Sixty-Five Sunsets takes the reader on a kayak trip with a middle aged couple who planned a challenge their skill, experience and endurance, designed as a summer holiday to experience the coast and coastal people from the Alaska Panhandle to Vancouver, BC.
In the winter of 2000, Rick Davies and Jaquie Bunse set about planning for an extended kayak trip, and one June day they drove north with kayaks, food and gear, eventually ending up on Somerville Island in the Portland Canal, along the border of Alaska and British Columbia. In this book they recount the challenges, joys and anxieties as they made their way home to Vancouver.
Rick includes his lists of safety equipment, charts of the coast he needed to navigate as well as a description of the day-to-day food and tools carried in two single kayaks. His philosophy of adventure for the sake of enjoyment weaves around the pragmatic detail underlining the scope of such an adventure, the distance travelled and challenges met along the way.
Descriptions of birds, wild flowers and people encountered set the reader on the misty seas, brilliant sunny beaches and in tiny villages among the unique north coast people. Jaquie shares stories that evoke a sense that you have been with them, straining in rapids, toiling up rainy shores laden with heavy gear, cooking every meal on a single burner stove and collapsing exhausted in a tent too tired to think about tomorrow. Doubts and disagreements, injuries and exhaustion illustrate the human costs of such an undertaking. When most couples are reducing their physical stresses, these two will show you how to save energy when you can, and put it out when you need it. The result is a practical guide, a wistful look inside oneself, and an adventure as a template for life.
The two voyagers have included maps, photos, drawings and recipes designed to inspire you to follow their paddle strokes, wherever they may lead.
In the winter of 2000, Rick Davies and Jaquie Bunse set about planning for an extended kayak trip, and one June day they drove north with kayaks, food and gear, eventually ending up on Somerville Island in the Portland Canal, along the border of Alaska and British Columbia. In this book they recount the challenges, joys and anxieties as they made their way home to Vancouver.
Rick includes his lists of safety equipment, charts of the coast he needed to navigate as well as a description of the day-to-day food and tools carried in two single kayaks. His philosophy of adventure for the sake of enjoyment weaves around the pragmatic detail underlining the scope of such an adventure, the distance travelled and challenges met along the way.
Descriptions of birds, wild flowers and people encountered set the reader on the misty seas, brilliant sunny beaches and in tiny villages among the unique north coast people. Jaquie shares stories that evoke a sense that you have been with them, straining in rapids, toiling up rainy shores laden with heavy gear, cooking every meal on a single burner stove and collapsing exhausted in a tent too tired to think about tomorrow. Doubts and disagreements, injuries and exhaustion illustrate the human costs of such an undertaking. When most couples are reducing their physical stresses, these two will show you how to save energy when you can, and put it out when you need it. The result is a practical guide, a wistful look inside oneself, and an adventure as a template for life.
The two voyagers have included maps, photos, drawings and recipes designed to inspire you to follow their paddle strokes, wherever they may lead.
