On Sunday, January 18, Freya Hoffmeister was awake and logged into her laptop by 5 a.m. For the few minutes that we talked on Skype—a computer-based video telephone service—she was an impressionistic lo-res blur on my computer screen, her face half hidden by a mane of hair as black as carbon fiber. We talked a bit before she had to get up and get going. I wished her well and logged off. After the call she had breakfast, put her hair up and headed out to paddle around a continent.
It’s easy to wonder why someone would devote a year to leave home and family behind to paddle 10,000 miles of unprotected ocean coast, “but it is in the nature of man to better his own achievement,” wrote trans-Atlantic kayaker Hannes Lindemann. “It is normal and healthy to strive continually for new records. Each newly established record, after all, makes a positive contribution by setting the limits of human achievement. In all of us there is an impulse—though it may be deeply hidden—to leave behind us our ordinary lives and go beyond the morning to seek our fortunes. This urge is usually thwarted in our time by the restricting responsibilities of family or society. Yet some continue to… explore the distances of the sea, dreaming of other coasts.”
In the years after Paul Caffyn’s circumnavigation of Australia, a few paddlers have dreamed of duplicating his feat—seven that Paul can confirm, and there are reports of five more. None of the attempts ended in disaster or rescue. Paddlers just decided to call an end to the effort.
Lindemann believed there was a way to keep a dream alive in the face of adversity: “Of major importance in my preparation was the need to create within myself the assurance of success. I had to rid myself of all traces of fear and self-doubt, so for three months I concentrated on the phrases: ‘I shall succeed’ and ‘I shall make it.’ At the end of the three months, my whole being was permeated by a strong conviction that I would succeed; that, no matter what happened, I would survive my trip. It was only then that I decided definitely to carry through my plan. The last weeks before the departure I fell into a mood of complete self-confidence. I had a feeling of cosmic security and protection and the certainty that my voyage would succeed.”
Freya has had her own version of Lindemann’s technique. She surrounds herself with “Rosie the Riveter” memorabilia. “Rosie” posters appeared during World War II with the image of a woman, hair in a bandana, her sleeve rolled up and bicep flexed. Above her was the proclamation, “We can do it!” Freya leaves little room in her thoughts for doubt. A week into her trip she was already visualizing its successful conclusion.
As we take this article to press, Freya has covered 170 nautical miles (316 kilometers) and has had two days where her distance for the day was 40 nautical miles (65 kilometers). I spoke to her by cell phone while she was forced off the water and windbound on Woodside Beach, Victoria.
What’s all the noise? Is it windy there?
Yes, I came down the beach because I wanted to get away from all of the flies. I put my tent back in the woods because it would have been blown off the beach. It’s blowing 20 to 30 knots and it’s quite rough out on the water. I can’t get away from the stinky smell of the seals on the beach just 100 meters away. My kayak is slowly getting buried in the sand in a little sand dune that’s piling up on it. It’s really blowing.
How many hours a day are you paddling?
Oh, between 10-and-a-half hours and 13, with one half day and today only one hour.
How have the paddling conditions been?
Mixed. From headwinds to following winds, from flat to roughish. Big swell on the first day, but then the swell was gone and there was only wind.
How do you pass the time on the water? If you’re out for 10 hours, what do you think about?
What am I thinking all day? For sure, quite a bit. How conditions are going to be, what I’m going to eat next, where the next landing is going to be, who’s the next contact, how I can get to the post office without spending half a day at it. Stuff like that. Logistics basically. I’m actually already thinking about how I’m going to sleep on the big crossing [of the Gulf of Carpenteria], so I’m thinking quite far ahead. I’m visualizing my final arrival already and stuff like that. So there’s a lot to think about. I’ve had a problem paddling with closed eyes right now because I’m having trouble steering. If I can’t paddle with closed eyes it’s horrible. It doesn’t relax me.
How has the camping been?
You want to have a bug-free zone at night, otherwise you get crazy. On that half day two days ago I was sitting there [in the tent] sweating like hell because I didn’t want to get eaten up by the bugs. I’m still kind of scared about the critters in the Australian bush. I saw a 1-cm-long scorpion crawling in the sand, and I didn’t want him on me. A tiny one but it was there. In New Zealand it was really easy. You could go in the bush and not be worried about anything. But here there are spiders and snakes and scorpions and…I even saw a huge parrot at night beside my camp that I really wasn’t sure wasn’t going to peck on my equipment outside. There are so many things here in the bush that I’m not 100% sure about. In the next section there are ticks as well. There are all these critters that I have to get used to and that’s why I want a closed, zipped-up tent. I need some space in it to spread out my office and my kitchen.
I’ve got so many emails to write. I’m not getting much time to write at all. At night you’re just so bloody tired from paddling the whole day. When you’re 12 or 13 hours on the water, you can imagine. Then you get the tent up, cook, check the schedule, the weather, the maps.
It would be nice to put up the tent, eat and relax, but then I have to think about blog updating, emailing, satellite messages. It’s really quite a bit. It’s very different to Paul’s [Caffyn] trip 27 years ago. At some point I’ll write a comparison. No doubt it must have been nice to travel in an empty boat [Caffyn had a support crew on land] and have dinner cooked and camp set up and not have to worry about any communication problems. But it will all settle down when everything is working. My Australian email is working. I can get on the web when I have cell phone reception. It’s getting much easier.
One of our readers questioned how safe it is to do a long expedition to set a record.
Well, I’m challenging myself by pushing myself to the limit, no doubt about it, and I’m out on some days when other people would have gone in already because I just enjoy it. Two days ago when I paddled one hour against that bloody headwind, everybody else would have cancelled, everybody. And I really enjoyed that. It was kind of painful to go against an offshore wind but I was able to get to shore and get where I wanted to go. It was fun.
You haven’t asked me how my body is keeping up.
Oh, OK, how is your body keeping up?
Well I was bloody tired the first days on the water and taking frequent power naps, just relaxing by lying there doing nothing for minutes almost. That’s why I was taking quite long hours for not much distance. But all my joints and tendons are very good, nothing aching, just the muscles. They were achy as hell because I did long hours that first day. I should have done a couple of hours and then given up for the day, but that’s no way for me. I was amazed that I got blisters. Five or six. I usually don’t get any, but in these conditions I’m pushing myself that hard on the first days. But that’s all right. They don’t hurt when I’m on the water, but at night they do.
Do you think you’ll be able to keep pushing this hard?