London2London Via The World: Sarah Outen Preparing To Resume Round-The-World Journey

Sarah Outen is preparing to resume her human powered attempt to circumnavigate the blog and is now simply waiting for a weather window to depart on the next leg of her journey. That leg will be a 7500-nautical mile (13,890 km) solo crossing of the Pacific Ocean that begins in Japan and ends in Canada.

As you may recall, Sarah began her journey on April 1 of 2011, embarking on an expedition that she called London2London via the World. After kayaking down the River Thames and paddling across the English Channel, she then proceeded to ride her bike across Europe and Asia, before making a short kayaking journey into Japan. She originally expected the L2L to take about 2.5 years to complete and upon arriving in Japan, it appeared that she was actually a bit ahead of schedule. That all changed when she started her Pacific Row last summer.

While out on the water, just a few days after departing, a tropical storm hit Sarah's position, damaging her boat and requiring the Japanese Coast Guard to come to her assistance. That incident was a setback that required Outen to regroup and find a new boat. It has taken until now for that to happen, and at long last she's ready to begin again.

Unfortunately the weather hasn't been all that cooperative thus far and it may be a few days before she can finally depart. Storms have been hitting the Japanese coast, making it impossible to launch right now. But Sarah is very patient and she'll wait for the right time to get underway. The forecasts indicate it could be the end of the week before she gets a few consecutively good days that will allow for the re-launch.

The Pacific crossing is expected to take about six months to complete and upon her arrival in Canada, Sarah will once again return to her bike for a scenic ride across North America. When she finishes that leg of the journey, she'll return to her boat once again and row across the Northern Atlantic, return home to London where the entire adventure began.

Good luck and godspeed Sarah. I hope you can get to pulling those rows again soon.

Video: One Ski Run In Japan

If you're heading out to play in the snow this weekend, you'll probably appreciate this video. It features a skier zipping through the trees – not to mention deep power – on a slope just outside of Nagano, Japan. The skier captured the action with a GoPro attached to the end of one of his poles, giving us a nice view of the action all theway down the slope.


One run in Japan from KC Deane on Vimeo.

The Ikkatsu Project: Exploring The Impact Of The Japanese Tsunami On

On March 11, 2011 a massive earthquake off the coast of Japan created a giant tidal wave that had a devastating effect on that country's coastline. Boats, cars, homes and countless tons of other debris were washed away in an instant. Now, months later, much of that debris is washing up on the shores of North America, which has prompted a group of three kayakers to launch an expedition to survey the shores of the Olympic Peninsula and document the junk that is arriving there.

The team consists of Ken Campbell, Jason Goldstein and Steve Weileman, each of whom have extensive experience paddling throughout the Pacific Northwest and the world. They've named their adventure the Ikkatsu Project and over the past few months they've spent time exploring the remote coastline of Washington state to examine the debris that has been washing up with alarming regularity there.

You can read about more about Ikkatsu, which means "United as One" in Japanese, on the expedition website, where you'll also find trip reports, gear lists and more details on the scope of the project. Sadly, it seems they are finding plenty of items to document from the Tsunami and the impact on the environment there probably won't be fully known for some time.

Interesting project in a beautiful part of the world. I'm both fascinated by the forces of nature that have brought this debris to the shores of North America and saddened by what those same forces did to the Japanese people and how they could now impact these pristine environments.



Ikkatsu Project - Phase 1 from Steve Weileman on Vimeo.