Big 5 Kayak Challenge

Tuesday, 14 July 2009

The Big 5 Kayak team is led by Richard Harpham is raising money for the Muscular Help Foundation and raising awareness for the River Access Campaign. There challenge is to expedition paddle in sea Kayak’s 1000 miles from Vancouver to Alaska in 30 days. The Big 5 Team continued their journey from Port Hardy 9am Monday 15th June. The expedition has been action packed with many incidents along the way. Weather conditions have testing leaving the kayakers battling against strong winds, choppy conditions and poor visibility. Camping wild along the route has been demanding with all the rain that has fallen. A typical campsite could be anything from a small granite ledge, clearing in the forest or a piece of rocky beach.  There have been various occasions that tents have been flooded during the night resorting in team members sleeping in the Kayaks.  The team has suffered various ailments along the way including blistered hands, tendon strains and abrasion rashes. The Big 5 Kayak team have passed through various locations during the challenge and have just set off from Prince Rupert harbor and are heading North to Alaska.  High winds of up to 30 knots are expected over the next few days, which will make for some rough sea conditions.  Wildlife sightings so far include a whale that popped up right next to Geoff’s kayak.  It gave him quite a fright, especially as Geoff was paddling right next to the rocky cliff face, nobody had expected a whale to pop up so close to the coast line.  Numerous seals, a pod of orcas, family of sea otters and a black bear, dolphins and hundreds of sea birds have been spotted.   You can follow the teams progress via the live SPOT GPS tracker on http://www.spotadventures.com/user/profile?user_id=43684 To sponsor the team and find out more about this and our previous challenges, visit www.big5kayakchallenge.com Bookmark this item