Adventure paddler Aleksander Doba willed his 71-year-old body and 1,600-pound kayak through a 4,000-mile trans-Atlantic journey I was infected with a virus.. The key to surviving a serious storm, Doba says, was to keep his kayak oriented with the stern perpendicular to the waves, so that those waves hit the narrow end of the vessel, instead of broadsiding the boat and rolling it over. "It is with profound regret that we announce the death of the great kayaker Alesander Doba on February 22. Not according to biology or history. Scientists just confirmed a 30-foot void first detected inside the monument years ago. On February 22, Aleksander Doba made the last few strides to the top of Kilimanjaro, a pleased 74-year-old man, waving to fellow climbers with his envy-inducing muscular arms, a smile beaming from behind the curls of a wild beard. An expedition, he told me. He spent 40 unplanned days and nights wrestling with unfavorable winds and currents that sent him paddling in circles around the notorious Bermuda Triangle. Aleksander Doba is no stranger to long ocean crossings. 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. It was in 2010 that he started seriously planning to cross the Atlantic. All rights reserved, Aleskander Doba is our 2015 People's Choice Adventurer of the Year. That October, he paddled from Senegal to Brazil in 99 days. Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic SocietyCopyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. He woke up on shore to the sound of screaming his own. It was like my wishes came true. An ocean crossing is not something to undertake lightly. I came very close to the line of my possibility and human possibility. They are falling, falling a catastrophe is about to happen. The 70-year-old who kayaked the Atlantic - The Knowledge ' laughs intrepid kayaker Aleksander Doba. This is Gabis Pacific!, Later that afternoon, Bartek, the couples older son, stopped by the apartment with his two elementary-school-age daughters. The risk of kayaking the North Atlantic, Arminski believed, was irresponsibly, even amorally high. 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. [18], Doba died while climbing Kilimanjaro on February 22, 2021. Aleksander Doba: On both routes, I saw floating garbage close to the coasts of Africa and Europe. Dobas apartment building is a five-story cube of blank concrete, with blank concrete stairwells. Only one person had ever crossed the Atlantic in a kayak using solely muscle power, and he traveled island to island, from Newfoundland to Ireland. Aleksander Doba - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia After his salt-water-drenched clothes became too irritating, he navigated the rest of his trip buck naked. With a long grey beard, a big smile on the face and the looks of a pensioner on holiday, Aleksander Doba didn . 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. The groundbreaking promise of cellular housekeeping. [10], After resting there, he initially planned to paddle another 6,000 kilometers north along the shorelines of the Americas to Washington, D.C.[12] However, he eventually decided to transport his transatlantic kayak to Peru instead and embarked on a journey down the Amazon River but after being attacked and robbed twice in Brazil he had to quit. Doba declined the ropes the crew offered to throw him. (Doba doesnt speak much English, so we communicated through a translator.) Polish adventurer Aleksander "Olek" Doba paddles across the Atlantic by Kayak from Lisbon, Portugal to New Smyrna Beach in Florida:. He gives himself control. In 1989, he spent 108 days on the . Heres the technology that helped scientists find itand what it may have been used for. It's unique design is compromise between safety during extreme ocean challenge, and feeling that it should be close to spirit of kayaking. Yet, at least for me, the river was magic calm, mysterious and alive. Why wetlands are so critical for life on Earth, Rest in compost? Trans Atlantic kayak completed by Aleksander Doba. Then the devil says to the Frenchman, You must jump. The Frenchman says, What does this mean?. Aleksander Doba crossed the Atlantic solo by the longest route, unaided and without a sail. When he arrived in Brazil he weighed 64kg. I am Polish. Without the SPOT, nobody would be able to find the kayak if they needed to rescue him. His father built him a bicycle from scrap parts, and when he was 15 he rode it across the country. Me, fine, he shouted in English, pointing to himself and giving the thumbs up. 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. Still, Doba had no reason to plot a trip across the Atlantic . Go, Olek, Go! 67-Year-Old Transatlantic Kayaker 300 Miles - Adventure The kayak OLO was professionally designed and made in Andrzej Arminski shipyard located in Szczecin, Poland . The roughly 5,000-year-old human remains were found in graves from the Yamnaya culture, and the discovery may partially explain their rapid expansion throughout Europe. 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). [1] In 2017 he completed an eastward kayaking trip across the Atlantic. His fingernails and toenails just about peeled off. Doba was ready, Chmielinski suspected, to just drift off into the eternal vastness and go down with his ship. "It is with profound regret that we announce the death of the great . She did not want to spend her life stressed, waiting for his return. But Doba insisted. Even in seemingly reasonable conditions, rogue waves can cause havoc. An early escapade involved kayaking on the Baltic Sea at a time when the Communist Party, to discourage defectors, had declared it illegal. 