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In 2010 and again in 2013 he kayaked across the Atlantic Ocean westward under his own power. He slept in a tiny coffin-shaped cabin that he entered by sliding through a portal, and when flying fish landed on his deck he snacked on them alive. Sean Dudley. This is an order. And the German man jumps. With a long grey beard, a big smile on the face and the looks of a pensioner on holiday, Aleksander Doba didn . Doba in Lisbon in October 2013, demonstrating how he would live aboard his kayak. The two voyages were the longest open-water kayak voyages ever made. So I thought: Well, he might not come back.. Doba maintains that his need to cross the Atlantic in a kayak did not originate within him. National Geographic . He tried to drill holes in the rudder and attach the rudder to the stern with plastic ties. When the ship circled back to him again, Mr. Doba shouted a vulgarity in Polish, and they left for good. He died like an adventurer after . Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of The New York Times Magazine delivered to your inbox every week. He spent 40 unplanned days and nights wrestling with unfavorable winds and currents that sent him paddling in circles around the notorious Bermuda Triangle. He is a family man, whose positive attitude to life is contagious. The majority of He did explain to her how to boil water, which to this day she finds ridiculous. In 1989, he surpassed the record for the most days paddled by a Polish man in a single year. 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. His feats made him a national hero in Poland. Id never seen him like that. 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. Those were very, very hard times for both of us. Then there is [the] satisfaction of great achievements.. 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. 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. ) so that she could compare it with the condition of her children upon their return. Doba declined the ropes the crew offered to throw him. He also snacked on dried fruit and his wifes plum jam, but he ran out of that halfway across the ocean. His skin looks 71. Hed been at sea 110 days, alone, having last touched land that May at New Jerseys Barnegat Bay. There were spiders. All rights reserved, Aleskander Doba is our 2015 People's Choice Adventurer of the Year. Trans Atlantic kayak completed by Aleksander Doba. Still unflappable, Doba, who had never cared for the wings to begin with, removed the remainder of the broken pieces and the navigation light attached to them and used an empty plastic jug and duct tape to reattach the lights to the body of the kayak before waving the sloop away for the final 700 miles of his journey. According to multiple Polish media reports . Touch device users, explore by touch or . 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 . Can we bring a species back from the brink?, Video Story, Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic Society, Copyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. 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. This man rowed a fucking houseboat across an ocean, absolutely unreal. Doba did not consent. 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. A storm had damaged his rudder. The two voyages were the longest open-water kayak voyages ever made. On April 19, 2014, Doba, who is now 68, paddled the final stroke of his 7,716-mile transatlantic journey, docking OLO, his 23-foot kayak, in a marina in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. In mid-September 2013, Doba still did not possess all the gear he wanted to take on his trip. With my hand on my heart, it wasnt my idea, Mr. Doba told The New York Times Magazine in 2018. Aleksander Doba died as he lived, in pursuit of adventure, passing away on the very summit of Mount Kilimanjaro at the age of 74. But Doba insisted. 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. If I survive., One unseasonably balmy January morning, Doba, dressed in baggy Gore-Tex pants and rain boots, handed me a blue plastic paddle, waved me into the front of a red double kayak, took out his hearing aids and declared, happily, shoving us off, Now I am in the silent zone. We had gone to a river-veined lowland of central Poland for the 53rd annual International Winter Kayaking Congregation, an event that sounds grand but was really just 60 Polish people, at or past middle age, spending a weekend in January together kayaking, drinking and hanging out at a lodge. I am Polish. I sense some . Reviews, News & Stories Paddling Buyer's Guide Paddling Trip Guide. "I realized almost immediately that an ordinary kayak can't handle the open . *Oficjalny fanpage Aleksandra Doby. Aleksander Doba, a 74-year-old retired engineer with a thick white beard and a piercing gaze, was a popular figure in Poland. He was famous for his long voyages crossing oceans and seas. In 2010 and again in 2013 he kayaked across the Atlantic Ocean. Doba and his wife, Gabriela, at home in Police. "It is with profound regret that we announce the death of the great kayaker Alesander Doba on February 22. Then he paddled to the French shore. The fabric smelled horrendous and aggravated his skin, so he abandoned clothes. Doba was blown to the beach and called the trip off. Polish adventurer Aleksander "Olek" Doba paddles across the Atlantic by Kayak from Lisbon, Portugal to New Smyrna Beach in Florida:. He is one of two people in the world to kayak across the Atlantic without a sail. The Pole has announced that he will set off in May on what will be his third - and possibly toughest - Atlantic Crossing. Id been feeling buried, by stuff exactly as predictable as youd imagine for a working mother of two kids. "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. I came very close to the line of my possibility and human possibility. He was assaulted by hailstorms of flying fish. The trip could have easily ended five days earlier, when Doba was just a few hundred feet off the British coast. AD: Before the first Transatlantic Kayak Expedition, my wife tried very hard to make me drop such an idea. Photo: Wikipedia. Doba's wizened but muscular frame and ancient, friendly face became familiar not just to the adventure world but to mainstream audiences when he kayaked across the Atlantic in . Polish adventurer and kayaker Aleksander Doba crossed the Atlantic by kayak a few days before turning 71 years old. My decision to continue didnt take longer than a few seconds.. As a young man in Communist Poland, he had joined a local kayaking club, and he took to the sport avidly. A mans world? When does spring start? Even with a sleek kayak I get exhausted on 20K paddles. 