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Chris Duff has
quietly accomplished some amazing
seakayaking journeys, including
circumnavigations of Iceland, New Zealand's
South Island and the British Isles. He once
said that to him, an expedition is more of a
reprieve or a retreat. "Even some of the big
trips are just time to think clearly". Chris
is a modest and thoughtful person as well as
a talented paddler. Here he shares with us
some of his thoughts about paddling and life
in general.
1983-1984 – I remember the first time
I sat in a sea kayak and felt it go slightly
over on its edge. I was no more than fifteen
feet from the bank and must have wiggled to
get more comfortable in the cockpit. The
boat shifted under my tense body and then
tipped way over and suddenly stopped….a
fraction of an inch from going all the way
over. I froze in panic, my heart racing like
wild and my skin instantly turning clammy
with sweat. Like so many new comers, I did
what is natural- I let go of the paddle and
clawed at the air for support. I don’t know
why or how, but the boat didn’t capsize. I
immediately grabbed the paddle, sat frozen
with fear and discomfort and gingerly tried
paddling again, dipping just the very tips
of the blades in the water. I couldn’t wait
until my first lesson was over and I could
get back to dry land.
I think it’s important to
remember those first five minutes of
paddling and how terrified I was of tipping
over in that ice-rimmed canal. Paddling
wasn’t anything like I had imagined it would
be. The one magazine article I had read made
it sound so easy and carefree- just slide
into this sleek fiberglass shell and the
world would be yours to explore. Standing on
the bank, jittery from my close call with a
December swim, I was both captivated and
very uncertain. Was this sea kayaking thing
really what I wanted to do?
 Now years later, I sit
typing these words looking out a window
where my current sea kayak rests on its side
in the frozen grass. The boat is very
different than the one I first sat in and
ultimately purchased after that first
paddle. In its greater length and narrower
width I see it as a kayak designed for true
open water paddling. It is a boat that fits
me well and one that has taken me on long
journeys upon waters I never could have
imagined paddling all those years ago. It is
March 2006, almost twenty three years to the
day when I pushed off on my first trip- an
8,000 mile sea kayak lesson that began just
three months after first sitting in a kayak.
Had I known how much I didn’t know, I am
sure I wouldn’t have begun in the first
place- but this is true with all of life.
For some, the best way to learn is to do. I
was at a crossroads and a kayak, though it
was frightening, seemed like the vessel that
could take me forward into a new phase of my
life. Two decades later, it is the sea that
continues to provide both a challenge and a
place for me to grow and to simply be who I
am. Although I have spent years on the sea,
I know I am no match for its fury and
strength. I respect it and am cautious in
calling it home. As playful and serene as it
can be, the sea can also be callus in its
indiscriminate cruelty. It is not a place
for arrogance and pride. Rather it is a
place that requires constant awareness and
caution.
With any luck, there will
other sea journeys down the road for me.
Right now though its fun to revisit some of
the trips I’ve done and enjoy the memories
of campsites, remote shorelines, seals and
sea birds, and the some of the people I met
along the way.
1983-1984 I Left Kingston New York on
the Hudson River in March and paddled south
to Florida, across Lake Okeechobee and into
the Gulf of Mexico. I then Continued
Northwest to New Orleans and the mouth of
the Mississippi River and for some crazy
reason, paddled upriver a thousand miles to
St. Louis Missouri. I entered the Illinois
River and a canal system that led to Lake
Michigan and then Paddled up the east shore
of Lake Michigan to the Makinaw Straits.
From the straits, I paddled into Georgian
Bay then out a Canadian canal system to the
St. Lawrence River. I followed the St
Lawrence out to the open Atlantic and then
around the Canadian Maritime Provinces, up
and around the Bay of Fundy and finally back
into US waters. I then headed south along
the New England coastline into Long Island
Sound, and then up the Hudson River to
finish back in Kingston NY. Total time from
start to finish was 18 months but I had to
take the winter off due to ice on the Great
Lakes. The trip was about 8,000 miles of
paddling and a year of actually being on the
water. I learned more in that year of
paddling than any other segment of my life.
From barely knowing what a paddle was, I
developed a relationship with the sea and
indeed with myself that has remained a
central focus of my life. Twenty years later
I am still paddling and learning- still in
awe of the sea and still aware that it is
only when the sea is resting quietly that it
allows me to slip alongside for yet another
visit.
