Paul Caffyn

Paul Caffyn, as a sea kayaker is in a league of his own.

Paul Caffyn’s Australian circumnavigation is regarded as one of the great solo small-boat expeditions of recent history. This and three other other pioneering adventures have been recounted in four popular books.

“Amongst sea kayakers, Paul Caffyn is almost in a class of his own. For the longest time after he finished his awesome solo circumnavigation of Australia, the silence was deafening: few of his peers knew the significance of what he had done, and perhaps those who understood felt lost in his shadow. Not only is Paul’s Australian adventure a pinnacle for sea kayaking, it should eventually be recognized as one of the great small voyages of recent history along with those of Slocum, Shackleton and Franz Romer”.

-John Dowd, author of Sea Kayaking.

While beginning to paddle at a young age on the Brisbane River, it wasn’t until age 31 that Caffyn took up serious sea kayaking expeditions. In the 30 years that followed, he notched up over 35,000 miles in his single Greenland-style Nordkapp kayaks.

Paul Caffyn's achievements include the first kayak circumnavigation of Great Britain in 1980 with English paddler, Nigel Dennis; the first solo kayak circumnavigation of Japan in 1985, a first solo kayak trip along the entire coastline of Alaska in three summers completed in 1991, and the first trip completed by Westerners in single kayaks of a section of East Greenland during 2008 with fellow New Zealand kayaker Conrad Edwards.

When not sea kayaking, Paul Caffyn currently lives on the edge of the Tasman Sea on New Zealand's dramatic West Coast. After having worked as a coal exploration and mining geologist, a job which took him deep underground in the local coal mines, Paul now continues to focus on his continuing expeditions, on New Zealand paddlecraft water safety and writing and producing national kayaking magazine New Zealand Sea Kayaker.