When not sea kayaking, Paul Caffyn lives on the edge of the Tasman Sea
on New Zealand's West Coast. He works as a coal exploration and mining
geologist, a job which takes him deep underground in the local coal
mines. Although Paul began canoeing at the tender age of nine on the
Brisbane River, he only took up serious sea kayaking in 1977. In the
following 15 years he has notched up over 35,000 miles in his single
Eskimo style kayaks. His Australian trip is regarded as one of the great
small boat voyages of recent history.

Paul's first sea kayak expedition was around Fiordland with co-paddler
Max Reynolds. From Jacksons Bay, Paul carried on solo to complete the
first kayak circumnavigation of the South Island. This trip was the
subject of Paul's first book Obscured by Waves. In 1979 Paul kayaked
1700 miles around the North Island, another first, and completed the
trip with a Cook Strait crossing. This trip was the subject of a second
book Cresting the Restless Waves. In August 1979, Paul teamed up with
Max Reynolds again to cross Foveaux Strait and complete a tough kayak
circumnavigation of Stewart Island. Dark Side of the Wave completed
Paul's New Zealand trilogy of his kayak travels around New Zealand.

In 1980 Paul teamed up with an English paddler, Nigel Dennis, to
complete the first kayak circumnavigation of Great Britain.  This 2,200
mile trip took 85 days.

In December 1981, Paul set out from Queenscliff near Melbourne and spent
the next 360 days achieving the first kayak circumnavigation of
Australia. This 9,420 mile paddle is acknowledged as one of the most
remarkable journeys ever undertaken by kayak. Paul had to contend with a
tropical cyclone which nearly swept him off a small offshore islet in
the Coral Sea, raging surf, tiger sharks which frequently bumped into
the kayak in the Gulf of Carpentaria, crocodiles, sea snakes and three
sections of sheer limestone cliffs. To overcome the three 100+mile plus
long sections of cliffs, Paul used Nodoz tablets to stay awake and
lomotil to keep his bowels dormant during these overnight paddles. The
longest stint along the awesome Zuytdorp Cliffs in Western Australia,
took 34 hours of continuous paddling. After 10 years of trying to
interest a publisher in a book about the Australian trip, in April 1994
Paul finally self-published his story as The Dreamtime Voyage. The first
print run of 2000 sold out in 18 months with a 1000 reprint run in1996.

In 1985 Paul completed a solo, 4,400 mile 112 day paddle around the four
main islands of Japan.

With co-paddlers, Paul has twice attempted to kayak across the Tasman
Sea from Tasmania to New Zealand but has been thwarted on both occasions
by the Tasmanian authorities and bad weather.

In August 1991, Paul paddled into Inuvik, in the North-West Territories
of Canada, to complete the first solo kayak trip along the entire
coastline of Alaska. Commencing from Prince Rupert in British Columbia,
this 4,700 mile trip took three northern summers to complete. Highlights
of this trip were: a herd of walrus swimming around the kayak, a large
brown bear ripping open Paul's tent while he was asleep, being charged
by a bull musk ox, and meeting the Eskimo villagers who are the
descendents of the Inuit people who originally evolved skin kayaks in
Arctic waters.

Paul filmed the 1991 trip from Nome to Inuvik, not easy when paddling
solo, and Canterbury Television edited the tapes and some Television
News footage of Paul training on the West Coast, into a 30 minute
television documentary.

In September 1997 Paul, and Wellington paddler Conrad Edwards, completed
a 550 miles circumnavigation of New Caledonia. In the northern summers
of 1998 and 1999, Paul and Conrad paddled 1400 miles along the west
coast of Greenland from Narsarssuaq to Upernarvik.

Paul and Conrad paddled 610 miles from Kuala Lumpur, Malaya, through to
and then around the island of Phuket in Thailand, completing the trip in
late January 2002.

BOOK PUBLICATION SUMMARY:
'Obscured by Waves', published 1979, John McIndoe Ltd; out of print
since 1984
'Dark Side of the Wave', published 1986, NZCA/Caffyn; out of print
recently
'Cresting the Restless Waves', published 1987, NZCA/Caffyn; a few copies
left
'The Dreamtime Voyage', self-published 1994 both hardback and limpbound
editions, reprinted 1996.
'The KASK Handbook' - a 130 page manual to sea kayaking in NZ, edited,
some chapters and full layout design by P. Caffyn; published by KASK
(Kiwi Assoc. of Sea Kayakers NZ Inc) in 1994; second edition in 1998
'The Sea Canoeist Newsletter', edited by P. Caffyn since 1991, 20 pages,
printed bimonthly by KASK.