a pretty necessary emotion to have in kayaking.

I don't think we needed to worry quite so much - I think Marcus just had to go a lot further than most of us do to find his limits.

So, congratulations to them, in spite of the early end. I would've loved it if they'd made it, but at the same time, they'd been in the same place for an awfully long time, the last Spot track had a certain silent eloquence, and scanning on up the coast they were going to be travelling next, I wasn't seeing any nice places to run in. In light of all that, the announcement that they were bailing was not a surprise & in fact was maybe even a bit of a relief.

I hope they will be doing a presentation or two when they will get back - it should be fascinating.

I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to watch Marcus develop as a paddler. And now I'm getting to watch him develop as a sailor too - last year he bought a Laser & joined Sebago! Yeah, that "Who hates wind?" thing was hyperbole - it's not all wind, just the winds that are blowing too hard from the wrong direction, halfway through a big expedition. I'm really looking forward to seeing how he does at Sebago's Laser regatta (May 22nd, official Notice of Race in process but any Laser sailors out there, mark your calendars if you'd like to join us on J-Bay!).

Date Update for Marcus Demuth event at the Downtown Boathouse

Marcus had had an event he's doing at the Downtown Boathouse listed on his website as being on April 8th. That event (also featuring the NYC Premiere of the Eastern Horizons sea kayaking movie by Bryan Smith) is actually on the 7th.

Posting here (despite the Hudson River Paddlers' Guild connection that turns out to exist*) on the infinitesmal chance that somebody could have clicked through to his website yesterday & added the 8th to their calendar.

* It has been a long time now since the Guild set themselves up as the spokespeople & leaders of the "storage hold" set during the shutdown of Pier 63, and the organization may have evolved, but some of their leaders & supporters left me feeling seriously stomped-on back then. They put together the occasional interesting event, like this one, but I generally just stay away from them. It's sometimes been really hard not to "talk stink" about them here, but there are some people who are involved who I respect a lot (like Marcus himself!) & who didn't act like I needed cutting down to size the way some of them did. Because of the former set of people, and because other friends of mine HAVE enjoyed some of the Guild's events, and because vendettas are a really sad & ugly use for blogs, I mostly try to follow the "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" rule.

Marcus Demuth at the Sebago Canoe Club 2/9/08

Quick post before I vanish for the weekend -

I just wanted to mention that Marcus Demuth, one of my friends from the Pier 63 days & probably the most adventurous of the group I used to refer to collectively as "The Adventure Squad", is going to be giving a slide show of some of his recent kayak adventures at the Sebago Canoe Club next week Saturday, the 9th of February. It's bound to be a lot of fun & if you've ever been curious about this club I talk about so much, well, this'll be a great chance to see it.

Here's the announcement Stevie (who set this up) sent to the Sebago Yahoo group:

For those armchair kayak expedition types or anyone interested in extreme sea kayaking, Marcus Demuth will be at Sebago Canoe Club, Saturday Feb 9th at 6:00PM, to give a talk about his past and future expeditions.

He recently completed a solo sea kayak circumnavigation of Ireland. And has done extended trips in Patagonia, Australia and Nova Scotia, to name
a few.

He is in the planning stage of an extended trip to circumnavigate the Alexander Archipelago, Alaska.
He also came in first place in his class in the past two NYC Mayors Cup races.

It will be informal, bring drink and snacks to share.

Even if it is cold out, the new stove will keep it toasty warm.

The duck will not be there, but perhaps a brown-bear intimidation demonstration will be done with the Sebago teddy bear (much smaller than the brown bears Marcus may see on his Alaska trip, but a fine strapping specimen of ursus rooseveltus). And the photos will be spectacular.

Unfortunately I can't make it. I'll be with the duck. Swimming. In Connecticut.

I was referring to the cold water workshop the Small Boat Shop holds once a year. There's a presentation, and then they let you suit up & jump off the dock. Woohoo! It's a tough call but it's such a good chance to swim in genuinely cold water in full winter gear in very controlled conditions & that's a great safety exercise. We practice all the rescue exercises all the time so we know how it feels when we need 'em to work - this is another chance to really see how it feels.

Plus it just sounds like fun. Truth be known, if it was just that serious stuff, I'd probably pick the slide show. But I wanna go swimming.

I'd wanted to do this last year but there was some insurmountable conflict & I'd been sort of set on doing it this year.

I am going to be missing an excellent evening at Sebago, though. Really.

Directions to the club can be foundhere.


(ps speaking of the duck...I know I use this picture every time I mention Marcus's name. I do love it but I was ready to use a new one tonight. I really tried to get another one from his website but for some reason the old gray Dell is not feeling up to retrieving pictures tonight, so...hello, ducky!

Marcus is Back in Dun Laoghaire!

Marcus finished his Ireland circumnavigation! Congratulations, Marcus! Slainte!

1.5 blocks down Memory Lane.

So there I went, starting a pleasant little meander down Memory Lane, made it maybe a block & a half & then The Present intefered. Must be summertime!

Wednesday night I did a pre-solstice paddle with Sebago's own Paddling Chef, instigator of many marvelous culinary club events. We went to the Wharf Bar & Grill in Rockaway - good basic grill food, outside in the fresh air, overlooking Jamaica Bay - good stuff. They have brunch, too - now for that, I'd get up early! Nice crescent moon, maybe about a 15 knot wind, tailwind going over, headwind going back, but we'd had a good dinner & had plenty of energy for getting home. This was a fun paddle, I think it'll be a nice fill-in for the Tubby Hook lunch paddle I used to really love doing on the Hudson.

