Climate, Kayak and Conversation: Part 3, What’s Next? - Sailors for the Sea

Climate, Kayak and Conversation: Part 3, What’s Next?

 November 22, 2021  | By: Jennifer Brett

When you have set and accomplished a major goal, it’s only natural to start thinking, “what’s next?” In Part Three of Sailors for the Sea Skipper Damon Gannon’s interview with Will Freund of Climate, Kayak and Conversation, they get into just that, along with some lessons learned—and what to do when you encounter a climate science skeptic.

Will’s project, Climate, Kayak and Conversation, centers on his journey to film a documentary to understand how different communities approach the conversation about climate change through storytelling. And it was quite the journey—1,000+ miles in a 16-foot Hobie Mirage Adventure Island sailing trimaran kayak from Miami, Florida, to Norfolk, Virginia. Along the way, Will chatted with locals from waterfront communities about how they feel about climate change and how we can progress the conversation around it to make a better future. 

In Part One they discussed the project and what Will discovered along the way; for Part Two, they looked at the boat and the ups and downs of the journey itself. Here are some highlights of this segment, but for the full story, definitely check out the video.

Damon and Janet Gannon: What’s next for this project?

Will Freund: There’s kind of two major parts: One is the outreach side of it, doing lots of talks as well as interviews, and also doing more events with other organizations. So there’s that big part—just getting out there and telling my story to show the people who have been a part of this project and supporting me that these are the things that I’ve done and accomplished, and share my story. But also use this opportunity to speak to people of all backgrounds and help inspire them to go and do their own adventure and pursue their own projects. I’d like to show that you don’t have to be super experienced in what you’re doing, you don’t have to have all the gear, you don’t have to have all the answers. To start, you just need a good idea and a passion, and once you have that you can then translate that into action. It all just starts with having an idea, and then just run with that idea. I hope that my trip and my adventures can inspire someone else to go off and do their own.

The other part is trying to get this documentary together. I have all my footage now, and the next phase of the footage side is finishing the YouTube series of the adventure, as well as then starting the documentary. I’m starting to piece together, “what is the story?” There are so many different avenues I could go—I’m trying to narrow down all the footage to understand what the story is, what is the arc? I am the main character that is then touched by all these interviews, to then have this ultimate conclusion at the end.

D&JG: What can the average person do to help curb climate change?

WF: I think the biggest thing people can do to curb climate change, as a start, is just to talk about it. By talking about it, we will then start thinking about it more. When we start to think about it more, we start to care about it more. And once we start to care about it more, we will start acting on it. But we can’t start acting on it if we’re not talking about it. Beyond just the big, scary, looming thing. Particularly right now, I think it’s a great time to be talking about climate change because we just had the new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, and while there is always some doom in these reports, there is some hope there. Because more than anything now we have certainty.

Will’s set up for sleeping aboard the kayak definitely turned heads in marinas