Added to an impressive legend of mountaineering and speleological conquests, the list of Paul Caffyn’s kayaking achievements is barely plausible. It includes circumnavigations of Australia (1981—360 days solo), the four main islands of Japan (1985—112 days solo), the entire coastline of Alaska from Prince Rupert in British Columbia to Inuvik in the Northwest Territories (1991—over three summers, solo), a circumnavigation of New Caledonia (1997—with Wellington paddler, Conrad Edwards), a 690-mile trip along the southwest coast of Greenland from Kangerslussuaq to Upernarvik (1998—with Conrad Edwards), 700 miles along the west coast of Greenland from Kangamiut to Upernarvik (1999—with Conrad Edwards), 610 miles from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to and around the island of Phuket (2001/2—with Conrad Edwards) and the East Greenland Coast from Isortoq to Lake Fjord (2007).

Caffyn has flyaway hair, a drooping moustache and stands around 5’10”. He is broad-shouldered and sturdily built. Opening the door of his dark blue Subaru Outback for me, he cracks a joke in a still recognizable Australian accent, his grin suggestive of nervousness.

He lives in a green bach (seaside cottage) perched atop a cliff at Twelve Mile, 12 miles north of Greymouth on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island. On the way there we stop at several places to look at the surf and assess landing conditions. He’d been monitoring German paddler Freya Hoffmeister’s progress on her solo circumnavigation of the South Island and she was due in the following days.

At Twelve Mile, a panel van with plastic kayaks fixed to its roof was parked alongside the bach. The visitors were Barbro (Babs) Lindman and James Venimore arrived to glean advice for Babs’ solo circumnavigation. Paul’s home has become something of a mecca for long-distance paddlers.

Inside the bach, which faces the crashing West Coast surf, conversation ripples around the pros and cons of kayak styles, construction materials and whether a skeg, rudder, or neither is of value.

Off the main room through ranch sliders, which are mostly kept shut to mitigate the salt air and dissuade clouds of ravenous sand flies, a low deck protrudes onto the small lawn. Small because the sea ate 16 to 20 feet of the cliff upon which the bach stands. To retain what land remains and to protect the bach from waves breaking over it, Paul was obliged to buttress the entire cliff face whose edge stands 20 feet above the sand. In 1985 when money was thin, he began by himself to encase the cliff in a mix of cement with sand, gravel and rocks off the beach. In the early days the tide often took back bits of his work but as he became more proficient, he began to add heavy steel to reinforce the concrete and use additives to make the cement set faster. Now concrete steps, sufficiently wide to just accommodate an average person, totter to a rocky outcrop at the bottom. To one side at the top of the steps is a six-foot-deep freshwater plunge pool, while on the other side a pinched space barely accommodates a daring toehold for the helicopter that picked Paul up when he worked as a field geologist.

From the deck looking north, I can see 14 and 17 Mile points where the Paparoa Range plunges precipitously to shore, valleys clasping the wisps of cloud that define them.

Paul was born in Sydney on December 21, 1946. By the time he was three his family moved to Brisbane. Attend-ing Queensland University, he earned a B.Sc. in geology and botany, plus an M.Sc.(Qualifying) in geology, but not before a study period considerably elongated by other activities. The break carved in the then-impressionable psyche a taste for wider and wilder pursuits. These included kayaking, caving and rock climbing. Members of the university caving and bush-walking clubs took turns having masked wine-tastings for 12 to 14 people in their homes. Everyone brought a plate of food and the host chose the music to accompany the sampling from brown-paper-bagged bottles of wine. Tasters had to determine which grape, which wine and which country the sample came from, sometimes via multiple choice. It was through these evenings that Paul was exposed to classical music and opera and for the first time heard Carmina Burana, Mahler’s symphonies and “all the best music.” Today he says, “It took the blinkers off.”

In 1966 Paul traveled to New Zealand for an Alpine Guides course at Mt. Cook, and though he went back to Australia, the experience meant he was lost forever to the country of his birth. He moved to Barrytown on the West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island in 1970 to work as a field exploration geologist.

In 1971 he led a 30-strong, helicopter-supported, international speleological mapping expedition to the marble massif of Mt. Arthur, New Zealand. Always looking for the deepest hole on earth, he joined a similar expedition in 1973 into the Muller Range of the Western Highlands in New Guinea. That year he was president of the Western Australia Speleological Group.

During this period Paul moved between Australia and New Zealand. After a two-year sojourn as a geologist in Western Australia, Paul returned permanently to New Zealand at the end of 1973. In 1975 he studied for a Diploma in Teaching at Christchurch Teachers College, choosing to do the teacher experience components at outdoor lodges.

