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< Jan/Feb 2001
	Hotline
Expedition News

Expedition School for Sea Kayakers
Want to learn how to lead a sea kayak expedition? Look no further than Seattle, Wash.'s new Wilderness Kayak Institute (WKI), which started a new paddling program in October for experienced sea kayakers. Directed by expedition paddler John Dowd, founder of Sea Kayaker magazine and author of Sea Kayaking, the institute begins this winter in Baja and offers advanced level courses worldwide. The course's Masters' Program takes paddlers to expedition readiness, refining skills, survival strategies, navigation, and weather and sea assessment. The 12-day courses operate in Baja from February through April and in British Columbia's Queen Charlotte Islands from May through September. Once you've completed a Masters course (or can show a similar skill level), you can join WKI's Expeditions, the first of which will run through the Caribbean's Grenadine Islands and the second in Chile's Straits of Magellan. Participants join as full expedition members and play an active roll in decision making. Info.: (877) 724-1808, www.wildernesskayak.com.

Across the Sea of Kattegat in a…Log?
In an effort to prove that Danish stone-age people could well have traded goods with Sweden, a group of five demented paddlers recently completed a 21.5-hour crossing of the dangerous Sea of Kattegat to the Swedish island of Omo. Only they didn’t paddle what you'd expect. Instead, they did the crossing in a hollowed-out, 36-foot log, with a sail made of skin. Despite the lack of high-tech help, the fivesome made the crossing safely, without having to rely on the accompanying escort boat.

Rower Returns Home Toeless
A third of the way into his 5,600-mile row across the South Pacific from New Zealand to Cape Horn, France's Jo Le Guen, 53, was forced to abandon his 30-foot, high-tech rowboat, Keepitblue, and return home. Attempting the crossing to highlight the world's ocean pollution problems, Guen was rescued by a passing ship and taken to a hospital in Chile after suffering gangrene, blood poisoning and frostbite that claimed eight toes. "I have no regrets," he told reporters after being rescued. "I am happy to have gone as far as I could go."