The only time Australian Sandy Robson thought she was lost, was when a friend in Greece played a trick on her.
“When I reached Naxos, he said welcome to Paros, which is a nearby island. Momentarily, the trick worked and I thought I was in the wrong place,” recalls the adventurer, who has set out on a free spirited solitary kayaking expedition from Germany to Australia, which she hopes to complete by 2016.
Sandy, who recently completed paddling along the western coast of India from the Gulf of Kutch to Vedaranyam, ended one leg of the journey which is a little short of the 50,000 km travelled by the man who inspired her odyssey — Oskar Speck.
“I started in May 2011, from Ulm in Germany, on the anniversary of the launch of Speck’s journey. I went up to Cyprus, but had trouble getting permission to paddle across the Middle East. I decided to go back home and work on the next leg of the journey,” says Sandy.
The route has already taken her to Vardar, Greece, and Turkey, among several other places.
Armed with a folding kayak which can be turned into a backpack, and essentials such as a GPS, a compass, a marine chart and Nutella, the Kayak instructor and tour guide paddled “all day from dawn to dusk covering 40 km a day”.
But Tamil Nadu waters have been harder to chart, she notes. “There were hard winds and I could not travel over 15 km a day,” she says. From paddling along with 50 dolphins to getting to see 21 isolated coral islands, Sandy, who has been through unique experiences, says she chose to go on this challenging expedition simply because “it is much more interesting than going to work all day”.
After a short hiatus which she will spend doing research and finding sponsors, she hopes to resume her journey along Adam’s Bridge and around Sri Lanka.
“There are not really many women in the sea. When I came near the coast, curious fishermen spoke in gestures, and enquired about who I was and where my husband was,” she says laughing.
When asked what she wants to do after the expedition draws to a close, Sandy says, “I’ll have some new dreams by then.”
