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The Ultimate Kayak Trip!!!
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The UKT goes from Miami Florida to Caracas Venezuela. It starts at 25° 45' and goes down to 10° 28'. It crosses into the tropics at 23° 26' 22 towards the beginning of the UKT Right at Georgetown, the capital of the Exumas. The UKT is conveniently mainly shallow warm water for the part that is above the tropics. The rest of the UKT we will be kayaking along the islands that are formed by the Caribbean plate and the South and North American plates. There are so many different aspects of the UKT, but I divide them into five different sections...
The Five Sections

There are lots of different aspects to the UKT. There is the adventure into the deep blue water 45 miles from the closest land with the big waves, the shallow water where you can see the bottom like you are on glass floating over it. There is the straights that push you through like you are on a river, the skimming the coasts going from point to point. There is kayaking down narrow channels viewing nice houses.

As far as the island experience we will have uninhabited islands with a single palm tree, many trees or no trees, uninhabited islands with long stretches of white sand beaches. Tiny islands with posh houses on them like Bequia or tiny islands with shacks living off the land like the exumas.
There are islands that have shallow canals acting as points of transport throughout with the current of the sea to push you. There are small islands with large cities like New Providence Bahamas, large islands with tiny hamlets on the shore like Hispanola. There are tiny islands that jut out of the sea like the tips of gigantic underwater volcanoes which is exactly what they are, and large islands with multiple active volcanoes on them and entire self supporting ecosystems and intact indian tribes like Dominica. There is even an island whose volcano completely destroyed its capital city, Montserrat. There are tourist mecca's designed for the pure partiers.

The UKT takes us through all these different aspects which make it great, and it does so in the perfect order.

Section one - Practice in Miami
We begin with the tours through the posh utopia of South Beach in Miami and up the canal which goes all the way to Boston and skim down the beach side checking out all the beach activity. Then we check out the keys down one of the longest bridge in the world down to party town of Key West. Then we get to see how strong we are and enter the hypnotic world of the super trip for the first time when we attempt to go from Key West to Miami a hundred fifty miles in one day, or at least in one push. Then we will be ready for our trip.
Section Two - The Bahamas

The UKT starts out with perfect drama. We take straight off from the south tip of South Beach into the deep ocean and don't hit land for 50 miles. The first island we land, Bimini, is one of the most Magically Mysterious in the whole world. It is the site of the reemergence of Atlantis, the ancient Empire from 13,000 years ago during a time before recorded history when we had a high world civilization that crashed because of what the Atlanta did which caused their island to sink. In fact 10,000 years ago the ocean was 200 feet (90 meters) lower than it is today, and the bahaman archipelago was all above water. Just for fun I came up with my own map of Atlantis describing all of the islands and showing where the capital ringed city was. Bimini was the northeast gateway to the island empire. It had a large platform on top of the hill looking 200 feet over the ocean towards America. This exists today as the Bimini road. Bimini has Coral and rock formations smothered by sponges, Eagle Ray Run to run with the Eagle Rays, LaChance Rocks with Lots of marine life, Stingray Hole, turtle Rocks, Dolphins, as well as a healing hole and a memory ledge. Bimini has always been seen as a special island, Pizarro thought it was the location of the legendary fountain of youth.

After the long ocean voyage which started our UKT with a bang, we get to float across the top of ancient Atlantis and scan the top of the sandy bottom for possible Atlantis artifacts and watch the fish, turtles and dolphins swim below us for the next 380 miles with the exception of the Andros-New Providence crossing. After Bimini we will make a couple of ten miles cruises down the shallow water first to a tourist island of Cat Cay and then to an industrial island and then to an uninhabited island before we push off again on another 50 mile journey to the next island, only this time it is over shallow water. The shallow water experience will be absolutely mystical as we easily skim over the calmest water and get to see exactly how fast we are going. Andros has a cave believed to be where Pirate Morgan hid his treasure, so we can look around and see if we have any ideas. Then we round the bend and cross the seem ocean again. This crossing is also very special because now we will be at the edge of the Bermuda triangle where strange electromagnetic activity goes on and has caused the disappearance of 125 planes and many more ships. Every time people go there people have magnetic disturbances and we hope to have some too. This is also a very deep section of the the sea, making it a great place to have AUTEC, The Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center, the area 51 of the sea. This is where the US government does all there submarine testing and maybe we will get to see a submarine or even a USO pop up somewhere near us.

The next island New Providence is very small but has the second largest city after San Juan Puerto Rico that we will be passing through. Then we have a nice 30 mile trip across the shallows again to the beginning of the 150 mile long Exuma island chain. Then Exumas will provide the ultimate tiny island hopping experience. There are 360 islands in this chain, most of which are uninhabited and can only be accessed by kayak. The size of the Exumas range between the classic one palm tree island with only sand to larger ones that have salt water rivers flowing through them. We plan on taking it easy as we cruise down these islands at a very relaxed pace. We will soak up as much of the peaceful scenery teaming with wildlife environment untouched by the presence of humans. We spend a lot of time doing Yoga on the beach and swimming the shallow water in our bays and rivers. After the Exumas which are never more than a few hundred meters from island to island our first inter island experience will be the 16 mile jaunt down six foot deep water to Long island. The next three hundred miles will vary between more shallow water as we cross Crooked island, Mayaguana and the Caicos islands, and the 30 mile deep water crossings which separate them. We will have some small crossings to three more islands that get progressively smaller until we are on a tiny uninhabited island facing south towards our first super crossing. The 88 miles to the Dominican Republic. This crossing is a full 38 miles longer than our initial epic opening journey from Miami to Bimini, but this will not be our longest ever one day kayak trip, because we will have already kayaked the 150 miles between Key West and Miami. If we average 4 mph we will get there in 22 hours, so we'll call it a 24 hour hammer. I figure 4 miles an hour pretty modestly, in 18 mile long sea kayak races the winning man averages 7.8 miles an hour and the lead woman six miles an hour. We will take meal breaks when we will rest in our hammocks but apart from those short breaks I expect us to be paddling. If one of us has to do something the other one can paddle and we will keep going. A person could even hang out on a hammock strung between the two pontoons while the other one paddles. Upon Arrival in the Dominican Republic we will have completed an impressive open sea adventure that will cement our now great strength and seaworthiness.

