Duff scuttles plan to row to Iceland
Chris Duff has called it off. The 54-year-old adventurer and author had hoped to be the first person in modern times to row solo from Scotland to Iceland. He’d made it halfway, landing in the Faroe Islands after five days of paddling in late May. Now, after six frustrating weeks of waiting for good conditions...
Gnarly olds keeping water-sports industry afloat
Age and water sports do not mix. Sure, you might see the occasional mat of oiled gray chest hairs on the beach. Or a lock of blue hair escaping from a swim cap at the deep end of a pool. But serious water sports—surfing, kayaking, diving—are too extreme for most older bodies. And there’s the...
L.L. Bean’s 100-person kayak is ridiculous and splendid
L.L. Bean turned 100 in 2011 and even though we’ve turned all the pages in the calendar,making it 2012, the company continues to celebrate. Fair enough. Turning 100 is kind of a big deal. And the celebration isn’t just an exercise in corporate vanity. Bean is also sponsoring the Million Moment Mission: every time someone...
AARP-eligible sea kayaker at midpoint on Scotland-Iceland row
Fifty-four-year-old sea kayaker Chris Duff has finished the first leg of a demanding, 450-mile voyage from Scotland to Iceland. He left the Scottish island of Lewis last Wednesday, rowed 40-50 miles a day and arrived Sunday in the Faroe Islands. This makes him one of the few travelers since St. Brendan to find the Faroe...
Trips your children won’t recommend
Runestone checked in yesterday with a link to Greenland’s official web site (which just won a Webby Award, which is considered the Oscar of the internet). As a travel destination, we had slotted Greenland pretty far down the list, between Somalia and Cancun. Now we’re less sure. We thought of the island as a frozen...
Ouch: Another story about scaling back without stopping
Earlier this week we noted a story about the often painful transition to a less aggressive, less violent, less taxing and (alas) usually less adrenaline-pumping activity. It’s not something we like to dwell on, but it’s worth paying attention to because most of us will have to make that shift,...
