Since Colin Mortlock suggested in 1975 the idea of a kayak expedition along the Arctic fjords to Nordkapp, for eleven years first circumnavigations, open crossings and expeditions followed one after another. In these few years, the North Sea, the Bass Strait, Cape Horn, and the Pacific from Monterey to Hawaii were crossed, Iceland, New Zealand, Great Britain, Australia, the four main Japanese Islands, and Tasmania circumnavigated, and the coastline of Alaska, together with vast stretches of Greenland, explored in sea kayaks.
The common notes in these expeditions were both the development of the modern expedition kayak, and the hazards confronted in attempting by the first time such staggering feats of seamanship in so an adverse environment, in the smallest of crafts. Often this meant that the expeditions turned into feats of endurance, that tested its members fed by the meagre supplies carried in their boats, to physical and mental limits, and sometimes beyond.  read more »