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. Dobas maternal grandfather, a high-ranking officer in the czarist army, was poisoned in the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. [2] Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic SocietyCopyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. But after she got the bill for $500, she says, the desire to talk decreased. It was like my wishes came true. People ask me how old I am, and I say, I am not old! These involved such things as catamarans sailing in from the Bahamas and helicopters dropping rudder-repair gift packages out of the sky. His eyes blew up with conjunctivitis. I hope they will learn not to be afraid to dream, turn dreams into plans, and bring plans to reality. On April 19, 2014, Doba, who is now 68, paddled the final stroke of his 7,716-mile transatlantic journey, docking OLO, his 23-foot kayak, in a marina in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. In 1989, he spent 108 days on the . I wished him luck in reaching the summit, Mr. Wawrzyniak said in a phone interview. I dont like it at all. Transatlantic passenger crossings became faster, safer, and more reliable with the advent of steamships in the 19th century. For 110 days, Mr. Doba paddled eastward on his specially designed fiberglass kayak, Olo. He has no interest in dying in his bed. On the island, after 143 days at sea, Doba could hardly walk, and by the time he was ready to return to the Atlantic, it was late March, and the weather was turning bad. sport. By ELIZABETH WEIL They are falling, falling a catastrophe is about to happen. 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. Today. It felt good. The adventurous Pole always had a thirst for what he called katorga (hard labour), says Elizabeth Weil on The Daily. Its good?. He tried to fix it and failed. The risk of kayaking the North Atlantic, Arminski believed, was irresponsibly, even amorally high. He designed an unsinkable kayak that contained food lockers and a cabin to sleep in. Me, fine, he shouted in English, pointing to himself and giving the thumbs up. 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. Dobas father, a master at building and repairing things from scraps, made his son a bike. 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. Her department grew to 100 people from five. Doba does not regret this experience. So the devil says to the German man: You must jump. During the worst of it, the rope on his sea anchor broke. He was at sea for 110 consecutive days. First, five bandits robbed me for three hours. After taking in the view, he sat on a rock to rest. But Mr. Doba hungered to cross an ocean so vast that it seemed infinite, and he began plotting to kayak the Atlantic. Its 20-meter-long tail was wagging. Then the devil gets to the Polish man. He tries the reasons he used on the German and French men, without success. 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. A crisis, in Dobas worldview, is an opportunity for triumph. During a storm, the water below the oceans surface stays relatively still; what moves radically are the waves. Absolutely no. Log In Once logged in, you can add biography in the database. 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. The first time Polish kayaker Aleksander Doba tried to paddle across the Atlantic Ocean in 2007, he didn't get far. The air that day hovered around 40 degrees about 4 degrees Celsius. He gives himself control. Dec 20, 2019 - Polish adventurer and kayaker Aleksander Doba crossed the Atlantic by kayak a few days before turning 71 years old. The idea was to do the crossing unsupported. 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. 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. Doba has a deep, almost performance-art-like sense of this. On Sunday, May 7 2017, Alexander "Olek" Doba, took off from Sandy Hook Bay in New York City in his well-known kayak "OLO". It started with a small diatribe on the tyranny of politeness that dictates a houseguest must always say he likes everything his host serves him and the problem that results: Youre fed food you dont like again and again. Chmielinski and others came up with what Doba describes as exotic and expensive methods of rescue. Dozens of sharks checked on me, but one was ready to attack me, and I had to whack his head with the paddle really hard to make him leave, Doba remembers. 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? Then the devil says to the Frenchman, You must jump. The Frenchman says, What does this mean?. When autocomplete results are available use up and down arrows to review and enter to select. In truth, my own trip had not been as peaceful as Id hoped. It should be noted that he accomplished it using only weekends and normal, 26-day leave. He drank five cups a day of instant coffee. I am generally physically active, ride a bike, work in my garden, and enjoy walking.. After another storm, Olos rudder was seriously damaged, so he reluctantly contacted his team via satellite phone seeking help. A normal person wants to sit by the fire with their family for Christmas, his son added. He woke up on shore to the sound of screaming his own. 