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. But even if I did, censorship would not let it go., After a storm on June 16, 2017, Doba emerged from his cabin to find that the large pin that attached Olos rudder to the stern was seriously bent. Doba describes the tedium as a form of dementia: Hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of repetitions. 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. After four months at sea, Polish adventure kayaker Aleksander Doba has arrived in Bermuda where he will make repairs to his broken rudder before continuing o. He was named 2015 Adventurer of the Year by National Geographic. He was at sea for 110 consecutive days. Looking for Mars on Earth 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. I sense some . Doba maintains that his need to cross the Atlantic in a kayak did not originate within him. For a while the crossing was drama-free. He once became convinced that someone was watching him. The Search for Joshua Tree's Missing Hiker. 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. But this trip felt different. Aleksander Doba: On both routes, I saw floating garbage close to the coasts of Africa and Europe. "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. An ocean crossing is not something to undertake lightly. Without the SPOT, nobody would be able to find the kayak if they needed to rescue him. Corley, Apr 21, 2014, in forum: All Things Boats & Boating. Wojciechowska drank a double cappuccino and told me that shed been engaged five times but never married she felt it would be impossible to follow her dreams with a husband. He had always planned to go on three crossings: South, Mid- and North Atlantic. Still, Doba had no reason to plot a trip across the Atlantic . Aleksander Doba has died age 74 on the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania on Monday February 22. I dont know how I ended up here.. 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. Id been feeling buried, by stuff exactly as predictable as youd imagine for a working mother of two kids. He relieved himself by leaning off the side or the stern. After his salt-water-drenched clothes became too irritating, he navigated the rest of his trip buck naked. [1] In 2017 he completed an eastward kayaking trip across the Atlantic. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. His fingernails and toenails just about peeled off. He was greeted by one journalist and the Polish ambassador. . So I thought: Well, he might not come back.. He trained by jogging up and down the stairs of a high-rise building with a heavy backpack, and he took long daily hikes. [7][8] He was 65 years old when he undertook this journey. On April 19 at 4:18 PM, Polish kayaker Aleksander Doba, 67, became the first person to paddle across the Atlantic Ocean at its widest point - 5,400 . When making potentially dangerous or financial decisions, always employ and consult appropriate professionals. He has made his own bargain with the human condition. After Gabriela told me about Christmas, Doba began telling a story. A crisis, in Dobas worldview, is an opportunity for triumph. 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. A Polish adventurer who crossed the Atlantic three times by kayak unaided has died climbing Kilimanjaro, his family said on Tuesday. On it, he has written the names of rivers he has paddled. Their three sons, Dobas uncles, disappeared. Bright green moss covered the trees, egrets stretched like sheets blowing on a line and the occasional ray of sun broke through the low clouds. Aleksander Doba was the most accomplished trans-oceanic solo kayaker in the world, who continued setting records into his seventies. He then reached Acara at 17:50 local time (99 days, 6 h, 20 min). F. Pinterest. Here, Fiann Paul from the Ocean Rowing Society International remembers this most accomplished of adventurers. Aleksander Doba spent 110 days alone at sea. He was named 2014 Adventurer of the Year by National Geographic. Polish Kayaker Is Paddling Across the Atlantic for the Third Time 69-year-old Aleksander Doba left New York on Sunday in a kayak bound for Portugal. This time Dobas trip was far more successful, which is not to say it was pleasant. [13], On October 5, 2013, at age 67, he departed from Lisbon (Portugal) for a second transatlantic voyage, with the intention of paddling 5,400 miles across the Atlantic's widest point. He did not want to be saved, so he waved the Greeks off. Transatlantic passenger crossings became faster, safer, and more reliable with the advent of steamships in the 19th century. Then the devil gets to the Polish man. He tries the reasons he used on the German and French men, without success. Sketch in hand, Doba drove from Police to Szczecin, the regional capital, and approached a yacht-builder named Andrzej Arminski. Sean Dudley. They are falling, falling a catastrophe is about to happen. These animals can sniff it out. No retired man in Poland can afford to do these things, Doba explained. In 1989, he spent 108 days on the . Transatlantic crossings are passages of passengers and cargo across the Atlantic Ocean between Europe or Africa and the Americas. First, five bandits robbed me for three hours. You can sit and die. [20] In 2019 he participated in the Polish version of "The Mole" (Agent Gwiazdy), he was eliminated in the 3rd episode and came in 11th. Dobas electric desalinator broke, as it did before, and he had to spend several hours a day manually pumping seawater through an extremely fine filter to produce the five to nine liters of fresh water he needed to stay hydrated and prepare his freeze-dried food. Dobas response to Gabrielas concern about what hed do in a crisis, if the closest land was the bottom, was to say there will be no crisis. Photo: Wikipedia. Me, fine, he shouted in English, pointing to himself and giving the thumbs up. Nobody cares if you cross the Atlantic in a kayak. So, Gabriela told me, she laid out for her husband all the reasons trans-Atlantic kayaking was stupid. 