To go into the sea and die that would be a problem for my family and a problem for Andrzej Arminski, too, Doba acknowledged. In truth, my own trip had not been as peaceful as Id hoped. He explored countless Polish rivers, and he amassed records and firsts. Even here at home, Dobas physicality is sui generis. "It is with profound regret that we announce the death of the great . He preferred to be dropped off on a cold river in the middle of the snow.. AD: I'm not going to repeat paddling the Atlantic Ocean, but paddling something else maybe. Aleksander Doba died at Kilimanjaro | by Polish Herald in the UK - Medium When Mr. Doba encountered border patrol soldiers, they told him that he was in serious breach of the law. Trans Atlantic kayak completed by Aleksander Doba. The World's Greatest Hitchhiker A Polish adventurer who crossed the Atlantic three times by kayak unaided has died climbing Kilimanjaro, his family said on Tuesday. I dont know how I ended up here. The soldiers told Doba he had broken so many laws that they didnt know how to charge him. 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. His first crossing was in 2011, from Senegal, West Africa, to Brazil, a 99-day journey. The weather was disgusting humid and hot. On the kayak. For Aleksander Doba, pitting himself against the wide-open sea storms, sunstroke, monotony, hunger and loneliness is a way to feel alive in old age. Three times. Doba was blown to the beach and called the trip off. Me, fine, Mr. Doba shouted in English to the ships crew, giving a thumbs-up. While it was not the first transatlantic kayak crossing in history, Doba was the first one to travel this way from continent to continent and not island to island. On it, he has written the names of rivers he has paddled. Many things can go wrong while at sea, and if something does go wrong, help can be . 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 . He died while climbing Kilimanjaro after reaching the mountain summit. 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. [7][8] He was 65 years old when he undertook this journey. At the age of 70, Aleksander Doba became a legend with the kayak. End of Aleksander Doba's third transatlantic kayak expedition This site is to promote polish paddler Aleksander Doba and his highly respectable . (Honestly, you dont need the details.) Doba drifted around for days eating freeze-dried goulash and chocolate bars. I did not think I could find myself in something so downing, he texted to Chmielinski, somewhat incomprehensibly, two weeks later. Doba did finally accept help two weeks later. Four days later, after capsizing repeatedly, Doba finally cleared the Sandy Hook peninsula and left lower New York Bay. I was just paddling down the river, he explained. AD: No, although 40 nights of strenuous effort to break out of the trap of unfavorable winds in the Bermuda Triangle drained me very much. The most important kayaking trips of Aleksander Doba: 1989 -he broke a record f a distance, swam in a kayak during one calendar year: 5125 km, of which 5000 km were new trails, swam by him for the first time in his life. That October, he paddled from Senegal to Brazil in 99 days. However, in Brazil, while running the Amazon in my kayak in 2011, I survived two bouts of rogues with firearms and machetes. I hope they will learn not to be afraid to dream, turn dreams into plans, and bring plans to reality. 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. The groundbreaking promise of cellular housekeeping. Kayak legend Aleksander Doba (74 years) Dies on Kilimanjaro Summit. [4] He used a 23-foot kayak, weighing 1500 pounds when fully loaded. He waited three days and still had no signal, so in hopes of getting Gabriela or Arminski to look into his phone problems, he pressed the help button on his SPOT device, a piece of gear that has become de rigueur among adventurers, as it can send emergency messages and GPS coordinates when a person is far off the grid. Doba also called his wife, twice. These involved such things as catamarans sailing in from the Bahamas and helicopters dropping rudder-repair gift packages out of the sky. Corley, Apr 21, 2014, in forum: All Things Boats & Boating. MARCH 22, 2018. The trip was a fiasco. After more than three months of paddling, a Polish adventure junkie has crossed the Atlantic in a 23 foot custom kayak. It started with a small diatribe on the tyranny of politeness that dictates a houseguest must always say he likes everything his host serves him and the problem that results: Youre fed food you dont like again and again. He had been taking long trips for decades, but he always slept on land. Scientists just confirmed a 30-foot void first detected inside the monument years ago. But still, I was so happy Id gotten away. 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. 1,277 talking about this. The next day, hearing aids restored, Doba drove us to Police, and a few days later, he addressed a question that had been nagging at me: Why did he go on that third trip? Doba had promised himself he would be tougher than all that. Aleksander Doba Kayaking From New York To Portugal The Daily: The Sunday Read: 'Alone at Sea' on Apple Podcasts He wasnt a man who necessarily looked forward to spending Christmas with the family, his son Czeslaw said. Why do kayaks have holes? Do I need scupper plugs? Through the ocean. I joked with Gabriela that this was her Atlantic. An early escapade involved kayaking on the Baltic Sea at a time when the Communist Party, to discourage defectors, had declared it illegal. But so what? Log In Once logged in, you can add biography in the database. Their three sons, Dobas uncles, disappeared. F. Polish adventurer Aleksander Doba dies at 74 - English Section The trip could have ended five days earlier, but he had promised himself when he left New Jersey that he wouldn't just kayak to Europe, but to the Continent proper. A sea kayak or touring kayak is a kayak developed for the sport of paddling on open waters of lakes, bays, and the ocean. The First Transatlantic Kayak Expedition was to check myself and my kayak. Doba, Aleksander, 1946- - Library of Congress Then she sat me down at a nearby restaurant, ordered pierogies and borscht and told me a joke. Can we bring a species back from the brink? National Geographic . The Polish . I know you will not jump. And the Polish man jumps., Wojciechowska looked at me squarely, to make sure I understood. Aleksander Doba, 70, completed his transatlantic journey on Sunday after setting off on the epic quest from New Jersey in May. He arrived in Tanzania last month. 