Oskar Speck's 1932 Kayak Journey from Germany to Australia
nswskc.wordpress.comOne of his boats (he used four): https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/56/St...
His route: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Speck-ma...
Photograph of him at the Timor coast: https://cdn.mopo.de/uploads/sites/4/2024/04/farbe-oskar-spec...
This seems to be a photograph taken after his arrest: https://lovedaylives.com/app/uploads/2021/03/SPECK-2.jpg
According to the German Wikipedia, he had a small electrical company which went bankrupt during the Great Depression. His original plan was to "only" paddle to Cyprus to work in a copper mine.
> Exactly a year after the attack, I left Saumlaki in a new boat, crossed to the Kei islands, and then faced the longest lap of island-hopping to New Guinea.
Indeed, looking at the map of his route, the longest distance he had to actually travel on open sea seems to be around 120 km from the Kei islands to Papua New Guinea [0], which is (at least for me) completely counter-intuitive for a Kayak voyage from Ulm to Australia.
Well worth the read. Absolutely fascinating.
No one told him about the war on route?
He landed in Australian territory in September 1939. The war had just started on the 1st of that month. Even if he had met someone during those days/weeks, chances are they hadn't heard of Hitler's invasion of Poland either, or were simply not concerned about it.
I remember reading that prior to Indonesia's declaration of independence in Mid-August 1945, in Jakarta (the capital of the Japanese-occupied country), there were rumours that something happened in Japan... 2 atomic bombs, and only rumours!
Also his route linked above shows he actually went all along the northern and eastern coast of New Guinea before arriving in Australia, at that time news was probably hard to get in that part of the world!
Sounds like daily Russian roulette.
Amazing read!