By Vladimir Brezina
Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge this week is Statues.
I note the plural: Statues. So, here in one photo are hundreds of statues (click on the photo to see them more clearly), each helping to safeguard the city, on this day against surf of an unprecedented size—
San Juan, Puerto Rico, March 2008.
Posted in Photography, Travel
Tagged Cemetery, Photography, postaweek, postaweek2014, Puerto Rico, Statue, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge
By Vladimir Brezina
This week’s Photo Challenge is Street Life.
My first response was busy. This one is all leisure—
Cromer, Norfolk, England.
Posted in Photography, Travel
Tagged England, Norfolk, Photography, postaweek, postaweek2014, Seaside, Street Life, Weekly Photo Challenge
By Vladimir Brezina
This week’s Photo Challenge is Street Life.
New York City: Descending into the subway—
Another, more leisurely response is here.
Posted in New York City, Photography
Tagged Dusk, Manhattan, New York City, Photography, postaweek, postaweek2014, Street Life, Subway, Weekly Photo Challenge
By Johna Till Johnson
Photos by Vladimir Brezina
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Our preparation for the WaterTribe Everglades Challenge actually started more than a year before the event itself—in January 2013, when we decided that this time for sure, we were going to participate in EC 2014.
But it kicked up considerably following our Everglades Shakedown trip in December 2013. After that trip, we put together a detailed timeline covering everything from gym training to logistics to food and gear purchases—and more or less stuck to it. As we’ll detail later in “Reflections: What Worked, What Didn’t,” I started a serious lifting and high intensity workout routine in January, and tapered down in the weeks approaching the EC. And we found that dropping alcohol and coffee in the weeks before the EC—along with getting plenty of sleep—made a difference in our stamina and responses to hypothermia.
Meanwhile, we made lists and checked them off… purchased equipment… made hotel and plane reservations… got our SPOTs and PLBs, registered, and tested them… And of course, did training paddles when we could, though the Polar Vortex kept us from doing more than two moderately long trips in NYC.
But Murphy’s Law has a way of stepping in, and due to some work challenges I was concerned that at the last minute, I might need to cancel, despite all the planning. It wasn’t until the Friday, a week before the event, that we were sure we could make it.
By Vladimir Brezina
Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge this week is Pink.
There’s one week in the year, coming up soon, when NYC’s parks are awash in pink. And looking further ahead, here’s another classic NYC event in which pink is surely the ruling color—
It’s the Coney Island Mermaid Parade! The story and photos from last year are here.
You can bet we’ll do our best to be there again this year! This year on Saturday, June 21st, at 1 PM.
Posted in New York City, Photography
Tagged Brooklyn, Coney Island, Mermaid Parade, New York City, Parade, Photography, Pink, postaweek, postaweek2014, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge
By Vladimir Brezina
This week’s Photo Challenge is Reflections. Perfect! As a photographer, I am irresistibly drawn to reflections of all kinds…
Two-fold reflection—
Endless reflection—
Deep reflection—
Distorted reflection—
Glassy reflection—
Posted in Photography
Tagged Photography, postaweek, postaweek2014, Reflections, Weekly Photo Challenge
By Vladimir Brezina
Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge this week is Pink.
In NYC’s Central Park not so long ago, pink was an artificial color.
But very soon now, it will grow on every tree—
These photos were taken in April 2013. Hopefully, a preview of coming attractions!
Another classic NYC event, later on in June, at which pink is surely the ruling color is here.
Posted in Nature, New York City, Photography
Tagged Central Park, New York City, Photography, Pink, postaweek, postaweek2014, Snow, Spring, Spring Blossoms, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge
By Vladimir Brezina
The Spring Equinox occurs today.
This year, Spring has been a long time in coming. In NYC, the weather is still very chilly. But there are signs that Winter is now, finally, perhaps, on its way out…
So, Happy Spring! (Or, to our readers in the Southern Hemisphere, Happy Autumn!)
By Johna Till Johnson
← Previous in Everglades ChallengeNext in Everglades Challenge →
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You can’t make a trip like the Everglades Challenge without relying heavily on your gear. And the quality of that gear varies. Some poorly-designed products break reliably. We haven’t yet found a “waterproof” headlamp that actually lives up to its name, for instance. And we’ve been through almost half a dozen in the past year. (So we make sure to carry plenty of backups.)
