Destination 3 Degrees featured on ExplorerGirls.com
The Destination 3 Degrees team is featured on ExplorerGirls.com, a popular lifestyle website devoted to the adventures of women the world over. The piece in the “Awesome Explorer Girls” section describes Jenny and Morgan’s recent paddleboard journey across the Hawaiian Channels and also includes an in-depth interview with the team.
http://www.explorergirls.com/Awesome_ExplorerGirls/JennyandMorgan_Paddle_Hawaiis_9channels
DYLAMagazine.com showed us some love!
Our Destination 3 Degrees team was featured on DYLAMagazine.com, a popular online magazine dedicated to women in action sports. The piece details Jenny and Morgan’s recent paddleboard journey across the Hawaiian Channels and also includes an in-depth interview with the team, as well as an image gallery of the journey.
T-Shirts
Hi Everyone. The next round of t-shirts have been ordered, and if you have been waiting for one, we will get yours to you very soon. Thank you so much for being patient with us while we get these taken care of, we appreciate your support more than you could ever know.
Looking Back and Moving Forward ….
It’s been almost a month since our last channel crossing from Kauai to Niihau, which by the way, I do not recommend to anyone unless you feel like experiencing hell…but I will tell you all about that in my next blog! I am back in Kona and after taking a week off from paddling, I got back into it. I have a busy summer ahead with races and traveling so I didn’t have much time to rest and relax. I was back in the gym the day I returned, which felt GREAT at the time but left me aching for the next few days. After taking time of from paddling, it felt good to get back into it. It’s different training for sprint races after having done so much endurance paddling in the past few months but I’m enjoying not having to worry about going on 20+ mile paddles.
Next week is the Battle of the Paddle Hawaii. I’m excited to see everyone in the community and check out the race course. It’s going to be another great event and if you live nearby you should really come check it out! After that, I’m planning on competing in a couple of local races this summer, including the Molokai to Oahu race and then traveling to Europe for a couple of races there.
Looking back on what we did in April, it still hasn’t fully sunk in. It was an absolutely amazing experience and I am so excited to have been a part of it. We worked hard for so many months to make it happen and the best part was seeing it through and successfully completing what we set out to do. It would not have been possible without the help of sponsors, friends, family and so many others who supported us throughout the adventure. I will never be able to express how grateful I am to every person who played a part in making our trip a success but I want to say THANK YOU. THANK YOU SO MUCH.
Putting together a trip like this is not an overnight process and it took months of e-mails, phone calls, skype meetings, brainstorming etc to make it happen, but most of all it was largely due to the people who believed in us and our crazy idea and said yes. I have come away from this realizing that it does not matter how many times you hear the word “no”, you keep trying and if you believe in what you’re doing, someone will say yes.
Thank you to everyone who believed in us and said YES
Paul and Cassandra
Brazen Hazen Kona Coffee
Gordon and the team at Horny Toad Clothing Co. and MFA.
Curtis at Dakine
Hilton Hotels
Karen and Jeff at WetFeet
Michi at Naish
Joe Bark
Thank you to these great companies:
Pelican, Kaenon, Sweet Waterwear, Tiem, Watermans, 2xu, Vertra, Surf Stronger, ACR Electronics
Pure Paddles, QuickBlade, Del Mar, Infinit, OnIt, H20 Audio, Rite in the Rain
Our Wonderful Captains:
Mike, Nue & Earl – Big Island to Maui
Layne – Maui to Lanai, Maui to Molokai
Mickey & Kawika – Molokai sea cliffs
Jeff & Matt – Molokai to Oahu
Scott, Matt and all of the crew from Maggie Joe Charters – Oahu to Kauai
Steve G. – Na Pali Coast
Peter, Scott and Linda from Bubbles Below – Kauai to Niihau and Lehua Rock
Thank you to the Koppes and Garfinkle families for generously loaning us your boats!
Thank You To:
Pat Caldwell, Wayne Schaut, Jack Gillen, Reid Inouye, Jerry Bess, Barrett Tester, Odie Sumi, Pete Stirling, Chris Wyman, Katie Beers, Mary Edmonds, The Trout Family, Danny Haserot, John Immel, Jared Vargas, Nichole Madosik, Jeff Dietrichson, Stacy Spilman and Sanja Du Plessis.
To my family for showing me the beauty of following your dreams – Fortuna Favet Fortibus.