By 1976 he was teaching music and outdoor education at Greymouth High School.

Paul was one of seven members of the Black Velvet Band, which played at pubs in Greymouth, at workingmen’s clubs and at barn dances (where he often called the dances for up to 150 people) put on by the New Zealand Speleological Society. He was a competent fiddler, mandolinist and blues and autoharpist, though not highly skilled he says. “We played soft rock mainly but we’d also do an Irish bracket late at the workingmen’s clubs.By then the men had drunk enough to lose their inhibitions and the women were all keen to dance. It was a hoot.”

Paul took up sea kayaking in late 1977 after an especially cold mid-winter paddle through the rapids of Gentle Annie Gorge on the Upper Grey River with Max Reynolds and Shaun Leyland. After dragging their kayaks from the river and while shivering next to their waiting cars, someone mentioned having recently seen a Nordkapp kayak on top of a car in Greymouth. The Nordkapp was designed for sea kayaking, had a deck-mounted bilge pump and airtight compartments for storing gear. The discussion led to the idea of a sea kayaking expedition around Fiordland and eventually in 1978, despite no real sea kayaking experience, Paul and Max applied their expedition skills from caving, mountaineering and whitewater paddling to the Fiordland adventure starting at Te Waewae Bay. After three weeks of huge seas, offshore capsizes and grim landings they paddled into Jackson Bay, both adamant that their next paddling trip would be across the Sahara desert, as far away from the sea as possible. Jobless for the summer and unable to settle, Paul was drawn back to Jackson Bay from whence he paddled solo to complete the first sea kayak circumnavigation of the South Island. That trip was the beginning of a passion for a style of adventuring that required not only detailed planning and fitness, but also a comprehensive understanding of weather and sea conditions.

In the lull between visitors, Paul scrambles to get some work done. Work these years includes editing the KASK (Kiwi Association of Sea Kayakers) 24-page bimonthly newsletter; attendance at sea kayak-related death inquests—in December, one for the trans-Tasman paddler Andrew McAuley and a second for a woman who drowned on Lake Rotorua in winter; liaison with government maritime agencies; maintenance of an incident database; editing and updating the 200-page Kayak Handbook; writing and publishing his own books through Kayak Dundee Press, and while I was there, fielding interminable media calls for various publications and networks regarding the two women circumnavigating the South Island solo in kayaks at the end of December 2007. A third woman paddler, Justine Curgenven from Wales, began a South Island circumnavigation with Barrie Shaw at the end of January.

After taking a beach walk, I return a couple hours later to the bach, which is now filled with the sound of a soaring aria. To catch up with work, I sit at the wooden table, its scratched and heat-stained top with the veneer beginning to peel disguised by a fluffy blue floral-patterned sheet, cut and sewn to resemble a tablecloth. In the main room of the bach, two walls are lined with books and CDs, including a shelf to accommodate yet more books inset over the doorway to the library. On the top shelf are a number of tomes on opera. At this time, Paul is putting together the material to run a night school course in opera appreciation at Greymouth High School.

Seated on an ergonomically designed stool, one leg un-ergonomically folded up onto the stool, Paul gazes intently at his computer screen, occasionally tapping keys while opera fills the sun-warmed bach. In accord, we work for a couple hours before attending an exhibition opening of paintings at the Left Bank Gallery in Greymouth. Paul wears a smart maroon shirt and black pants but his brown cowboy boots and socks are in the back seat. He pulls them on to go into the gallery.

After the exhibition opening, Paul takes his boots off again and we drive south to Hokitika, half an hour distant, to meet Freya, who has made it in through the surf. We search for her in the dark. She has pitched her orange tent on a small sandspit and the black kayak is drawn up nearby. Paul has brought tools to make repairs to the kayak and he delivers a spare paddle, replacing one lost in a mishap with surf. After plans are confirmed for Freya’s arrival off the Grey River bar the following day, we head back to a post-exhibition opening party.

On December 22 at 2:30 p.m., Freya crosses the treacherous Grey River bar. When I return early evening to the bach, more kayakers have arrived: Gordon and Morag Brown with their two youngsters, Eileigh and Ian. Gordon runs a sea kayak training school based on the Isle of Skye. Because Morag and Gordon have arrived, local friends of theirs also turn up and a lively barbecue party gets under way.

We all take dips in the diminutive swimming pool. Paul’s fun side comes out to play and bad puns start flying. Paul brings out plastic Viking helmets and swords along with a blonde wig with plaits curled round the ears.

