Epic marathon paddle in California

evmo

Interesting story from our close cousin-sport: marathon paddleboarding. Guy embarks on self-supported paddle from Santa Cruz, CA to Point Conception (north of Santa Barbara) to raise awareness of hydro-fracking.

http://espn.go.com/action/surfing/story/_/id/8250963/chadd-konig-paddle-250-miles-raise-awareness-hydraulic-fracturing

AquaRob

do you know if he has a website for all this? I'd be stoked to see him cruise through my neighborhood.

Also in my futile googling it says he's from Gaviota? People live in Gaviota? I didn't realize there was an actual town there...

evmo

An item in a Santa Cruz newspaper pointed here, but it doesn't look like they have a dedicated web presence.

And yeah... I don't think anyone is really "from Gaviota"... unless they're a rancher or perhaps an oil company employee. Wikipedia says there's 35 residents, and I'm guessing he's not one of them. Other info seems to indicate he lives in Montecito.

My guess is that when he says he's "from Gaviota," what he means is, "I like to surf in Gaviota."

timsroot

I don't get it. I mean, I'm impressed by the feat, but does anyone think that doing something like this raises awareness of anything other than, in this case, paddle boarding?

I know we all like to knock Nyad, I am as guilty as anyone, but she IS actually raising awareness of the fact that older women can still be active and participate in endurance sports, even if we don't like the way she's going about it. But if she were to give some bullshit reason like raising awareness of African hunger, or something in no way tied to her swim, that strikes me as bullshit.

If you want to raise money with your swim/paddle/bike ride/whatever, that's great. If you just want to do it to say you've done it, don't try to sell me on some bullshit that you are trying to raise awareness of the drought or something. You need a big stage before you do something like this. Richard Branson might be able to pull something like that off. Some unheard of pro surfer from California, while an impressive athlete, doesn't have the public profile to increase anyone's awareness of anything.

Walter

"In 2009, Konig and friend Nole Cossart paddled roughly 300 miles from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border to raise awareness about coastal development in Southern California."

I am like so totally aware of coastal development in Southern California thanks to this guy. And when I think of all those poor ignorant surfers who might never have noticed the construction equipment and buildings on the shore in front of them had they not read three years ago (between Reef butts in Surfer magazine) about Konig's epic paddle, I can't help thinking what a fully righteous bro that Konig is. Respect!

evmo

Walter wrote:

I am like so totally aware of coastal development in Southern California thanks to this guy.

I'm not sure the cynicism is warranted here. The potential "coastal development" in question is part of the longest stretch of undeveloped coastline in Southern California (near Gaviota).

http://www.savenaples.org

To the extent that people like us, who think a self-supported paddle from Santa Cruz to Santa Barbara is kind of cool, read about him and his exploits, he "raises awareness" of his issue-of-choice.

timsroot

evmo wrote:

To the extent that people like us, who think a self-supported paddle from Santa Cruz to Santa Barbara is kind of cool, read about him and his exploits, he "raises awareness" of his issue-of-choice.

I understand where you are coming from, except that this paddle is supposed to be raising awareness about Hydraulic Fracturing, more commonly known as Fracking, which is apparently going on in California (along with a lot of other places, it's why natural gas is so cheap now). Which means that his message for this paddle has already missed its own point.

I'm not knocking the guy for paddling 300 miles, I think that part is pretty cool. If he was using it as a fundraiser for a cause that he feels is noble, I'm cool with that, too. But I think that to do something just to "raise awareness" is a cheap excuse, because it's rarely effective, unless, like I mentioned in my previous post, you already have a big enough spotlight on you that people will actually consider listening to you.