To Our Support Crew:
Ryan – worlds best boyfriend (biased? no way), board caddy, EMS, cook
Gregg – photographer, board caddy, joker, fisherman
Anders – board caddy, Swedish meatball maker, chauffeur
And a Final Thanks To:
Morgan – For dreaming up this crazy adventure
Jen – For the creative writing, proof reading, support
Chris – For filming and editing throughout and working hard before, during and after and most of all, for putting up with 4 girls.
Shannon – For the beautiful photographs
And of course thank you to all of our fans who followed us, whose comments motivated us throughout the journey and those who donated to our cause, Algalita Marine Reseach Foundation.
Thank you for being a part of our adventure!
Jenny K.
Stray Magazine features Destination 3˚
“Stray” is an online magazine and gathering place for adventurous people who aspire to extraordinary lives. That’s their official line. We like it because Chris Emery is one of the few we’ve seen who’s really trying to redefine web writing and presentation. Plus, he’s running one of our stories.
Check out “Standing Up Against a Tide of Plastic” here.
What have we done…
Sitting here on Kauai, enjoying this weird combination of rain and “vog,” has given me, Jen, a chance to think about what we’ve done. We still have more to do, but Morgan Hoesterey and Jenny Kalmbach paddled 72 miles the other day. Non-stop. Solo.
They paddled through a sunset and a sunrise and the pitch black of a full moon covered by clouds. They had monster swells rise out of the darkness. Their only light was from the escort boat, but they had to paddle in the choking exhaust to really “enjoy” the glow. From the boat all we could see were their glow sticks: Morgan was green, Jenny red, and Jeff yellow. They would disappear into the darkness between swells.
Through the dark we could hear the clatter of paddle on board, splash, and a worried “Are you ok?” The blessed “Yeah, I’m fine” let us breathe again until they disappeared again.
They paddled by feel. Leaving in the afternoon and paddling through the night, they never saw Kauai until an hour or so before they arrived, when the sun came up.
They are my heros. What they went through out there is a story I’m humbled to tell. But so honored to as well. The stories have only just begun. Chris Aguilar, Shannon Switzer, and Gregg Hoesterey spent 72 miles on a boat going 4-5 knots through swell that had us zigging more than we were zagging looking through viewfinders to capture the scene.
Anders Jonsson, Morgan’s husband, never abandoned his watch, purposefully making himself uncomfortable so that he wouldn’t fall asleep. And he never did. Ryan Lopossa orchestrated Jenny’s support on a boat whose fly bridge, from the relative stability of ours, appeared to touch the water as it rolled side to side in the swells. They are my heros too.
Thanks to all of you for your support, and stay with us as the Destination 3° story unfolds!
Treehugger.com: Women Stand Up Paddle Hawaiian Islands for Oceanic Research
Treehugger.com is THE site for green news on the Web and we are so excited they’ve taken a shine to us. It’s not every day you get the “green CNN” talking about you (in a good way)!
Destination 3° on somuchmorehawaii.com
A Stand-up Paddle Adventure Across Hawaii
Welcome to our world. Here at Destination 3° challenges do not go uncontested and dreams are never not mostly reality. At least in our heads. When 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.
Crossing each of the Hawaiian channels on stand-up paddleboards is no small feat: Morgan Hoesterey and Jenny Kalmbach, our paddlers, will log more than 200 nautical miles across three degrees of latitude and some of the world’s most notorious and challenging open ocean waters. Laird and Dave have done it. But they’re Laird and Dave, and that’s the beauty of challenges: they’re personal.
Part of our challenge is to see Hawaii in a way that not many people get to see the islands – from the water. Each channel has a name, a personality, and a story to tell. We’ve crossed four of the eight major channels already, and after each, our adventures and perspective change a little more. From both above and below the waterline, each of the stories of the islands and the people we meet along the way are unique.
We launched from the Big Island on April 7; the Alenuihaha channel flowed between us and Maui. Dangerous, treacherous, deadly (a personal “favorite”…gulp), and impossible are usually the words that gather to describe this crossing. Roughly translated, Alenuihaha means “of very large, trough-like waves.”
We made it. After nine hours and more than 40 miles of paddling, Maui was the reward. We used Maui as a base for about a week and were able to paddle to Molokini, Lanai’i, and finally Molokai.
By linking the islands by the waters that separate them, we also see the whales, turtles, fish, and sharks that live here. We see them in their world. We see the reefs. But more importantly, we see how we influence their world.