A recluse most of the time, Paul is good-natured and an accommodating host, though I catch him when the clamor for his attention becomes too much and baring his teeth is his best approximation of a smile. The expression tells of another Paul who is keenly aware of his position in the adventuring world and his need for occasional diplomacy.

Using the WC is something of an adventure with so many people around. It’s situated, freestanding, in the garage and has a bright orange seat and lid. The car is backed in just short of it, providing some camouflage. You can peek from the doorway through the car windows to see if it’s in use without actually invading privacy. In this toilet-garage with its translucent, corrugated plastic roof are tools, ropes, adventuring paraphernalia and five suspended kayaks (the one to be used for Greenland having already been shipped). A two-foot-high double stack of National Geographics is shelved close to the toilet. Bottles of wine protrude from a couple of corners.

Off the main room in which Paul usually works is a library and three walls that also are lined floor to ceiling with books dedicated to kayaking, adventuring, and the natural world. Another small desk, second Mac computer and phone/fax are housed in here. Photographs and works of art adorn every space throughout the bach not taken up by books. In the sleeping area a wooden dresser stands laden with more books. From a beam near the library a small bar dangles West Coast greenstone (pounamu) pendants carved by a neighbor along with ivory carvings from Caffyn’s Arctic trips. The carvings hang hand-spaces apart to allow for exercise: chin-ups. Farther along hang a couple of Tilley kerosene camping lamps and a squid light, used by fishing boats to attract squid to the surface at night.

In June 2008, Paul and Edwards traveled to Angmagssalik region of East Greenland to paddle south from Isortoq, along the southeast coast of Greenland to Kap Farvel (Cape Farewell) and then up to Narsarssuaq airport. They used specially constructed two-piece Kevlar kayaks whose bow sections have been built to withstand bashing through brash-ice. This is an exposed and unforgiving coastline devoid of villages. They expect to take between six and eight weeks for the thousand-mile trip.

Paul is regarded worldwide as the guru of sea kayaking and is perhaps better known overseas than in New Zealand. Books on his kayaking adventures are a prime read both for the armchair adventurer and for those wanting to follow the same routes, since they impart accurate information about the coastlines involved. While mainly about the experience of kayaking, they include much about the land and ethnohistory of each place he visits. Paul currently is writing his fifth book about his Alaska expeditions. The earlier four are Obscured by Waves— South Island Canoe Odyssey (1979 and 2005), Dark Side of the Wave (1986), Cresting the Restless Wave (1987) and The Dreamtime Voyage (1994). Paul also is the founding president of KASK, is still on the committee and is editor of the KASK handbook, A Manual For Sea Kayaking in New Zealand.

At 61, Paul still sees adventuring as a big part of his psyche and I’m astonished by his flexibility. His fingers bend backward at a phenomenal angle, something he works at to combat the stiffness caused by the curled position his hands must maintain for hours on end around a kayak paddle. During the summer, Paul’s paddling fitness training is achieved on a wave ski, which Paul claims prepares him both physically and psychologically for breaking out and landing through big surf, tuning and refining his bracing and rolling skills. He also bikes 11-12 steep miles most days, winter and summer. “I’m no great athlete,” he says. “I have only modest ability, but better-than-average motivation.”

Paul’s first Nordkapp kayak was built in 1977 specifically for the Fiordland trip by Nelson kayak builder Grahame Sisson. It went on to also circumnavigate the South, North and Stewart Islands. That craft, named Isadora after the famous innovative dancer, Isadora Duncan, is housed at the National Maritime Museum in Auckland. On Dec. 1, 2007, Paul took Lalaguli (Aboriginal for water nymph), which was used for the 1982 Australian circumnavigation, on a final paddle into Queenscliff Beach to mark the 25th anniversary of his completion of that epic trip. Following Paul’s unveiling of an anniversary plaque, Lalaguli was carried by four Victorian Sea Kayak Club paddlers in a procession led by a bagpiper to the Queenscliff Maritime Museum where she is now on permanent display.

Today Paul says, “The trouble with being addicted to sea kayaking is that the immediate period following the conclusion of a successful trip is not one of elation and satisfaction, as you might expect, but is more akin to post-partum depression. Once that elusive goal has been attained, there is nothing really to strive for. I find the best way to cope with post-trip blues is to pull out the world atlas and begin planning another outrageous adventure.”

Theresa Sjöquist is a freelance writer living in Whangarei in northern New Zealand. She has published feature articles for 22 years, mainly in the art, boating and human interest arenas.