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. A 70-Year-Old Man Is Crossing the Atlantic in a Kayak - Popular Mechanics Doba alerted Chmielinski, who alerted Gabriela who didnt really want to know anything about how the trip was going. Aleksander Doba dies on Kilimanjaro summit - Getaway Magazine No retired man in Poland can afford to do these things, Doba explained. GitHub export from English Wikipedia. Doba accepted his suggestion that he paddle to Bermuda for a repair. Doba maintains that his need to cross the Atlantic in a kayak did not originate within him. Aleksander doba. During his voyages he admired the majesty of the sea and relished wonders that he alone was privy to. The whale swam here, and there, all around my kayak. Log In Once logged in, you can add biography in the database. In mid-September 2013, Doba still did not possess all the gear he wanted to take on his trip. Polish adventurer Aleksander Doba dies at 74 - English Section [3], Doba first tried kayaking at age 34 on a trip organised by the company he was working for. Shoot, the devil says. June 09, 2016. Aleksander Doba in 2016. UPDATE: The votes are inmore than 521,000 of them, more than ever beforeand we have a winner. El polaco Aleksander Doba, que se convirti en la primera persona en cruzar el ocano Atlntico en kayak y en solitario a los 65 aos de edad, falleci el . 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. My decision to continue didnt take longer than a few seconds.. [2], Doba has also paddled in a kayak with others around the Baltic Sea (in 1999, 80 days, 4227km), from Police to Narvik (in 2000, 101 days, 5369km) and around Lake Baikal (in 2009, 41 days, 2000km). During the trip, he struggled against storms; his rudder was damaged and had to be repaired by sailors from a merchant vessel. Dobas maternal grandfather, a high-ranking officer in the czarist army, was poisoned in the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Gabrielas accommodations to Dobas lifestyle started in the late 1980s, when Doba became obsessed with kayaking and began insisting that Gabriela drop him and his kayak by the side of the road on the way to her mothers house for Christmas, and then pick up him and his kayak at a prearranged point on her way back home after a few days. As he braced for his life, the rope tethering his sea anchor (the only thing keeping his kayak stable) broke off. I am generally physically active, ride a bike, work in my garden, and enjoy walking.. Every three weeks there is a storm with waves that can capsize the kayak. But the inside of the apartment feels much better: shoes in the entrance hall; pencil marks of grandchildrens heights in the kitchen door jamb; atlases, kayaking trophies and snow globes of family photos in the living room. *Oficjalny fanpage Aleksandra Doby. Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Agence France-Presse Getty Images, Mr. Doba once said that his hunger to cross the Atlantic was not really his idea. He is a family man, whose positive attitude to life is contagious. When does spring start? Nonetheless, Gabriela was not prepared for Dobas first trans-Atlantic expedition. Doba being helped by the crew of Baltic Light in June 2017, when he had rudder problems during his North Atlantic crossing. So Doba moves toward the crisis, just as he moves toward the suffering. He died like an adventurer after . But two months into the voyage, almost dead center in the North Atlantic, Dobas satellite phone stopped working, rendering him unable to communicate for 47 days. 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. It looks good, it smells good, probably everybody likes it. Aleksander Doba (born September 9, 1946), Polish sportsperson | World He was a few days shy of his 71st birthday. 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. After a while, the boys began to mutiny. What he did not say, what was left hanging in the air, was that it would not be a big problem for him to go into the sea and die. Aleksander Doba in the Atlantic before arriving in Florida in April 2014. Gabriela did not believe he would. At 15, Doba rode around Poland by himself. For a while, once again, on this second expedition, all was smooth. The Polish . Anyone can read what you share. Then a woman who noticed me coughing approached with a little glass of thick red liquid that looked like cough syrup. In the early 1970s, Mr. Doba graduated from Poznan University of Technology, where he studied mechanical engineering. Near his house, he said, there was a pond, behind the pond was a forest, in the forest there were mushrooms and behind all that was a small airport with gliders and storks, which migrated there for the summer. Even here at home, Dobas physicality is sui generis. He has no interest in dying in his bed. With my hand on my heart, it wasnt my idea, Doba told me when I met him in Poland in January. One day, a colleague of Dobas said the factorys kayaking club was going on a two-week expedition. After he graduated from Poznan University of Technology, where he studied mechanical engineering, Doba met Gabriela Stucka, his future wife, on a backpacking trip. AD: When I was alone on the ocean I had no fear for my life. After 98 days, 23 hours, 42 minutes at sea, Doba and his . Those were very, very hard times for both of us. But this specific soup I dont like. That was a shock to his mother-in-law, he said, but a short one. Chmielinski and others came up with what Doba describes as exotic and expensive methods of rescue. 