The New York Times has a nice write-up (front page as of today) of the 1500-mile sea kayak trip Erik Boomer and 60-something year old Jon Turk did this year around Ellesmere Island in the Arctic.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/sports/arctic-adventure-a-1500-mile-trip-by-sea-kayak.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/sports/arctic-adventure-a-1500-mile-trip-by-sea-kayak.html

(Aagh - I'm turning into D4 - "how do you embed the video?" :)  Just kidding - no video.

Pretty impressive, a big part of the trip was across land pulling stuff, they hardly knew each other before they started and Erik had only been in a sea kayak once before.  Jon Turk has six grandkids and figured it was now or never.

Thanks for sharing the link, Irene!

I find people like Boomer and Turk so inspirational! Makes me realize that I am capable of doing anything I dream of; if it's important enough to me I will make it happen. Just like Boomer and Turk, or those two Australian kids who kayaked across the Tasman sea...

Well, to keep things in perspective it does sound a lot more weighted towards being an enurance suffer-fest more than "fun".

I could think of many less arduous goals to achieve from the cockpit of a kayak that, while perhaps not as impressive or newsworthy, would yeild much more in the way of personal reward.

But yeah, Boomer is a whole other beast entirely. So, his goals and motivations are often gonna be harder to understand. Sounds miserable to me. A "Shackletonian" kayak expedition, if you will.