There are also those products that perform as they’re supposed to, day in day out. (Everything Kokatat makes comes to mind.) You rely on these products to do their jobs, and never think further about them.
But there are also are a handful of products that either perform infinitely better than you expect, or fill a need you didn’t realize you had.
For these products, you whisper a silent “thank you” to the manufacturers every time you use them. I’m an engineer, so I never lose sight of the fact that when there’s a product I love, it was conceived, designed, and tested by other engineers. And for the products below, I am devoutly grateful to the humans who created them.
By Johna Till Johnson
Photos by Vladimir Brezina
Next in Everglades Challenge →
Start: Tampa Bay.
Finish: Key Largo.
Distance: 262 nautical miles (301 land miles).
Total time: 7 days, 14½ hours.
Our route
“Kayaking in Florida? That sounds like a lovely relaxing vacation!”
That was the common reaction when we told folks we were planning to participate in the WaterTribe Everglades Challenge, a 300-mile adventure race from Tampa Bay to Key Largo. When you think about paddling in Florida, you probably imagine sunny skies, gentle breezes, and turquoise waves lapping softly against white sandy beaches.
And true, some parts were like that.
Then there were the other parts:
—Paddling down the Gulf of Mexico in pitch-darkness, with a fantastically realistic hallucination of an old English forest on your right. Every so often you glance into the grey, ghostly “trees” and see lights twinkling among them. Then you look down… and your headlamp illuminates a pair of sharks silently crisscrossing under your boat. You realize with a jolt of fear that they are no hallucination!
—Getting both boats stuck at low tide in the tangled mangrove roots in the deceptively-named “Broad Creek”. (If this was the broad creek, we don’t want to know what the narrow one is like!) You spend a few minutes wondering if you’ll have to wait hours until the tide rises. Then with a final maneuver you’re able to break free…
—Being hammered by a massive thunderstorm as you paddle toward a chickee to perform boat repairs…
—Surfing 3-foot breaking waves in Oyster Bay in the 20-knot tailwinds after a storm while navigating by starlight and GPS and struggling to stay awake after a total of only 16 hours of sleep over the past four days…
—Tumbling into the sand, pillowing your head on your PFD and pulling your hat over your face to grab an hour or two of sleep on the beach as you wait for the current to change…
Lovely? For sure. Relaxing? Not so much. Exhausting, exhilarating, challenging… yes, all those.
In this writeup, we divide the 8 days it took us to get from from Tampa Bay to Key Largo into 6 segments, because we usually paddled late into the night, or overnight, before we finally stopped to get a few hours’ sleep. Each “day” stretched to 30 hours, 36 hours, or longer…
The trip roughly divides into “before front” (Segments 1-4) and “after front” (Segments 5 and 6). Before a strong weather front blew in, wind and sea conditions were (largely) not an issue. We took the most direct route and paddled as quickly and consistently as possible. Our primary challenges were sleep deprivation, dealing with the extremes of heat and cold, and night navigation—tough enough, but something we quickly learned to handle.
Once the front began to affect us, wind and sea conditions dictated our route. To avoid, or at least minimize the impact of, the conditions, we took a longer round-about route and so slowed down considerably in our progress toward the finish. Cumulative sleep deprivation was also now taking a major toll. “After front” was definitely the most challenging, but also the most gratifying.
Here are the links to each segment of the race, as well as a few other relevant topics:
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The Days Before: Preparation and Gear Check
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Segment 1: Fort De Soto to Cape Haze
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Segment 2: Cape Haze to Magic Key
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Segment 3: Magic Key to Indian Key
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Segment 4: Indian Key to Highland Beach
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Segment 5: Highland Beach to Flamingo
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Segment 6: Flamingo to Key Largo
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Reflections: What Worked, What Didn’t
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A few photos from the entire race were here.
Posted in Kayaking
Tagged Everglades, Everglades Challenge, Florida Kayaking, Kayak Expeditions, Kayak Race, Kayaking Dangers, Sea Kayaking, WaterTribe
... kayaked the waters around New York for more than 15 years in his red Feathercraft folding kayak. He was originally from (the former) Czechoslovakia and lived in the U.K. and California before settling down in New York. He was a neuroscientist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. He died in 2016.
... is a kayaker and technology researcher at Nemertes Research. She's an erstwhile engineer, particle physicist, and science fiction writer. She was born in California and has lived in Italy, Norway, Hawaii, and a few other places. She currently resides in New York City.
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Wind Against Current 