We are paddling for plastic, or better, to keep plastic out of oceans, away from marine life, and out of the human food chain. The Algalita Marine Research Foundation is a fantastic, grassroots organization based in Long Beach, California, working to change the way we understand our impact on the ocean environment. We’ve been working closely with them to connect their messages with people who can make a difference.
In many ways, making an impact is the easy part, because everyone can make a difference at the most basic level by rethinking how they will use disposable plastic products. Strong currents carry plastics from around the world to Hawaii’s beaches and inhabited or not, no beach we’ve seen yet has been left untouched by plastic.
We’ll be on Molokai until about the 21st when we paddle the Kaiwi channel from Molokai to Oahu. The Kauai channel lies ahead as well, all 80-some miles of it. We’ll paddle that one under the full moon on April 28 and probably all through the next day.
So, welcome to our adventure. We are so excited that you are here! Stay a while, and bring your friends. Follow us online at Destination3.com, on Facebook, and on Twitter.
About Jennifer Holcomb
Jennifer Holcomb writes about the ocean and its people. She’s spending the next month or so on a boat exploring Hawaii with Destination 3°.
New Outside Online Post!
Just got our next post up on Outside Online’s site with Jenny and Morgan talking about gear…
http://outside-blog.away.com/blog/2010/04/standup-paddleboarding-hawaii-gear-essentials.html
Thanks GearCaster.com
Gear Caster.com has been kind enough to give us and our cause some notice – check it out!!!
Destination 3 Degrees on Away.com!
We are honored to be working with Away.com to produce a series of distaches from our trip – here is the introductory one….
In April, a unique adventure is launching from the Big Island of Hawaii with Kauai as its endpoint. Taking to the storied waters that connect the islands, stand-up paddlers Morgan Hoesterey and Jenny Kalmbach are headed for a destination that stretches across three degrees of latitude—over 200 nautical miles—and, as recent reports tell us, a whole lot of plastic debris.
Hoesterey and Kalmbach will paddle from one island to the next, exploring above and below the waterline to help illuminate the impact of plastics contamination on some of the world’s most celebrated shorelines and the creatures these coasts shelter.
Bound only by the elements, the women will have unprecedented access to parts of the islands most people never get to see. They’ll cross channels more than 80 miles long and 10,000 feet deep, sometimes under the light of the moon, and always with the cooperation of the winds. For their efforts we’ll all be rewarded with some of the most breathtaking natural beauty our oceans have to offer.
But it’s not all about the paddle. Surfing, diving, and hiking their way around the islands, hoping to recapture the spirit of discovery in this global community, the women will use their project, Destination 3 Degrees, to raise awareness and funds for the Algalita Marine Research Foundation. Algalita is a leading research organization working to identify and understand the impact of plastics contamination in not only our oceans, but on marine life and the human food chain as well.
As Capt. Charles Moore of Algalita explains, “The oceans are downhill from everywhere,” and sadly the majority of the plastic washing up on Hawaii’s beaches comes from everywhere but there on the strong currents that circle the planet.
The ocean is the inspiration and the goal of this journey, and all along the way, Hoesterey and Kalmbach will be posting photos, stories, and videos so everyone can experience the adventure in real time.
Destination 3 Degrees is sponsored in part by Horny Toad, an outdoor lifestyle apparel company that believes in “doing the right thing” and taking fun seriously.
Jennifer Holcomb is an adventure writer and paddler who will be accompanying the Destination 3 Degrees team on their standup paddle adventure across Hawaii’s legendary channels. The team will be making the journey to benefit Algalita Marine Research Foundation, helping to protect the oceans from plastics contamination.
Outside Online: Training Tips
Morgan and Jenny’s second post is up on Outside’s blog! To find out how they get ready to do what they do, check it out: Outside Online.
Outside Online!
Outside is one of the few magazines we read every single month. It’s been a not-so-secret dream of ours to be a part of their magazine, and just as we were starting the very first channel, that dream re-appeared as our reality!
Morgan and Jenny will be contributing a series of posts about their adventure (the highs and lows and everything in between) throughout April and the beginning of May. The first post appeared on April 8, and watch for the next one around April 12.
Check it out at Outside Online. We’re looking forward to hearing from you on their site, so if you like, comment!
National Geographic Adventure and Travel+Leisure gave us some love!
Over the past few weeks, Jenny and I have had the chance to do some phone and e-mail interviews with various writers. Articles have come out in the online sites for both National Geographic adventure and Travel+Leisure. Check out the links below to read the articles.