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. 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. He was greeted by one journalist and the Polish ambassador. [11] In 2017 he completed an eastward kayaking trip across . How did he justify it to himself? Chmielinski interpreted this communication blackout as a sign that Doba was deeply despairing, perhaps because he was alone again after being with the crew on Baltic Light, perhaps because, now that he had accepted help, he worried that he would not earn a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records for kayaking solo from continent to continent unsupported. Aleksander Doba. Trans Atlantic kayak completed by Aleksander Doba - Boat Design Net Kayaker Aleksander Doba Dies On Kilimanjaro - Bernews 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. Doba in Lisbon in October 2013, demonstrating how he would live aboard his kayak. The trip could have easily ended five days earlier, when Doba was just a few hundred feet off the British coast. Aleksander Doba (9 September 1946 - 22 February 2021) was a Polish kayaker and mountain climber. The two voyages were the longest open-water kayak voyages ever made. He died while climbing Kilimanjaro after reaching the mountain summit. Along with jars of his wifes plum jam, he subsisted on freeze-dried goulash and porridge, chocolate bars and homemade wine. Doba paddled naked. Will he cross the Atlantic again? Someone had forgotten to fund the prepaid credit card that covered the bill. Aleksander "Olek" Doba, a retired engineer from Poland, left Lisbon, Portugal, in his kayak on October 5, 2013. When people are young, sometimes they are very jealous, she said, and want to keep a piece of their partner for themselves. Doba drifted around for days eating freeze-dried goulash and chocolate bars. 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. Looking for Mars on Earth
This man rowed a fucking houseboat across an ocean, absolutely unreal. Doba did finally accept help two weeks later. 1,277 talking about this. If a breaking wave hit Olo with no sea anchor, Doba said, I knew I would roll over many times. He did it three times, setting records and becoming a national hero in Poland. Aleksander Doba, famous Polish traveler, died on 8th of February during his expedition to Kilimanjaro. The first time Polish kayaker Aleksander Doba tried to paddle across the Atlantic Ocean in 2007, he didn't get far. In 2010 and again in 2013 he kayaked across the Atlantic Ocean westward under his own power. Aleksander Doba spent 110 days alone at sea. Kayaking is an absurd form of long-distance ocean travel. Aleksander Doba Olo . Adventurer of 2015 ! His skin looks 71. During the third rescue attempt he yelled a Polish vulgarity. 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. Doba wasnt on a schedule. Doba returned to his cabin somewhat shocked to be alive. Transatlantic Kayak Crossing: Kayak - Blogger On the kayak. Aleksander Doba Wikipedia Republished // WIKI 2 Phone, bad. He gave the thumbs down. The two voyages were the longest open-water kayak voyages ever made. Me, fine, Mr. Doba shouted in English to the ships crew, giving a thumbs-up. A breaking wave can do whatever it wants to a kayak. There was no engineering Olo for this. Suffering tends to do more for the flagellant than it does for the flagellants loved ones. [15][16] He has also jumped 14 times with parachute, piloted gliders for a total of 250 hours, and practiced cycling. Then he sat down and fell asleep.. But still, I was so happy Id gotten away. Corley, Apr 21, 2014, in forum: All Things Boats & Boating. His first crossing was in 2011, from Senegal, West Africa, to Brazil, a 99-day journey. Alaksander Doba: Polish Adventurer And World - Christians for Truth 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. But I was my own little speck in the vast universe. MARCH 22, 2018. 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. For 110 days, Mr. Doba paddled eastward on his specially designed fiberglass kayak, Olo. He then reached Acara at 17:50 local time (99 days, 6 h, 20 min). Still, the trip was perfect. Kayak legend Aleksander Doba (74 years) Dies on Kilimanjaro Summit. Create Biography . He was named 2015 Adventurer of the Year by National Geographic. He crossed the ocean three different times in one of these and spent several months completely alone. I was infected with a virus. In 2003, when he was already the most seasoned kayaker in Poland, a Polish professor approached him to get advice on his quest to kayak across the Baltic Sea. On it, he has written the names of rivers he has paddled. A former chemical plant engineer who lived in a little river town, Mr. Doba had long been the most accomplished kayaker in his country. Doba tried to sleep during the day but couldnt, so he tried to paddle during the day and nearly got sunstroke. Kind, gracious, enthusiastic Poles kept bringing me shots of alcohol, which I tried to wave off. In photos from the ends of his trips, he looks ecstatic and feral, in the best possible sense, intrinsically wild and free. sport. Doba has a deep, almost performance-art-like sense of this. Aleksander Doba is a Polish traveler and explorer. 