Tales from an African Paddler

Hi, my name is Brent Wibberley. I am an adventure kayaker, currently living in New York.

 

I'm a Zimbabwean who has been fortunate to find a perfect match for my thirst for exploring and unhappy rugby knees, adventure kayaking!  What started as a hobby, turned into pioneering some makeshift tours, typically in the most unlikely kayak gear. It didn't take long to find others with a similar passion and very quickly these tours took on new dimensions.

 

I was one of a four-person kayak team to do the first attempted paddle along the length of the very remote and wild Lake Tanganyika – the world's longest lake. I wrote about this adventure in the book 'In Search of the Strange'. I've been airdropped with a buddy to make the first navigation of the source of the Blackwater River in Canada, and together with fellow adventurer, Nick Haan, paddled the widest lake in the world, Lake Victoria; later the two of us would kayak the length of Lake Turkana, the largest desert lake in the world, otherwise known as the Jade Sea; then pit ourselves against "The Lake of Storms", Lake Malawi. Back in the experimental days a few 'varsity friends and I paddled the length of one of the world's wildest lakes, Lake Kariba and much later I spent several years running my own kayak expedition company, chartering the complex web of mangrove channels and coral islands that make up the 250km2 Kiunga Marine Reserve on Kenya's coastal border with Somalia. 

 

I have trained in sea kayaking in South Africa and Canada, am an honorary member of RECSKA of South Africa and am ORCA certified from Canada. I also trained at the renowned Royal Geographic Expeditionary Advisory Centre in London. Frankly, I don't attribute these to much more than networking events. The truth is I'm self taught, bad habits and all, with the necessary determination and buddy support that allowed me to try again after multiple set backs and embarrassing tumbles.