Because It’s Fun…
Welcome to our world. Here, challenges do not go uncontested and dreams are never not mostly reality. At least in our heads.
Just a few days ago we sent our channel crossing idea out into the world. We thought it was a little different from the start, but we believed in it. We also couldn’t help but be a little scared that maybe we were the ones who were a little different.
Crossing each of the Hawaiian channels on standup paddleboards is a big deal; we recognized that as each of us stared at Morgan with “Are you serious?” stretching from a question on the inside to smile on the outside. Laird and Dave have done it. Much faster and stronger than we will. But they’re Laird and Dave, and that’s the beauty of challenges: they’re personal.
Our challenge is Morgan’s fault: the product of a creative, wanderlusty brain infatuated with discovery, at home inside an athlete. We love her.
Morgan is the first woman to complete the Oahu to Molokai race, solo, on a standup paddleboard. She did it because someone told her she couldn’t. She did it because she already knew she was wanted to try all of the channels, and someone else had told her that if given the opportunity, “you should always jump.” He meant tethered to some sort of parachute contraption, but Morgan was just stoked he didn’t tell her not to go.
Morgan approached Jenny at the Molokai race the following year, this past summer. Jenny had just won the race out of a field of eight incredible female paddlers. As Morgan puts it, “She didn’t hate the idea.” The adventure basket had a shape.
Jenny is our fire. The passion, dedication and talent that keep her on top of the podiums are just who she is, and, now, who we are too. Her favorite thing is to cross items off of lists. So we give her the hard lists. Like finding captains and boats, and the course, and money. When she comes back a few hours later, questions answered, with pictures, the rest of realize that maybe we could be a little faster setting up the Twitter account. We really love her.
If you ask either of them why they would do such a thing as paddle nearly 300 miles along a course that crosses at least two of the ocean’s most dangerous channels – battling wind, swell, sun, themselves, and maybe even giant squid – they’d smile at you and say, “Because it’s fun.”
And they mean it.
So, welcome to our adventure. We are so excited that you are here! Stay a while, and bring your friends.
From now until May, and probably a little beyond we will tell our story here and on our Facebook (Destination 3° (degrees)) and Twitter (3degreepaddle) pages. From finding sponsors – sneak peek: it’s really hard and a full-time job, but we’ll tell you everything we know – to training videos, and interviews with shapers, boat captains, channel experts, and the other amazing people who are helping to make this reality, we’ll show you how we did it. And come April, we’ll take you along, electronically, of course, on our adventure. Because, after all, life is too short for competition, and “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than those you did. So throw off those bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the wind in your sails. Explore, Dream. Discover.”
Thank you, Mr. Twain.