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 . National Geographic . I do not want to be a little gray man. This is a common expression in Poland and a good motto for us all. He is paddling for New Smyrna Beach, Florida, 4,700 nautical miles away. I was not in a great state. The Olo, Doba's 2010 kayak. Video Polish Kayaker Is Paddling Across the Atlantic for the Third Time Polish Grandpa Aleksander Doba Conquers Atlantic Again In Third Kayak He had slept only three hours the night before and had not even had time to double-check all his gear. She threatened divorce. Aleksander Doba decided to kayak across the Atlantic three times between the ages of 63 and 71 because he didn't want to be "a little gray man". The next time I visited, my mother-in-law did not prepare that soup. Better than sushi.). In addition to Czeslaw, Mr. Doba is survived by his wife; another son, Bartek; a sister, Wanda Kedzia; and three grandchildren. Four days later, after capsizing repeatedly, Doba finally cleared the Sandy Hook peninsula and left lower New York Bay. By ELIZABETH WEIL You can be made small by life or rage against it. Doba Gets Rudder Repair By Passing Ship on Atlantic Sea Kayak Crossing Old cells hang around as we age, doing damage to the body. Aleksander Doba on February 16, 2015 at the Belvedere Palace in Warsaw, Poland. His 12,417 kilometer journey began in Lisbon on October 5, 2013 and ended in Florida on April 17, 2014. Aleksander Doba - Traveler of the Year 2015 - Active and Eco F. The fact that Doba knows this is clear in his eyes. The trip was a fiasco. I was the one who would have to pay! he says. 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. 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. At the age of 70, Aleksander Doba became a legend with the kayak. A National Geographic team has made the first ascent of the remote Mount Michael, looking for a lava lake in the volcanos crater. I came very close to the line of my possibility and human possibility, he told The Times. His eyes blew up with conjunctivitis. However, in Brazil, while running the Amazon in my kayak in 2011, I survived two bouts of rogues with firearms and machetes. found: Ocean to piku, 2018: page 4 of cover (Aleksander Doba; in 2010 became first person in the world to cross the Atlantic Ocean by kayak) found : Wikipedia, viewed Oct. 25, 2019 (Aleksander Doba; born Sept. 9, 1946, in Swarzdz; Polish kayaker known for his ocean-crossing voyages; lives in Police near Szczecin, Poland) 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. AD: Before the first Transatlantic Kayak Expedition, my wife tried very hard to make me drop such an idea. Name already in use - github.com Polish Adventurer Dies Atop Kilimanjaro: Family Its good?. Aleksander Doba, a Polish adventurer who kayaked alone across the Atlantic at the age of 70 while subsisting on his wifes fortifying plum jam after having twice paddled solo across the Atlantic when he was in his 60s died on Feb. 22 on the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa. 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. 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). The 70-Year-Old Master Kayaker
Kayak legend Aleksander Doba (74 years) Dies on Kilimanjaro Summit At the time of this writing, real-time tracking indicates that Aleksander Doba is on or near the small French Island of Ushant on the south-western end of the English Channel. 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 . I was just paddling down the river, he explained. It was also the great luck caused by the determination of many enthusiastic people that the vessel ready to change her course and hurry to provide assistance to 70-years-young Aleksander Doba, who is on his Third Transatlantic Kayak Journey from New Jersey in the USA to Lisbon in Portugal. Sean Dudley. Aleksander Doba, 70, completed his transatlantic journey on Sunday after setting off on the epic quest from New Jersey in May. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Aleksander Doba, 'King of the Ocean,' Paddled Across the Atlantic In 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. Aleksander Doba, 68 years old is the first to complete the longest open-water kayaking expedition across the Atlantic. But this voyage was too dangerous, she told me, to keep her head where she liked it to be, stuck in the sand. The World's Greatest Hitchhiker
After more than three months of paddling, a Polish adventure junkie has crossed the Atlantic in a 23 foot custom kayak. He had always planned to go on three crossings: South, Mid- and North Atlantic. He slept no more than six hours a day in multiple installments, crammed into his cockpit on his side among five months' worth of food and equipment. You can sit and die. After the transition, as the Poles call their countrys change to a democratic government in the early 1990s, Dobas trips became more extreme. End of Aleksander Doba's third transatlantic kayak expedition MARCH 22, 2018. So the devil says to the German man: You must jump. Which travel companies promote harmful wildlife activities? 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. Doba was blown to the beach and called the trip off. Ninety-nine days after leaving Senegal, Doba arrived in Brazil. To go into the sea and die that would be a problem for my family and a problem for Andrzej Arminski, too, Doba acknowledged. Why This 70-Year-Old Kayaked Across the Atlantic for the Third Time What is wind chill, and how does it affect your body? 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 paddled and he paddled and he paddled and he paddled, a real katorga. 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. Once he was out past the Statue of Liberty, Doba turned on his GPS. Doba did not consent.