As soon As Andrew McAuley began his attempt to paddle from Tasmania to New Zealand, his story jumped off the Internet and into my life on the opposite side of the world. Too quickly I found myself editing a story about a tragedy. Andrew’s tale became the subject of many conversations with my partner and a gauge by which we measure our own values of security and family and how much we would put on the line for adventure.
We are left with Andrew’s recovered kayak, his photos, videos and sound recordings. One recording is his tired voice speaking out of the eye of a storm. There is no tone of regret, just the stark realization of the challenge he’s committed to, out on the edge and not knowing on which side he’s going to fall. At one point he says, “It’s an excellent, excellent, excellent adventure— provided I make it.”
Andrew left his wife, Vicki, a stay-at-home mom raising their three-year-old son, to attempt the most audacious of kayak exploits: traversing an ocean alone. He almost made it across the Tasman Sea. But he didn’t make it home.
THE GRAVITY AND INTEGRITY OF DREAMS
With hindsight there’s a temptation to come down on one side or the other. Either he was a hero, or he was an irresponsible father. He was brave, or he was selfish. He was meticulous, or he was careless. Some have been quick to judge. “Andrew McAuley must qualify for a Darwin Award,” wrote one blogger. There are those who have said worse and those who think they could have done a better job of being Andrew than Andrew himself, as if that wasn’t absurd.
The man was who he was. He was the type who, as I learned watching his movie about kayaking the Antarctic Peninsula, celebrated the end of a grueling kayak trip in icy waters by stripping down to his underwear, climbing up the mast of a yacht, kicking away at some ice to get a clear launch and leaping into the near-frozen ocean, while his friends looked on wearing down parkas and drinking scotch.
There are always a few people like that among us, and some of the spirit to take those risks lives in each of us to varying degrees. The journey to become a kayaker begins when you stand on the shore and dream of going farther. The greatest things we do begin with dreams like that. We are lucky to have those people who live life to the max. They give integrity and gravity to our dreams. They show that the wildest dreams can be lived, that they have wonderful power—and that they also have consequences.
This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2007 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.