1986 Solo circumnavigating Great
Britain. I left Nottingham England after
picking up a Nordkap from Frank Goodman at
Valley Canoe. I took the River Trent out to
the Humber River and then took a right turn.
The nice thing about circumnavigations is
that depending on which direction you go,
you just have to keep the land on either the
right or the left. Very basic navigation.
The British trip took 5 ½ months and I was
told at the time that it was the worst
summer on record. Or course every kayaker
seems to hear that I suppose. The British
trip was a great learning experience in
terms of paddling in lots of shifting tidal
conditions and plenty of wind, plus a fair
bit of shipping traffic around some of the
larger harbors like Dover. I think the
mileage around Britain is somewhere around
2000 miles.
1986-1996 I took a ten year break
from long trips and did a lot of white water
paddling and several shorter two week longs
trips around the Pacific Northwest which is
where I call home.
1996 Solo trip around Ireland. This
is probably my favorite trip to date in
terms of the people and the history of the
country. I started in Dublin and went
clockwise simply because that seemed to be
my pattern- get the boat and gear to where I
wanted to paddle and take a right as soon as
I was on the open water. The trip took 3 ½
months and was somewhere around 1200 miles.
I wrote a book about this trip as a way of
beginning to explain what it is that I find
on these journeys that continue to draw me
back time and time again. The writing was a
journey itself and one that has led to other
writing and other paddling trips. The title
of the book is On Celtic Tides and quite
surprisingly, it won the National Outdoor
Book Award for 2000.
1999 Solo trip around New Zealand’s
South Island. If I just think of the actual
paddling, the New Zealand trip had a greater
impact on me than any other trip. Paddling
the south island was something more than sea
kayaking- it was four and half months of
open ocean paddling with extreme winds, and
waves on the west coast that made it quite a
challenge considering how remote that coast
is. The trip was somewhere around 1700
miles- counting the miles paddling in and
out of the beautiful fiords of the southwest
coast. I’ve never had such feelings of
absolute awe while paddling along a
coastline that is as rugged, untouched and
as wild as the west coast. The surf- like
anywhere in the world- can be almost
non-existent some years and relentlessly
pounding the next. I happened to choose a
year where the surf was consistently big.
The challenge of the west coast is that the
weather can hold you down for extended
periods of time, during which you have to
eat. There are very limited places for
re-supply so food can be a problem. And of
course there’s the surf. A lot of it is
dumping. You can’t see the shore from the
back of a ten-footer and there is almost no
such thing as a sheltered landing on most of
the west coast. I broke my boat in half on a
remote beach north of Milford Sound and had
to get evacuated back to Milford for repairs
before continuing on. The trip was extreme
and fantastically beautiful. It changed me
as a paddler in a way that is calmly
reassuring, yet alienating because it is
difficult to share the experience unless
others have met the same elements of
extreme. I now look as the sea with the
perspective of having been pushed to levels
that I hope not to experience again but am
grateful for living through them and knowing
what that feels like.
2003 Circumnavigation of Iceland with
Leon Somme and Shawna Franklin. Iceland has
been called the “Land of Contrasts” and the
“Land of Fire And Ice”. I find it
interesting that I have similar contrasting
memories and feelings about this trip. On
one level, the trip was the easiest- no wind
to speak of except for one storm that hit us
on the south coast, and very calm seas
almost the entire 1500 miles and 2 ½ months
of the trip. On the other hand it was the
hardest trip for me in terms of being part
of a team. I realize now that so much of
what I get out of these trips is the
solitude, and the silence, and the time to
pay attention to the small and wonderfully
simple life of solo paddling. These things
are important to me and they were hard for
me to find on a team trip. I have some
wonderful memories of paddling with Leon,
Shawna, and several Icelandic friends who
joined us on short sections of the trip- the
bird life, the sparsely populated coast, the
endless light of summer, strangers inviting
us in for huge diners, the crystal clarity
of the northern waters, the blow of a whale
ten miles from land in fog so thick I
couldn’t see a hundred yards. These are all
special memories and I am grateful for them.
And yet something large was missing. I think
it was the magic of solo spontaneity, of
traveling silently and looking inward as
much as outward. Iceland is a place I will
return to- it is a small country with
endless clear horizons that call for more
exploring.
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