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. Then he sat down and fell asleep.. He was unaccustomed to wearing pants. Then I asked the local guides with him, Do you know who this man is? And they said: Yes. F. His hair and beard appear to be taken from a Michelangelo painting of God. Three years later in 2013 he crossed the . He had been taking long trips for decades, but he always slept on land. How many capsizes can you survive?. Eventually they found him a ride, and Doba paddled away during a storm. At the start of that trip, she weighed 700 kilograms, and she carried (among other things) two carbon-fiber paddles, five spray skirts to cover Dobas body while he paddled, two pairs of kayaking gloves, three pairs of sunglasses, two pairs of reading glasses, 10 boxes of waterproof matches, two big butchers knives, one electric desalinator, two manual desalinators, three floating smoke signals, nine red flares, a cooking stove and propane canisters, two flashlights, two headlamps, an iPad, a GoPro camera, 320 lithium batteries (for Olos satellite signaling devices), mineral supplements, a sewing kit, 175 chocolate bars, three toothbrushes, seven bottles of sunscreen, three liters of homemade wine, a pumice stone for the calluses on his hands, two pairs of sandals and an emergency fishing kit. Boat Design Net does not necessarily endorse nor share the view of each individual post. 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. This was not Dobas first transatlantic crossing in OLO. But the community raised money for him, and on Oct. 3, 2013, off he went. Aleksander Doba (9 September 1946 22 February 2021) was a Polish kayaker known primarily for his long voyages crossing oceans. Among Dobas bigger regrets in life are the times when he has succumbed, when he has perceived and reacted to suffering in conventional ways for instance, the night in April 1989 when he built a fire in order to make tea and dry his clothes while paddling on the Vistula River near the city of Plock, in central Poland. A breaking wave can do whatever it wants to a kayak. There was no engineering Olo for this. The biggest piece of junk floating in the water was a shattered, plastic 200-liter trash barrel. Previous Story: 8.31.17. 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. Dobas apartment building is a five-story cube of blank concrete, with blank concrete stairwells. Aleksander Doba, honorary citizen of the city, is dead", "Why He Kayaked Across the Atlantic at 70 (for the Third Time)", "Aleksander Doba tym razem wituje z rodzin", "Aleksander Doba, Adventurers of the Year 2014/2015 - National Geographic", "Arsoba Travel:: sztuka podrowania - Kajakiem DOOKOA BAJKAU w pojedynk:: lato 2009", "Aleksander Doba - Samotnie Kajakiem Przez Atlantyk", "Wspomnienie Aleksandra Doby. Anyone can read what you share. She knew I didnt like it.. Heres why each season begins twice. 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 took us on long trips, only him and us both, in the middle of nowhere, and we hated that, Bartek recalled. But this trip felt different. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. [4] He quickly started going on kayaking expeditions regularly. He was greeted by one journalist and the Polish ambassador. Aleksander Doba kayaked the Atlantic EN: I drove from Brussels to Le Conquet (Brest) in France to greet Polish adventurer Alex Doba who finished his 3rd kayak transatlantic in exactly 110 days (16 May - 3 Sept). 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! Raspberry vodka! And a tourist does not prepare himself too much. Aleksander Doba appears to be one such individual. It was raining. He kept chasing adventure. He wasnt a man who necessarily looked forward to spending Christmas with the family, his son Czeslaw said. Create Biography . It was his 3rd crossing without a sail. Event producers asked him to just walk onstage and say, in English, Thank you very much. Doba, who wore jeans to the June ceremony, walked onstage and said, Polacy nie gesi i swoj jezyk maja. Polish people are not geese and have their own language. Doba had only wanted his phone repaired. 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. But this specific soup I dont like. That was a shock to his mother-in-law, he said, but a short one. 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 . . Olo is 300 kilograms empty. The most serious trouble came for Doba when he hit a storm that lasted two days. The 70-Year-Old Master Kayaker (Photo: Iwona) A 12,417 kilometer journey between Lisbon and Florida. All the big muscles in the body are useless. But. NYTimes.com no longer supports Internet Explorer 9 or earlier. Transatlantic crossings are passages of passengers and cargo across the Atlantic Ocean between Europe or Africa and the Americas. Doba alerted Chmielinski, who alerted Gabriela who didnt really want to know anything about how the trip was going. The huge group of his supporters keeps growing . (Leaving shore is one of the trickiest parts of a trans-Atlantic journey.) . Once he was out past the Statue of Liberty, Doba turned on his GPS. 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. Sometimes he took his young sons, Bartek and Czesiek, born in 1979 and 1982. One of the last people to see Mr. Doba alive was a Polish climber named Boguslaw Wawrzyniak, who was also summiting Kilimanjaro that day. Realizing that Olo might momentarily shatter into pieces, he strapped on a harness and scrambled across the deck to tie on a new anchor before crawling back to his nook. Replies: 5 Views: 2,045. . Doba started talking about his second trans-Atlantic trip a few days after he returned from the first. 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 .