My name is Liz Weil, and I want to share with you a story I penned a couple of years ago, a piece that holds a special place in my heart from my 25 years as a journalist. It’s a profile of Aleksander Doba, a remarkable Polish man who, at the time of writing, was 71 years young and had already kayaked across the Atlantic Ocean not once, not twice, but three times, all by himself.
Lately, Aleksander has been on my mind quite a bit. He struck me as a kind of sage, a master navigator of the existential currents of life. He wasn’t under any illusion that life is a perpetual joyride, but he possessed this incredible ability to reframe his mindset, to embrace the hardships, and to find meaning in what many of us might perceive as meaningless – the sheer insignificance of being a tiny speck in the vast universe. He chose to paddle directly into that immensity, making himself the smallest speck in the grandest expanse imaginable, alone in his kayak in the middle of the Atlantic.
So, here is his story, “Alone at Sea,” narrated by January LaVoy, a testament to The Daily How of confronting life’s vastness.
january lavoyWhen Aleksander Doba arrived by kayak at the port of Le Conquet, France, on September 3, 2017, he marked the completion of his third – and by far most perilous – solo trans-Atlantic kayak expedition. Just days shy of his 71st birthday, and somewhat unfamiliar with wearing trousers after months at sea, he had spent 110 days in solitude since last touching land at Barnegat Bay, New Jersey, in May. The journey almost concluded five days prior, within sight of the British coastline. However, Doba, true to his word when departing New Jersey, had vowed to kayak not merely to Europe, but to the European continent itself. He persevered for nearly another week in his meter-wide vessel, enduring colossal waves, within the confines of his coffin-like cabin where sleep rarely exceeded three hours at a time. He pushed the limits of his loved ones’ patience for the sake of profound solitude, embracing vulnerability and fear. Finally, he paddled to the French shore. Ocean kayaking, especially long distances, is inherently illogical. The body’s major muscle groups are largely ineffective. “A real katorga,” Doba, a Pole, describes it – katorga being Polish for Siberian forced labor. Yet, for Doba, katorga isn’t something to avoid. He transforms what most perceive as suffering into a form of defiant self-determination, a source of existential exhilaration. His regrets are reserved for moments of succumbing to conventional reactions to hardship. Take, for example, a night in April 1989 when, paddling the Vistula River near Płock, Poland, he built a fire for tea and to dry clothes. Or the afternoon a week later on the same river when he yielded to pancakes, tomato soup, and rice at a Milk Bar, instead of campsite-prepared cold canned goulash, meant to acclimate him to arctic conditions. Doba had pledged to be tougher than such weaknesses.
The indomitable spirit of Aleksander Doba, captured during one of his incredible kayaking expeditions, showcasing the daily how of human resilience against the vast ocean.
Doba insists his Atlantic kayaking ambition wasn’t self-generated. “Hand on heart, it wasn’t my idea,” he confided during our January meeting in Poland. (Communication was via translator, as Doba’s English is limited.) “I caught a virus.” In 2003, already Poland’s most seasoned kayaker, a professor sought his advice on a Baltic Sea kayak crossing. This professor eventually swayed Doba to join him in crossing the southern Atlantic from Ghana to Brazil, each in solo kayaks, rafted nightly for sleep. The venture was a debacle, ending ashore within 42 hours. Doba returned to Police, his northwestern Polish hometown, resuming his chemical factory maintenance job, vowing never to kayak with a partner again. Subsequently, he sketched a design for a seaworthy kayak—unsinkable, self-righting, with food storage and a sleeping cabin. Sketch in hand, he approached yacht builder Andrzej Arminski in Szczecin. Arminski agreed, and by spring 2010, “Olo,” named after Doba’s nickname, was ready. He informed his wife of his next Atlantic attempt. Only one person had previously muscle-powered a kayak across the Atlantic, island-hopping from Newfoundland to Ireland. Doba aimed for a mainland-to-mainland, Senegal to Brazil, unsupported crossing. This time, success was greater, though comfort wasn’t. The weather was oppressive – humid and hot. Daytime sleep proved impossible, daytime paddling led to near sunstroke. He disregarded schedules. “I am not German—always 9 a.m. paddle,” he explained. “I am Polish. I paddle when I would like.” Salt rashes erupted, armpits and groin blistered, conjunctivitis inflamed his eyes, nails detached. Salt-saturated clothes were perpetually damp, reeking, and irritating, leading him to abandon them. Ocean kayaking is profoundly monotonous. The mental challenge outweighs the physical. Doba described the tedium as dementia-inducing: “Hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of repetitions. Brain removed from process.” At sea, without hearing aids, he joked about shouting at himself to hear his own voice, disorientation setting in. (His deafness led him to forgo his aids, deemed too fragile and unnecessary with no one to converse with.) Leg muscle maintenance via swimming was aborted due to shark presence. Flying fish assaulted him in hailstorms. “Do you know how fast they go?” he exclaimed. “This does not feel good.”
Sleepless nights, due to cabin stuffiness and waves crashing through the portal, were filled with thoughts of his wife, children, and granddaughter, his deceased parents. He found companionship in turtles, tapping their shells to ensure life, and birds, who rested on Olo, sometimes entering the cabin and refusing to leave. A satellite phone allowed texts with Arminski, his navigator, providing weather forecasts, and infrequent, costly calls to his wife. Freeze-dried porridge, soup, and entrees formed his diet, meat options prioritized, supplemented by dried fruit and plum jam, the latter running out mid-ocean. Dreams were consistently of winter paddling in Poland. He lost 45 pounds. Yet, the trip was “perfect.” Ninety-nine days from Senegal, he reached Brazil, greeted by a lone journalist and the Polish ambassador. Trans-Atlantic kayaking elicits little fanfare, a fact Doba acknowledges with clear eyes. Photos from trip ends show him ecstatic, feral, embodying untamed freedom.
In Warsaw, Martyna Wojciechowska, host of “Woman at the End of the World,” met me to illuminate Doba’s character. I was unwell, a Jewish woman with the flu, about to kayak in Poland in January – an unpromising scenario. Yet, escape was blissful. Motherhood and work had felt suffocating. Wojciechowska, over a double cappuccino, revealed five engagements but no marriage, prioritizing dreams over partnership, leaving her 8-month-old to climb Antarctic mountains, pursuing the Seven Summits, a then life-or-death ambition. Guilt and judgment were present, but “here we were, weren’t we?” At a restaurant, over pierogies and borscht, she told a joke: “The devil, a German, a Frenchman, and a Pole in a hot air balloon, plummeting. The devil orders the German to jump. He obeys. To the Frenchman, the devil suggests jumping is chic, modern. He jumps. To the Pole, the devil’s usual tactics fail. ‘Shoot,’ says the devil, ‘I know you will not jump.’ The Pole jumps.” Wojciechowska emphasized the Polish spirit: doubt us, and we’ll prove you wrong. Suffering is a prerequisite for achievement; otherwise, “sit and die.” Doba embodies this, rejecting mediocrity. “Nie chce byc malym szarym czlowiekiem,” – “I do not want to be a little gray man,” a common Polish expression, a universal motto for striving for more in our daily how of living.
Doba, born in 1946 in post-WWII, Soviet/German-ravaged, starving Poland, describes a magical youth despite national devastation mirroring family tragedy. His czarist army officer grandfather was poisoned in the Bolshevik Revolution, his grandmother exiled to Siberia, their three sons vanished. Yet, near his home, a pond, forest, mushrooms, and a glider/stork airport created a fantastical world. His resourceful father crafted him a bike from scraps. At 15, Doba cycled Poland solo.
Post-Poznan University of Technology (mechanical engineering), Doba met Gabriela Stucka on a backpacking trip. He instructed her on boiling water, amusing her. His impishness charmed her – tales of smuggling ski boots from East Germany by wearing them across the border, sporting a summer-grown beard to military training.
Kayaking began in 1980 after moving to Police for his factory job and Gabriela’s social work. A colleague’s invitation to the factory kayaking club led to weekend expeditions, kayak in tow via train and a bicycle/stroller-part wheeled contraption, sometimes with young sons Bartek and Czesiek. Gabriela meticulously documented the children’s pre-trip condition for comparison upon return. The boys eventually resisted. “Long, remote, miserable trips,” Bartek recalled. Freed from familial ballast, Doba set personal kayaking records. Pre-Iron Curtain, Baltic Sea kayaking was forbidden. Doba defied it, feigning ignorance when caught by border patrol. Post-transition, his trips escalated in extremity – Baltic Sea circumference, Norway to Arctic Circle. A storm once threw him from his kayak; he awoke ashore to his own screams, an experience he doesn’t regret, preferring adventure to a mundane death.
Aleksander and Gabriela Doba, a partnership built on understanding and acceptance, illustrating the daily how of supporting extraordinary dreams while navigating shared life.
One afternoon, Doba, by his apartment, gestured to Scots pines, joking about “great adventures” of beer-drinking there. His building, a concrete cube, seemed designed for “little gray men,” yet his apartment was warm – shoes in the hall, grandchildren’s height marks, atlases, trophies, family snow globes. His kayaking gear remained on the balcony at Gabriela’s request. Doba’s physicality was unique, a blend of ages – 71-year-old skin, 50-year-old chest, 30-year-old hands, Michelangelo-esque hair.
Gabriela joined us, setting out snacks and coffee. After 42 years, her adoration and acceptance were profound, easier now. Youthful jealousy had faded. Her accommodation of his lifestyle began in the late 80s, dropping him and his kayak en route to her mother’s for Christmas, collecting him days later. If delayed, she’d leave a “I WAS HERE” message in the dirt. Following her Christmas story, Doba recounted a politeness-tyranny anecdote – disliking mother-in-law’s duck’s blood soup but feigning enjoyment initially. To avoid repetition, he declared, “Good soup! Looks good, smells good, probably everybody likes it. But this specific soup I don’t like.” Shocking, but effective; it wasn’t served again. Gabriela, however, was unprepared for the Atlantic. She listed reasons against it, threatened divorce: “Mid-Atlantic crisis, closest land the bottom, what then?” Doba: “No crisis.” She knew stopping him was futile. She wouldn’t be a stressed Penelope. She immersed herself in her work, post-democracy Poland offering unexpected professional fulfillment, studying EU social welfare, her department growing immensely. “Bigger than the Atlantic!” Doba interjected, “Gabi’s Pacific!” Later, son Bartek visited with daughters, recalling taking his father to the airport for his last crossing. He and Gabriela had adapted, but this time felt different. “His last hug, eyes… I’d never seen him like that. I thought: He might not come back.” Doba planned his second trans-Atlantic trip days after his first return – South, Mid, North Atlantic crossings envisioned. Gabriela doubted it. The second departure, Portugal to Florida, was sudden. In mid-September 2013, gear was incomplete, finances tight – “$700 pension.” Community fundraising helped. October 3, 2013, he departed. Neither Gabriela nor Bartek saw him off. Olo, 300kg empty, weighed 700kg at departure, packed with gear including paddles, spray skirts, gloves, sunglasses, matches, knives, desalinators, flares, stove, lights, iPad, GoPro, batteries, supplements, sewing kit, chocolate, toothbrushes, sunscreen, wine, pumice stone, sandals, fishing kit, sailing harnesses. His cabin, accessed via laptop-sized portal, offered 15 inches of headroom. Relief was managed off the side.
Initially, the second expedition was smooth. Paddling naked, five daily instant coffees, freeze-dried chicken tikka masala, occasional flying fish. Satellite texts with family and Arminski provided weather updates. Then, December 19, phone silence. Three days of no signal prompted a help button press on his SPOT device. A Greek ship appeared, attempting rescue. Doba waved them off, “Me, fine. Phone, bad,” thumbs down. Ship persisted, Doba refused, adding a Polish expletive on the third attempt. They left. Forty-seven days later, phone service resumed – prepaid card issue. Help was accepted two weeks later. Ninety percent across, six weeks circling the Bermuda Triangle, rudder damaged by storms. Repair attempts failed. Texts to Arminski and Piotr Chmielinski, Amazon kayaker, led to Bermuda detour. After 143 days, ashore he could barely walk. Late March, weather worsening, finding a captain to return him to his course was difficult. Eventually, a ride was found, and he paddled into a storm. Three weeks later, Florida. Red-and-white Polish shirt, grass nap. Hero’s welcome in Police, National Geographic’s 2015 People’s Choice Adventurer of the Year award in Washington. Asked for a simple “Thank you very much” in English, Doba said, “Polacy nie gesi i swoj jezyk maja.” Polish people are not geese and have their own language.
Suffering impacts the sufferer more than their loved ones.
Everyone opposed his third, North Atlantic expedition – New Jersey to France. Planning began days after Florida return. Arminski argued against it vehemently, deeming it irresponsibly dangerous. North Atlantic kayaks capsize easily, wave energy overwhelming kayak mass. Breaking waves are “water avalanches.” “A breaking wave can do whatever it wants to a kayak.” No kayak could withstand it. “When Doba said, ‘North Atlantic,’ I said, ‘I will not participate. Absolutely no. Too dangerous. Storms every three weeks, waves capsize kayaks. How many capsizes can you survive?’” Gabriela was “a little pissed.” May 29, 2016, Doba launched from New Jersey near the Statue of Liberty. Bad weather forecast, but press and fellow kayakers were present; he felt obligated. Pre-departure video shows exhaustion, tears. Three hours’ sleep, rushed gear check. GPS failed immediately. Four days, repeated capsizes, Sandy Hook passage finally cleared. More wind and waves. Water in lockers short-circuited the desalinator. Beached, trip aborted. A year later, retry. Three days in, storm warning. Barnegat Bay landing, steak, hotel, restart. Drama-free for a while. Electric desalinator failed again, manual pumping for water. “So what?” No schedule. Paddling, katorga. Three weeks in, major storms, 55-knot winds, massive waves. Rowers strap themselves in storms to avoid injury. Kayak-sized plane turbulence in denser water. Survival key: stern perpendicular to waves, using a sea anchor parachute drag. Two-day storm hit hard, sea anchor rope broke. Without it, “I knew I would roll over many times. The kayak would break into many pieces.” Harnessed, he exited cabin, crawled across deck, tied spare anchor, threw it off. Returned, “shocked to be alive.” “No stuntman. No film. Censorship wouldn’t allow it anyway.” Post-June 16, 2017 storm, rudder pin bent severely. Failed attempts to straighten/repair. Hacksaw, carabiners, jury-rigged steering, partially functional. Chmielinski alerted Gabriela, who preferred ignorance but knew this trip was perilous. Days drifting, goulash and chocolate. “Exotic and expensive rescue methods” proposed – catamarans, helicopter rudder drops. Doba refused, citing cost and wanting unsupported crossing. Within a week, relented, freighter Baltic Light repaired rudder. Hot meal, selfies with Filipino crew. Captain wary of returning him, but Doba insisted. “I did not think I could find myself in something so downing,” he texted Chmielinski, “My attempt to get out of this terrible conflict was a ‘signal strike.’” Communications, including SPOT, went dark. Chmielinski feared despair, drifting to oblivion, unsupported record attempt ruined by accepted help. Then, SPOT and phone reactivated. Pre-France GoPro videos: “In three weeks, I’ll be 71. If I survive.”
One mild January morning, Doba, in Gore-Tex and rain boots, handed me a paddle, directed me to a kayak front, removed hearing aids, and declared, “Now I am in the silent zone,” launching us. 53rd International Winter Kayaking Congregation in river-laced central Poland – 60 middle-aged Poles kayaking, drinking, at a lodge. 40 degrees Fahrenheit, slightly disappointing for Doba; minus 18 degrees had drawn the same crowd another year. Yet, the river was magical – mossy trees, egrets, sun rays. My trip less peaceful – lingering flu, frantic texts from home. But I was a speck, feeling good. Doba steered, restless. Noon, riverbank fire, sausages, bread, croissants, vodka shots offered. A woman, noticing my cough, offered “medicine” – raspberry vodka. Next day, hearing aids back, Police, then Doba addressed my question: Why the third trip? Justification? “To go into the sea and die – problem for family, Arminski. Close to possibility line. But…” Death at sea wasn’t his biggest problem. He’d bargained with mortality. “No crisis,” to Gabriela, not naïveté, but redefined crisis as triumph opportunity. He moves toward crisis, suffering, for control, heroism. He loves Gabriela, avoids causing pain. Future Atlantic crossings? “An expedition. On the kayak. Through the ocean. So far I don’t plan.” Then, “But I do like to sail.”
This story of Aleksander Doba is more than just an adventure; it’s a powerful illustration of the daily how of living a life of purpose, resilience, and confronting our perceived limitations. It’s about how one person, facing the vastness of the ocean and the inevitable storms of life, chooses to not just endure, but to thrive, finding meaning in the challenge itself. Doba’s journey is a testament to the human spirit’s capacity to redefine suffering and crisis, turning them into opportunities for growth and self-discovery. His life’s work, kayaking across oceans, becomes a metaphor for navigating the daily currents of existence, urging us to embrace our own “katorga” and find our unique “daily how” to live fully and without fear.
