Riaan ¼ of the way round and still going strong!
Riaan has covered about 1100kms of actual paddling which has taken him past 1500km of coastline; bearing in mind he doesn’t always hug the coastline and often cuts across bays. Riaan is now paddling south, a huge motivational boost for him, especially as the waters in the north-west are considerably calmer than on the opposite side.
On 12 November Riaan reached his first major milestone when he rounded Cap d’Ambre, Madagascar’s most northerly point. He then cracked a whopping 57kms to record a new personal best in a day.
The following day an ’official’ speed boat with several divers harassed Riaan, saying he was paddling in a marine reserve and must therefore pay them money for a permit. Riaan never paid a single bribe while cycling Africa, so there was no way he was going to hand over money to people he didn’t know. They threatened to arrest him and demanded they tow his kayak to a police station. Eventually, they sped off in frustration and Riaan fortunately didn’t see them again.
Making some more big crossings, Riaan bounced to Nosy Lava and then on to Nosy Mitsio, where he was put up in 5-star luxury by a South African who manages a hotel there.
He then pushed on to Nosy Be where he was met by the team from Yacht Gecko, a luxury catamaran charter who had offered him a soft bed and a warm meal. They were also kind enough to host Seamus Reynolds for a week so that Riaan and Seamus could do some additional filming for the documentary.
Overall, Riaan is in good spirits. He says he has had some incredibly lonely moments out there on the sea and sometime struggles in the afternoons when he has to sit on the beach doing nothing. Hiding his bicycle in a room was easy, 5.5m of kayak isn’t easy to disguise, so he doesn’t manage to explore inland as often as he would like.
His body is in a fair condition, although his wrists are really starting to hurt, his lower back feels like its in perpetual cramp and his eyes are taking some strain from the glare off the sea (hanging on to sunglasses hasn’t been working).
He thinks he’s managed to streamline the kayak to the least amount of gear he needs, operating with only one set of clothing (shirt, trousers, wetsuit pants, t-shirt, light jersey, rain-jacket and a hat). How many of us could cope on that?!?
The kayak is still in good condition and he only needs to make minor repairs as opposed to the larger jobs he was faced with on the east coast. Hopefully, this allows him to get ahead of his schedule to ensure that he completes this mammoth journey in May 2009!
For a more recent update on Riaan’s progress and experiences visit http://www.africa365.co.za or correspond with Riaan directly on roundtheoutside@gmail.com