After three months at sea, rationed meals and a brush with a tropical storm, a San Francisco Bay Space man grew to become the second particular person to efficiently kayak from California to Hawaii.
Cyril Derreumaux reached Hilo early Tuesday morning on his second try to finish the two,400-mile journey, which he documented on social media.
“It was an impressive journey, clearly additionally a religious journey,” Derreumaux mentioned in a press release. “Earlier than leaving I couldn’t actually clarify why I needed to tackle this problem, however I lastly discovered all of the solutions to my questions on the water. I liked sharing my journey with all those that adopted me on the map or the social networks.”
The 46-year-old has been engaged on the venture for 4 years. He first meant to embark in 2020, however cancelled these plans attributable to Covid. Final 12 months, tough seas and a broken anchor derailed his first try after lower than every week. A US Coast Guard helicopter rescued him exterior Santa Cruz.
Derreumaux started this 12 months’s journey in Monterey in June in a 23ft lengthy kayak outfitted with a water desalination system and an inside cabin. The voyage, which required no less than 9 hours of rowing a day, introduced no scarcity of challenges.
His kayak developed a leak that flooded a compartment, and he was compelled to shelter contained in the vessel for 2 days as he crossed paths with tropical storm Estelle. Derreumaux, who’s initially from France, needed to manually pump water for almost two hours a day after a machine broke down.
He was at sea three weeks longer than preliminary estimates indicated and needed to ration meals for the final leg of the 91-day-and-nine-hour journey, and disembark in Hilo relatively than Honolulu as deliberate.
“I encountered all doable climate circumstances throughout these three months. Very tough seas through which I needed to keep locked inside my cabin, with out even with the ability to sleep, it was so transferring, but additionally an ocean that may be so calm that it transforms you deeply a lot it fills you with tranquility,” Derreumaux mentioned. “I skilled moments of pure magic when all the weather got here collectively: calm of the ocean, calm of the currents, calm of the winds, and the go to in the course of nowhere of a chicken.”
Ed Gillet was the primary particular person to efficiently full the journey from California to Hawaii utilizing a kayak in 1987, aided by a kite. In 2020, Lia Ditton journeyed from San Francisco to Honolulu in 86 days, in a rowboat relatively than a kayak.
Dozens extra have tried the journey. Final summer season, 19 folks tried to cross the Pacific in small boats, based on the San Francisco Chronicle. At the very least two folks have died within the effort since 2019, the newspaper reported.
Supply hyperlink
