Looking at Adventure in a Whole New Way

One thing that most amazes me about the ten years since we brought our kayaks to the Bering Sea is the incredible technological advances all around. Then we photographed all on film, a sizable task for Barry Tessman in a cold, windswept place. The video we shot was standard definition tape and the cameras we brought (I checked both - a pocket-sized Sony S-10 and Sony 150 - out of the equipment library at National Geographic, which I’ll bet no longer exists) were even then antiquated. I did very fun dispatches from the Islands of Four Mountains, but the only technology I had for communicating with National Geographic’s then-rudimentary website was by satellite phone. Over the course of five weeks I probably called in ten times and my spoken-word dispatches were transcribed and put up as audio. We had no capacity for sending photos from the field.

Running waters on Kagamil, photo by Barry Tessman

By comparison, when we went to Antarctica with kayaks last year, all of our photographic images were digital, as was the video (two, big high definition cameras on that job … and since last year we’ve moved completely to shooting on digital cards, no more videotape …). Our ability to communicate with the web is now at a high level from anywhere on the world, using a combination of small digital cameras, computers, PDAs and our own satellite communication device (BGAN).

Despite that those first dispatches from the field were less-than-sophisticated … they were and are still fun. I went back and listened to them last night.

Birthplace of the Winds, 10 Years After

Russia’s Nuclear Leftovers

The Back of Beyond … Kamchatka

Dancing With Cranes

Welcome to … Squid City!