Section Three - The Central Big Islands
Section Three will begin at the heels on our epic 88 mile open water journey from that tiny island south of Salt. Now we are skirting along a giant island going from point to point, with complete control of when we want to walk on land and camp. This island skirting will last for 230 miles, but will not be done in one strait push, because we have the highest mountain in the Caribbean to climb, 3175 meter Pico Duarte. This is a ? mile mountain bike trek through the jungle to the summit and back, and will probably include a bus ride to Santo Domingo and into Haiti. From Hispanola we have a 42 mile jaunt to Isla Mona which is a small hilly uninhabited island between Hispanola and Puerto Rico. After Mona we cruise another 42 miles to a tiny uninhabited island 13 miles off Puerto Rico. The skirting along Puerto Rico to San Juan will be of easy pace and we will resolve to soak up as much of that capital city and the rest of the country as we can. After Puerto Rico we have a couple of easy jaunts from tiny uninhabited island with beautiful sandy beaches before we check out Puerto Rico's Culebra. It was nice to speak Spanish for the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico for a while, but it will be awesome to speak English again in the US and British Virgin islands. During the Virgins islands we will have the choice to camp in the tiny islands off the coast or live more in luxury and socialization in the towns. After our giant island skirting and easy island hopping we will be ready for our next major 72 mile ocean crossing from Virgin Gorda to Dog island off of Anguilla. On this big crossing instead of going from a tiny island to a huge island to watch approach us from a great distance, we will be approaching a tiny island that we won't see until we are right in front of it. This mark the beginning of section three, the volcanic islands of the Eastern Antilles.
Section Four - The Eastern Antilles
The two most interesting things about the Eastern Antilles that they are a volcano chain with 16 active volcanoes, and that almost every island is its own independent country or provence in a commonwealth. There are ? independent countries and ? provinces in the ? islands that we will visit in the Eastern Antilles. The first island in this chain is Anguilla, a relatively flat island by Eastern Antilles standards but a mountain compared to what we will be used to because of our experience in the flat Bahamas. After Anguilla we will only have to paddle six miles across to Saint Martin, which is one island inhabited by two separate European countries, the Netherlands and France. After Saint Martin we have another short nine mile cruise to a tiny island with a nice beach just three miles north of Saint Barts. After enjoying the Dutch Creoles of Saint Barts we get to enjoy an easy 12 miles trip to Saba which is a beautiful tiny steep volcano island that just out of the ocean surface in a near perfect cone. From the top of Saba we can easily see our next destination St Eustatius 25 miles away. Saint Eustatius is another island with a beautiful cone shaped volcano on the south side, and a smaller one on the north side. Then we cruise ten miles down to yet another volcano island St Kitts and its neighbor and country island Nevis which is even more of a perfect cone volcano island than Saba. After Nevis we trek 43 miles to the tiny island of Redonda, before making another 25 mile push to Montserrat. Montserrat is one of the most interesting islands in the UKT because it was a thriving island province of the UK until ten years ago when its volcano suddenly and unexpectedly blew and overran the whole capital city with molten lava. Although what happened here was sad it serves as a fascinating museum and testament to the possibilities one of mother natures natural disasters, the volcano. We hope to be able to document a trip through the ruined streets of ? and a hike to the top of the still active Mount ?. After Monserrat we have another 24 mile trip across the waves to Antigua which has another beautiful cone shaped volcano overlooking the beautiful town of ?. Then a 39 miles down again to Guadeloupe, which is the biggest of the volcano islands in the Eastern Antilles. Guadeloupe offers 50 miles of island skirting and canal cruising as we cross through the center of this butterfly shaped island to the town of Pointe a Perir. There are many activities on this large island, such as ?. Then we will cross eight miles down to quaint Le Bourge Island and then a mere 17 miles to Dominica, with is in most ways the most magnificent of all the islands in the UKT. It has 9 of the 16 active volcanoes in the Eastern Antilles including hot pools and more large mountains and flora and Fauna than any of the other islands in the Caribbean, and it still has 300 native Carib Indians living among their French speaking black inhabitants. 40 miles south of Dominica is Martinique, the Eastern Caribbean's most cosmopolitan society followed 40 later by volcanic Saint Lucia with the famous twin peaks. After ? miles of easy routine 30-40 mile crossings it's time for another 91 mile push straight east into the Atlantic ocean to the island nation of Barbados. This island is a total party place with lots of English colonial plantation history. After Barbados we will have one last 100 mile push to the cloudy and mountainous Saint Vincent. Saint Vincent has a lot of smaller islands south of it that belong to the same island nation archipelago. The trip down the Grenadines will be reminiscent of the early days of the Exumas where we just lollygag it between tiny islands separated by meters, but now we will be in excellent condition and will skip between these islands like a water hopper skips across leaves. In this island chain we have Bequia seven miles south of Saint Vincent, followed by Mustique seven miles after that, then Canouan 12 miles to the south and Mayreau four miles later followed by Union just two miles away, then Carricou four miles later, then another island I call Carriacou south 17 miles later followed by Little Tobago 10 miles later followed by the lush unspoiled creole Island nation of Grenada just 5 miles away. After ? easy going miles in the Grenadines we have one last big 78 mile crossing to Tobago and then it's Trinidad 22 miles toward South America. It is just 7 miles from Trinidad to Venezuela, which begins our final push, part five.
Section Five - Venezuela
We will traverse ? miles across the coast to our destination of Caracas. This will be ? miles and will mainly be just a wind down and possibly a psych up if we don't have a group to kayak our kayak back to Miami and decide to go ahead and make it a full loop.