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. It was like my wishes came true. I do not want to be a little gray man. This is a common expression in Poland and a good motto for us all. It was his 3rd crossing without a sail. My phone exploded with hysterical texts from home. Then shed leave. Original resource from explorersweb.comThe 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. A sea kayak or touring kayak is a kayak developed for the sport of paddling on open waters of lakes, bays, and the ocean. Those were very, very hard times for both of us. Doba did finally accept help two weeks later. She felt bad about it, she said, and she felt judged, but here we were, werent we? According to multiple Polish media reports . She knew I didnt like it.. Aleksander Doba Olo . It was accomplished in a 7-meter sea kayak and set a record for the longest open-water crossing ever undertaken by a kayaker, at roughly 99 days (the previous longest kayak crossing belonged to Peter Bray who traveled from Newfoundland to Ireland in 2001 and took over 76 days, relying on muscle-power only and no sail). He refused. Dobas apartment building is a five-story cube of blank concrete, with blank concrete stairwells. During the third rescue attempt he yelled a Polish vulgarity. Can we bring a species back from the brink?, Video Story, Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic Society, Copyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. When he was too far from shore to see any birds, Doba was surrounded instead by marine wildlife, from fish and dolphins to turtles, whales, and sharks. He kept no schedule. He ate freeze-dried chicken tikka masala and the occasional raw tiny flying fish that landed on his deck. When does spring start? He tried to drill holes in the rudder and attach the rudder to the stern with plastic ties. [3], Doba first tried kayaking at age 34 on a trip organised by the company he was working for. By choosing it, he casts himself in the role of hero, not victim. Then she sat me down at a nearby restaurant, ordered pierogies and borscht and told me a joke. For a while, once again, on this second expedition, all was smooth. He has no interest in dying in his bed. Aleksander Doba is a Polish traveler and explorer. In the early 1970s, Mr. Doba graduated from Poznan University of Technology, where he studied mechanical engineering. I was not in a great state. Home. The Polish . Your . Polish sea kayaker Aleksander Doba - known for making the transatlantic journey from Europe to North America aboard a kayak - passed away this week. And then, suddenly, the whale went down and disappeared into the ocean.. He then sat down on a rock and "just fell asleep".[19]. The whale swam here, and there, all around my kayak. The Greeks got the message and left. However, in Brazil, while running the Amazon in my kayak in 2011, I survived two bouts of rogues with firearms and machetes. One afternoon Doba parked his Mazda 5 minivan in the lot beside his apartment building, pointed to a nearby forest of Scots pines standing rigid and competing for light and said, amused, Sometimes we have the great adventure of going out there to drink a beer.. He was unaccustomed to wearing pants. Its good?. On the warmer part of the Atlantic Ocean, flying fish were a big, unexpected attraction. One of Earth's loneliest volcanoes holds an extraordinary secret. He talks about his amazing adventures with passion and energy. Once he got far enough out from the shore, he spent most of the trip naked, deciding it was more comfortable. 2013Aleksander Doba67. His feats made him a national hero in Poland. I wished him luck in reaching the summit, Mr. Wawrzyniak said in a phone interview. The Polish native had departed from Lisbon, Portugal, on October 5, 2013, with the intention of paddling 5,400 miles across the Atlantic's widest point and arriving in Florida in mid-February. 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. But she was charmed by his impish streak his stories of smuggling ski boots back from East Germany by walking across the border in them; the beard he grew over a summer holiday, so he could return to university and his mandatory military training as the only soldier in Poland with facial hair. 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. *The official fanpage of Aleksander Doba. Aleksander Doba crossed the Atlantic solo by the longest route, unaided and without a sail. He kayaked the coast of Norway to the Arctic Circle. In the spring of 2017, he began his third trans-Atlantic crossing the one that garnered the most media attention when he paddled out from New Jersey. The fabric smelled horrendous and aggravated his skin, so he abandoned clothes. He was still close to the New Jersey shore, so he landed at Barnegat Bay, ate a steak, slept at a hotel and continued on his way. Ninety-nine days after leaving Senegal, Doba arrived in Brazil. The Pole has announced that he will set off in May on what will be his third - and possibly toughest - Atlantic Crossing. Doba has a deep, almost performance-art-like sense of this. When the ship circled back to him again, Mr. Doba shouted a vulgarity in Polish, and they left for good. Once he was out past the Statue of Liberty, Doba turned on his GPS. Chmielinski had a hard time finding a ship captain on the island who was willing, in dangerous weather, to put Doba back out in the ocean near where hed gone off course. Aleksander Doba in 2016. But Doba insisted. We watched them in his living room together with Gabriela. My decision to continue didnt take longer than a few seconds.. In both cases, they held me at gunpoint with rifles, pistols, and machetes. Doba also called his wife, twice. Dobas father, a master at building and repairing things from scraps, made his son a bike. He took us on long trips, only him and us both, in the middle of nowhere, and we hated that, Bartek recalled. He grew up ice skating on ponds and skiing through forests. Someone had forgotten to fund the prepaid credit card that covered the bill. She threatened divorce. Meet the man who solo kayaked the Atlantic Ocean - three times. He knew that the kayak needed to be unsinkable, as well as self-righting, in the event that it capsized, and that it needed lockers to store food and a cabin in which to sleep. MARCH 22, 2018. He crossed the ocean three different times in one of these and spent several months completely alone. A mans world? The kayak would break into many pieces. So, wearing only his harness, Doba exited the cabin, crawled across the bucking deck with a spare sea anchor attached to a rope, tied the rope to his kayak and threw the anchor off the stern. But so what? I even do oceanic expeditions as a tourist. The 69-year old paddler who gained recognition as a Nat Geo Adventurer of the Year back in 2015 for his 7716 mile (12,417 km) crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, is getting ready to do it all over again.