After more than 5,700 miles and 14 months, Steve Chard, a retired Royal Navy submariner, is going to hang up his paddle. He’s tired. Chard, 61, just completed the Great Loop in his kayak, and he was all alone the entire way.
Even more remarkable, Chard went the long way around. He started on June 1, 2018, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and went counterclockwise, up around Nova Scotia, past Prince Edward Island, into the St. Lawrence and down to the Rideau Canal, where he joined the Great Loop as most people know it. He lost 46 pounds in the first two months because he wasn’t stopping to eat lunch, although he did eat regularly after that. He crossed his wake, as the Loop expression goes, back in Halifax on Aug. 16. (At least one other person has completed the Great Loop in a kayak, but no other kayaker has started and ended all the way out in Nova Scotia.)
Chard, who’s from Piddletrenthide, England (pop: 500), has always loved adventure. He’s single, and when he retired from submarine service he worked as a driver and EMT for an ambulance service in Dorset. For his 50th birthday, he rode a bicycle 500 miles through the mountains of Vietnam. He’s done marathons and long-distance swimming.
Chard’s colleagues at the ambulance service introduced him to kayaking, and then he read about the Great Loop, and decided that was how he was going to celebrate his 60th birthday. He also decided to raise money for nine different charities by his Loop adventure. They’re on his Facebook page: Kayak the Great Loop – Paddle with Steve.
Chard was self-sufficient on the Loop, carrying a tent, sleeping mat, dehydrated food, two gallons of water and cooking gear in his sea kayak. He usually paddled six to ten hours a day, often keeping his mind occupied by counting the strokes – 1,000 strokes to the mile. He usually paddled a mile or so from shore. And other kayakers joined him when they heard about his trip.
At night Chard camped out or knocked on the door of homes along the way. People let him sleep in their houses, garages, RVs and sheds. He only had one problem, when a man in Jacksonville, Florida, ran him off his property, threatening him with a knife and his three Dobermans.
The only boating mishap came in Pamlico Sound, when Chard tried to turn around in bad weather and got hit by waves and capsized. The water was shallow so he stood up, righted the kayak and started paddling again.
For Chard, the highlights of the Loop were the barges on the Mississippi, the Statue of Liberty in New York, and the Submarine Museum in Groton, Connecticut.
It’s still a few years off, but given his history, Chard’s friends are asking him how he plans to celebrate his 70th birthday. He’ll stay home and watch TV, he tells them. Read more:
