WHERE ARE THEY NOW -- Karen Richardson from DeLand -- press clips

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http://www.middletownpress.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=6099553&BRD=1645&PAG=461&dept_id=10856&rfi=6

Karen won the gold at Nationals for 10-way Speed on team XTZ from Skydive Deland.

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Florida kayaker paddles way up Conn. River bound for N.H.

By MATTHEW HIGBEE, Middletown Press Staff November 18, 2002

MIDDLEFIELD -- On a raw New England day, 48-year-old "Krazy Kayak Karen" Richardson was taking a day off from her 1,800-mile solo paddle from southern Florida to Nashua, N.H. She was staying at the home of her new-found friend and fellow "yaker," Kate Powers and had just finished addressing a half-dozen letters to people she’d met along the Atlantic seaboard.
Powell and other members of the kayaking club, "Connyak-ers," picked Richardson up in East Haddam on Friday, just before the nor’easter blew in. They’re just a few of the "angels" that have helped Richardson during her journey.

"I’ve stayed at 30 homes of strangers, 25 yachts, and five hotels gratis," said the Floridian, who intends to chronicle her adventure in a book entitled, "Angels Along the Waterways," when it’s all done.

Now on day 178, Richardson has received five marriage proposals, narrowly avoided being plowed into by a commercial tanker while crossing a shipping lane, been chased by military police twice after paddling too close to nuclear power plants, surfed 20-foot swells in 30-knot winds on the open sea, and bore witness to an attempted murder.

The reason she took up kayaking? She’d reached the pinnacle of her previous avocation -- skydiving.

"I won a gold at U.S. Nationals. I needed to get into something more peaceful than airports," she said. "I’m kind of the oddball in my family."

Five years ago, she took her first long distance trip, a 1,600 mile circumnavigation of Florida. She wrote up that experience into a book entitled, "Trial by Water," due out in six months.

She’s also the mother of a 27-year-old daughter who lives in California.

"She’s not thrilled about these trips," she said.

Richardson’s current voyage began on May 24. She set out along the intercoastal waterway from New Smyrna Beach, Fla., 20 miles south of Daytona. Carrying 100 pounds of gear, including a tent and cook-stove, in her slender two-foot-wide, 17-foot-long sea kayak, Richardson set her sights on Nashua, where she graduated from high school 30 years ago. The reunion would have been on Oct. 19. She didn’t make it using her preferred method of transportation.

"I got to New York City and I was a mess. My skin was peeling, my lip was split, and my hair was falling out from the salt water. I left my boat there and drove up. There were so many weather holds, I couldn’t do it in time," she said.

Her achievement was nevertheless recognized at the reunion.

"I was called up on stage and they crowned me with a tiara. They said when I do arrive in the kayak, they’ll be putting together a flotilla of champagne. I said if you bring that, you’d better bring a tow rope, too," she said.

Richardson is a natural at meeting new people. Whenever she pulls into a marina, she asks the dock captain if she can camp on the premises.

"Nine times out of 10 people overhear me and offer me a place to stay," she said.

Sometimes, when the weather turns on her or when she’s having too much fun with her host to leave, the overnight stay turns into a few days’ sojourn. In true mermaid fashion, she’s broken a few hearts along the way.

"They fall in love with what I’m doing, not who I am. I never stay long enough for them to really get to know me. I’ve had a couple of river romances and keep in contact with them," she said, pointing to the envelopes. "Several have followed me by car or motorboat. One guy drove 60 miles up to take me out to dinner the next night. Another guy drove 150 miles one way to see me again," she said.

Richardson pulled out a blue Motorola Walkabout, the wireless mini-computer she uses for two-way messaging while out on the water. A guy she’d met in South Carolina mailed it to her after he’d found out that her cell phone had taken a swim.

South Carolina was also the place where Richardson was called on to be an angel.

It was midnight and she was camping near a boat launch in front of a juke joint on an island that was only accessible by boat.

"When the bar closed, I saw this couple, stumbling drunk, come out and take off in a motor boat. Then I heard the motor cut out and heard this beating and screaming going on. Then I heard a ‘kerplunk’ in the water and the boat took off. This girl was yelling, ‘Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me! I’m drowning!’"

Richardson jumped out of her tent, launched her kayak, and started paddling.

"I said, ‘Keep yelling, I’ll find you!’ I found her just before she was about to go down and grabbed her by the hair. She was naked and had a black eye. The guy had beaten her up and thrown her overboard," she said.

Once they reached the pier, the woman jumped out of the boat and hugged one of the barnacle-coated wooden pillars.

"They shredded her pretty good," said Richardson. Richardson called the police and tended to the woman’s wounds with her first-aid kit. Because of the low tide, the police had to launch their boat eight miles away and didn’t show up until four hours later.

Now that Richardson is paddling up the Connecticut River, she hopes her harrowing experiences are behind her. She’d originally intended to travel the whole way up the Atlantic Coast, but the Army Corps of Engineers denied her passage through the Cape Cod Canal.

Then, after a kayaker was lost in the Long Island Sound near Branford, earlier this month, Richardson’s mind was made up. She’d leave the open ocean for the protected Connecticut River Valley.

"Not only is it beautiful, but it’s safer," she said.

Tomorrow night, weather permitting, the Connyakers will see Richardson off, paddling with her a few miles northward. If the clouds clear, the heavens will light her way with the stars of the Leonids meteor shower falling from the sky.

To contact Matthew Higbee, call (860) 347-3331 ext. 223, or email [email protected]

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