Last night, solstice, my umpteenth running of the 3.5 mile Corporate Challenge. Did better than I thought. Ran most of it, which was more than I was expecting, I just have not been doing any running lately. I have been doing a LOT of walking though - getting to the club involves at least a mile & frequently more, as I have little patience with waiting for buses on the Flatbush-to-my-place leg. That seemed to give me more stamina for the run than I expected. Nice surprise! I think I did better than last year, when I got all wrapped up in taking pictures of the annual New York cubicle-oid stampede.

Tonight I was going to go on a post-solstice paddle with sun gods Prof. M & "I.M." Pei and their merry band of post-solsticians. but tomorrow & Sunday I am delivering myself into the merciless hands of the Sailing Committee, see if they can make a Laser sailor out of me, and I was POOPED last night - in addition to the 3.5 mile race, there's like another half-mile of being funnelled along tables where you collect your post-race schwag, then there was another mile or more walking in search of post-race beer - I finally gave up at the 2nd jam-packed bar, went home beerless. And damp, a huge thunderstorm broke out after the race.

I've decided maybe a nice quiet night at home is in order tonight, even though it means missing out on a really nice evening. My plan is to pack up for the sailing course & get a good night's sleep so I'm fresh & ready for tomorrow's fun & sogginess. One really can only pack so much fun into a 5-day period, especially active-type fun, ESPECIALLY during a work week.

I will probably take a little time to descend back into coach weekend musings too, less rustbucket reminiscing though, I want to get back to my original point. To steal a quote from Derrick, if we're really lucky, it might even be interesting!

In the meantime, may I recommend a visit to MarcusDemuth.com? His kayak got to Ireland on June 8th - Hand Delivered by Nigel Dennis, no less! - and he's maintaining a really excellent trip journal. Concise but vivid. There's a shark, there's beer, there's some pretty hairy-sounding conditions - vintage Marcus.

No sturgeon yet. I hope he knows to beware of the sturgeon.

Random thoughts from yesterday in closing...

1. Self-appointed motivators at races involving large numbers of amateurs should try not to lie. I was just a little ways past the one-mile marker when this guy came sprinting by proclaiming "Halfway there! We're halfway there!" I was glad that I knew better or I might have listened, picked up the pace & ended up running out of steam by the end of the 3rd mile.

2. I'm not one of these people who gets all lathered up over the Central Park carriage horses in general. No, it's not the perfect life for a horse, but there are worse things people do to horses. There are definitely some who look like they could be cared for better, but there are also some big stout healthy-looking draft horses who look fairly healthy & content. Last night, though, during the beer quest, we walked past the Central Park South carriage horse line - the rain was absolutely bucketing down, the drivers were all sitting inside the carriages with the tops up. But out of the 15 or so horses in the queue - how many do you think had even a rudimentary rain sheet thrown over them?

One. One lucky horse had a driver thoughtful enough to throw a tarp over his back. The rest of 'em just stood there and got soggy. That just seems wrong. Claire, wouldn't a horse rather have a rainsheet?

This just bothers me.

High Speed Monday Post

5 million things to do today. Quick lunch break post to say:

My friend Marcus is awesome. Go check out what he's doing. This is somehow really particularly wonderful because if I'm remembering correctly, one of the things that really inspired him to do the kind of paddling he's doing was reading Chris Duff's On Celtic Tides. There's a nice symmetry to this, somehow. He's so low-key about it too. Good guy doing a good paddle for a good cause. Go Marcus. I'm honored to call you a friend.

Not so good news: Unfortunately it seems I'm going to have to work a verse about banging into a freighter into my Ballad of the Schooner Anne. Obviously everyone's ok (I say obvious because I wouldn't have mentioned the ballad if anyone was hurt) - but I don't much like being anywhere close to a moving freighter & this has to have been really scary. There is some damage, badly bent bowsprit, no more roller-furling jib. You can read about that here, and the next post is a discussion with Reid that I don't have time to listen to right now. I was rooting for them to at least have a respectible go at it - will be interesting to see how they deal with it.

I guess I have to say that if it was me, I'd probably say "Well, we've only been gone 15 days, let's put into port, fix the damage, and then try again". But I'm pretty well known among my friends as being a bit of a stick-in-the-mud.


Plus I do wonder if there are pressures on Reid & Soanya that might weight their decisions - I found myself thinking of the Hokule'a's inaugural voyage (which was when Eddie Aikau died) when they left, for reasons I don't have time to get into & don't even know if I consider it my business to talk about, not being big into armchair quarterbacking (almost said Monday-morning QB'ing, but nobody's called the game here). Not the same setup, but the problem with attracting the public eye is that then the public eye expects a certain performance & if they don't get it...yikes.



I do know that we lost the bobstay on the Adirondack one September in a starting-line collision with the schooner Pioneer aone year, and continued to sail with no jib for the rest of the season, but when a boat's designed to carry a certain set of sails & then loses the ability to use one, the balance won't be what it's supposed to be. For 2 hour trips to the Statue of Liberty, that wasn't a big deal. Open ocean? Dunno.

At any rate, I wish Reid & Soanya luck & the courage to make the right decisions now.

I'm not a good enough sailor, and I don't know the Anne, or Reid, or Soanya, well enough to claim to know what those are. Whatever keeps them safe, mostly.