Professor Liu Yong from the Mountain Tourism Research Center of our university, along with five French explorers, successfully arrived in Guadeloupe, South America, at 08:30 local time on March 26, 2023, completing an adventure of crossing the Atlantic with an unpowered canoe using paddles only!

The Atlantic-crossing adventure team, consisting of Professor Liu Yong and the five French partners, set off from La Restinga dock on El Hierro Island in the Canary Islands on the east coast of the Atlantic Ocean on January 30, 2023, using a canoe named “Paddler”. The team was divided into two groups, with three people in each group paddling day and night without stopping. The entire journey was without any backup, motor assistance or wind power devices, and they finally reached their destination, La Gosier dock in Guadeloupe, South America, at local time on March 26, 2023.The expedition covered a total distance of 5,239 kilometers, taking 54 days and 23 hours, with each person averaging over 600,000 paddle strokes.

The team encountered strong winds and high waves caused by high pressure in the North Atlantic within a week of setting off, which also pushed low pressure onto their intended route. To avoid adverse weather, Professor Liu Yong and his teammates had to change course and head south, taking 15 days to bypass the bad weather. They experienced winds of over 25 knots, calm winds, and even headwinds, and on the 40th day, they encountered northward headwinds, forcing them to retreat and paddle north. During the 54 days at sea, the team faced numerous unimaginable difficulties. Severe seasickness symptoms lasted until the 28th day, and various harsh weather conditions forced the team members to expend tremendous physical energy while paddling. In the nights before arriving at their destination, they even nearly experienced a capsizing incident. There were events happening almost every day, but the team eventually overcame the difficulties and successfully completed this arduous feat!

Dr. Liu Yong has been involved in maritime exploration activities since completing rock climbing and sailing adventures along the Scottish coast in 2014 and sailing expeditions to unclimbed peaks in Antarctica in 2016. This time, crossing the Atlantic with an unpowered canoe was a great challenge, entirely different from sailing. The whole journey relied on human-powered paddling without the aid of wind power devices, with almost no standing opportunities and an activity space of less than two square meters for up to eight weeks.

Crossing the ocean with a canoe is currently one of the least participated outdoor exploration activities worldwide, with only about 1,800 participants, and just over half of them succeeded. Explorers must cope with extremely challenging tests of willpower, courage, physical fitness, and psychological pressure. During the adventure, Professor Liu Yong not only completed the arduous exploration but also turned the small canoe into a sociological field lab. He observed and documented the team members’ exploration and social behaviors, conducted anthropological and ethnographic research, utilized visual anthropology methods for documentation, and wrote a large number of marine diaries. He completed tens of thousands of words of observation and interview records and preserved many precious video materials and data. After returning to China, he will organize and analyze the materials and carry out academic research.

It is worth noting that this extreme adventure, posing a significant challenge to the body and mind, took place less than a month after Professor Liu Yong recovered from the COVID-19 infection. Throughout the entire process, he monitored his own physical fitness indicators, and the firsthand data collected will be analyzed by the research center’s scientific research team, in the hope of providing reference and assistance for the training and recovery of COVID-19 patients after their recovery. This exploration is the first significant international adventure activity after the end of the COVID-19 epidemic in China and serves as an exchange and dialogue between Chinese and French exploration cultures. Many French media outlets have paid minute attention to this event, and related websites have provided live text coverage throughout the entire journey.