We just spoke with adventurer John Peaveler all the way from Iceland via satellite phone. John was calling from his tent after he had paddled out of the open sea into a more protected fjord where he found a good camping site to wait out a storm and spend the night. After setting up camp, John took a few minutes to fill us in on his epic kayak trip around Iceland .
As you may remember, on June 1, John launched a 1,100 mile kayak around the coast of Iceland to raise awareness for Humane Farm Animal Care (HFAC) and the plight of farm animals around the world. No stranger to animal welfare, John is Managing Director for the Kuwait Society for the Protection of Animals and Their Habitat (K’S PATH). John believes deeply in goals of the Certified Humane Raised and Handled® program and chose HFAC as the inaugural charity to be recognized in his “Kayaking for a Cause” expeditions. In the future he hopes to attempt more international trips that focus on a variety of important causes.
John has been on the trip for now 15 days and has paddled about eight of them. “The weather has been really challenging,” he said. “Rain and lots of wind, wind that makes it very difficult to be in the water.” A good day, with decent weather, will have him paddling about 13 hours with rest break in between. “The rest breaks take place in the kayak, or is we can get it to shore, there, as the kayak is such a tightly, efficiently laid out boat, there isn’t much room to stretch out. At night I camp on the shoreline, or if I’m lucky, find a local inn or hotel.”
The summer temperatures in Iceland are not what one would call hot. In fact, the temperatures average 50 degrees a day. But John has been experiencing highs of only 40 degrees with rain, wind and dense fog. He wears a dry suit in the kayak which does a good job protecting him from the elements.
John’s current position has him on the northwest side of the country. An upcoming challenge is a large land mass that looks like a horn jutting west off the coast of the country. The sea around this horn crashes into large cliffs making the ocean very challenging to navigate. Even more so with bad weather. “Local guides who have been paddling these waters all their lives and who are experts have told me they wouldn’t try to go around it in these situations, so I’m taking a rest day today and hope that conditions improve. If they wouldn’t attempt it, neither would I,” he said. “Once I get on the other side of the country, conditions should make the paddling a bit easier.”
His longest day so far has had him covering over 26 miles, with a typical day, in good conditions, averaging about 15 miles. Some days he paddles very close to the coast line, while others he is a mile out. Still other times the ocean features require he is a whopping 3 or 4 miles from the shore. That’s a lot of hard work in open seas.
John reports that Iceland is beautiful and he has run into a lot of sheep and an amazing variety of birds!
Out of curiosity we asked if he is anywhere near the pesky erupting volcano that has caused such havoc around the world the past few months. “Way on the other side of the country,” he said. “I’m nowhere near it.” Good to know!
Follow John’s incredible trip on our website www.certifiedhumane.org
Posted: June 22, 2010 by Certified Humane
An update on John’s adventures
We just spoke with adventurer John Peaveler all the way from Iceland via satellite phone. John was calling from his tent after he had paddled out of the open sea into a more protected fjord where he found a good camping site to wait out a storm and spend the night. After setting up camp, John took a few minutes to fill us in on his epic kayak trip around Iceland .
As you may remember, on June 1, John launched a 1,100 mile kayak around the coast of Iceland to raise awareness for Humane Farm Animal Care (HFAC) and the plight of farm animals around the world. No stranger to animal welfare, John is Managing Director for the Kuwait Society for the Protection of Animals and Their Habitat (K’S PATH). John believes deeply in goals of the Certified Humane Raised and Handled® program and chose HFAC as the inaugural charity to be recognized in his “Kayaking for a Cause” expeditions. In the future he hopes to attempt more international trips that focus on a variety of important causes.
John has been on the trip for now 15 days and has paddled about eight of them. “The weather has been really challenging,” he said. “Rain and lots of wind, wind that makes it very difficult to be in the water.” A good day, with decent weather, will have him paddling about 13 hours with rest break in between. “The rest breaks take place in the kayak, or is we can get it to shore, there, as the kayak is such a tightly, efficiently laid out boat, there isn’t much room to stretch out. At night I camp on the shoreline, or if I’m lucky, find a local inn or hotel.”
The summer temperatures in Iceland are not what one would call hot. In fact, the temperatures average 50 degrees a day. But John has been experiencing highs of only 40 degrees with rain, wind and dense fog. He wears a dry suit in the kayak which does a good job protecting him from the elements.
John’s current position has him on the northwest side of the country. An upcoming challenge is a large land mass that looks like a horn jutting west off the coast of the country. The sea around this horn crashes into large cliffs making the ocean very challenging to navigate. Even more so with bad weather. “Local guides who have been paddling these waters all their lives and who are experts have told me they wouldn’t try to go around it in these situations, so I’m taking a rest day today and hope that conditions improve. If they wouldn’t attempt it, neither would I,” he said. “Once I get on the other side of the country, conditions should make the paddling a bit easier.”
His longest day so far has had him covering over 26 miles, with a typical day, in good conditions, averaging about 15 miles. Some days he paddles very close to the coast line, while others he is a mile out. Still other times the ocean features require he is a whopping 3 or 4 miles from the shore. That’s a lot of hard work in open seas.
John reports that Iceland is beautiful and he has run into a lot of sheep and an amazing variety of birds!
Out of curiosity we asked if he is anywhere near the pesky erupting volcano that has caused such havoc around the world the past few months. “Way on the other side of the country,” he said. “I’m nowhere near it.” Good to know!
Follow John’s incredible trip on our website www.certifiedhumane.org
Posted: April 11, 2010 by Certified Humane
Welcome to our new Website!
For those of you who don’t know who I am, let me introduce myself. My name is Adele Douglass and I am the founder and executive director of Humane Farm Animal Care and creator of the Certified Humane® program.
Welcome to our new website!
We developed this new website in response to feedback from all of you who have let us know what you wanted. I hope these new features will make it easier to find the information you need.
Our home page is designed to be more “user friendly.” There are sub-menus so you can more easily find what you are looking for. You can put your mouse over a photo, or across the top bar and it will list what categories are there.
The newest feature on our website is our interactive searchable data base. For those of you who want to find Certified Humane® products, just type in your zip code, or city and a list of places to buy them will come up along with a listing of what Certified Humane® products are sold in those stores. It will make it easier for you to purchase certified products and let these retailers know that you support farming that is done right! If there are not enough products that you want, go to our “Take Action” page and print off a request to take with you to your local market asking your grocery manager to stock more products that are Certified Humane®. If there are no stores in your area, check the “purchase online” section in the “Where to Buy” section. Many small farmers sell online all over the US. Check those farms out and help them and help yourselves, too.
We have informaton about the program for producers, and for consumers. Our standards and fact sheets are easier to find and available for download If you want to: take action for animals,: we have material you can download right now to do that. Our survey is still here, so if you haven’t taken our survey, please do, it gives us good information about what you want, how you found us and what the demographics are of people who care about humane foods.
And for the press we have an electronic press kit that is under the news section to make it easier for you to get the background information you need in one place.
This blog will be frequently be updated and will be used to discuss issues,and as a platform to make our consumers aware of issues they should know about.
The program has grown and couldn’t have grown without the help of all of you. We rely on your input, and your support,so please let me know what you think of our new website. And as always, if you have questions about the program, the standards or the organization, please continue to email me at info@certifiedhumane.org
Adele