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. 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. This is an order. And the German man jumps. I was in a pickle! To avoid the nightmare of quiet conformity, Doba told me he said to his mother-in-law, This is a good soup! It should be noted that he accomplished it using only weekends and normal, 26-day leave. Then he paddled to the French shore. He was a few days shy of his 71st birthday. All rights reserved, Aleskander Doba is our 2015 People's Choice Adventurer of the Year. Aleksander Ludwik Doba was born on Sept. 9, 1946, in Swarzedz, Poland. Doba returned to his cabin somewhat shocked to be alive. Kayaker Aleksander Doba paddles 5,400 miles across Atlantic During the third rescue attempt he yelled a Polish vulgarity. The triumph of Aleksander Doba. Then I asked the local guides with him, Do you know who this man is? And they said: Yes. Its 20-meter-long tail was wagging. Record-breaking kayaker Aleksander Doba dies after summiting Kilimanjaro The 'extreme cruelty' around the global trade in frog legs, What does cancer smell like? *The official fanpage of Aleksander Doba. He had always planned to go on three crossings: South, Mid- and North Atlantic. During a storm, the water below the oceans surface stays relatively still; what moves radically are the waves. He was named 2014 Adventurer of the Year by National Geographic . Transatlantic crossings are passages of passengers and cargo across the Atlantic Ocean between Europe or Africa and the Americas. He has kayaked solo across the Atlantic 3 times, most recently in 2017 at the age of 70. . Do you know how fast they go? he said. Can we bring a species back from the brink?, Video Story, Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic Society, Copyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. In 2018, a Polish retiree named Aleksander Doba, at 71, completed his third trans-Atlantic solo crossing, in a 21 kayak he designed. Still unflappable, Doba, who had never cared for the wings to begin with, removed the remainder of the broken pieces and the navigation light attached to them and used an empty plastic jug and duct tape to reattach the lights to the body of the kayak before waving the sloop away for the final 700 miles of his journey. For 110 days, Mr. Doba paddled eastward on his specially designed fiberglass kayak, Olo. Sketch in hand, Doba drove from Police to Szczecin, the regional capital, and approached a yacht-builder named Andrzej Arminski. Bigger than the Atlantic! Doba chimed in. "I realized almost immediately that an ordinary kayak can't handle the open . What most of us experience as suffering he repurposes as contrarian self-determination, and that gives him an existential thrill. Aleksander Doba to Kayak Across the Atlantic Ocean | the Adventure Blog By ELIZABETH WEILPhotographs by JOAKIM ESKILDSEN 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. I am Polish. Me, fine, he shouted in English, pointing to himself and giving the thumbs up. First, five bandits robbed me for three hours. Physically, Doba did not seem to experience any difficulty beyond some uncomfortable and persistent skin rashes caused by prolonged exposure to saltwater. Three years later in 2013 he crossed the . Id been feeling buried, by stuff exactly as predictable as youd imagine for a working mother of two kids. ) so that she could compare it with the condition of her children upon their return. But this specific soup I dont like. That was a shock to his mother-in-law, he said, but a short one. He kayaked the coast of Norway to the Arctic Circle. It is impossible to design a kayak that wont capsize on the North Atlantic, Arminski told me in his British-accented English, sitting behind his desk in Szczecin in a tidy V-neck sweater and a pressed shirt. Her department grew to 100 people from five. I have two sons and two granddaughters. ALEKSANDER DOBA | The Daily Star A crisis, in Dobas worldview, is an opportunity for triumph. 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. Dobas sleeping cabin, which he reaches by sliding himself through a portal the size of a laptop, affords him, when hes lying down, 15 inches of headroom. Aleksander Doba (9 September 1946 - 22 February 2021) was a Polish kayaker known primarily for his long voyages crossing oceans.In 2010 and again in 2013 he kayaked across the Atlantic Ocean westward under his own power. The Olo, Doba's 2010 kayak. Sadly, he passed away this week while climbing Kilimanjaro. 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. Rather, he said, I was infected with a virus.. For Aleksander Doba, pitting himself against the wide-open sea storms, sunstroke, monotony, hunger and loneliness is a way to feel alive in old age. By choosing it, he casts himself in the role of hero, not victim. If a breaking wave hit Olo with no sea anchor, Doba said, I knew I would roll over many times. Aleksander Doba - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Able Tasman - PressReader He refused. So, Gabriela told me, she laid out for her husband all the reasons trans-Atlantic kayaking was stupid. On April 19, 2014, Doba, who is now 68, paddled the final stroke of his 7,716-mile transatlantic journey, docking OLO, his 23-foot kayak, in a marina in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Behind me, steering us among the 60 other kayakers and dozens of fallen trees, Doba fidgeted in his seat, like an ADHD kid in class. Three times, he paddled 200 to 300 miles, only to get pushed back by the winds and currents. Doba returned to Police to a heros welcome and 14 months later flew to Washington to receive an award from the National Geographic Society as the 2015 Peoples Choice Adventurer of the Year. 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 .