Adventurous Kayakers to Journey the Length of Belize’s Barrier Reef

A pair of dedicated athletes is venturing on a journey tomorrow to kayak the length of the Barrier Reef of Belize. The pair of friends have prepared for months, training for ten hours a day, and are doing it to raise awareness on how beautiful Belize is. Leigh Ann Epperson, one of the Kayakers spoke to us about how she and her partner Elizabeth Meeker are doing this in hopes of getting donations to charities down in Caye Caulker. Epperson also spoke on their goal to complete the 230-mile journey. 

Leigh Epprson, Kayaker: “Starting at 5 a.m. tomorrow morning my kayak partner and I, Elizabeth Meeker, are taking off from Caye Caulker North here at Blue Zen and we are going to take six days to kayak the length of the reef in Belize. So we’re going to go about 120 miles south to where it ends in Belize, turn around and come back. And we wanted to raise awareness of the beautiful country, Belize, and the beautiful reef, but also… two causes in Caye Caulker the Humane Society and Ocean Academy. We think if we can average about 40 miles a day over six days, that’s pretty good. That’ll be a speed of about 4.3 miles an hour, which on the ocean is a fairly good speed but that all is just dependent on the weather. For a while it looked like tropical storm Brett was gonna be a problem but a little wind and a little rain is actually ideal.”

Epperson also went on to explain that competition is in their blood, a challenge like this can take a toll on you mentally and physically but they love a good challenge. 

Leigh Epprson, Kayaker: “It really is, it’s as much mental as physical, right? You get yourself, you can get yourself pretty quickly to a state where you can maintain the physical hardship. It’s the making yourself keep going that is hard which is why it was really exciting to do this for some good causes because it gave us some incentive to do it. So it’s not really about us it’s about these good organizations here at Caye Caulker. We’re ready. We, you know, like competition is always something that we look forward to. So yeah, assuming we survive the next six days, we’re in.”

Amidst the weather conditions, both Epperson and Meeker are keeping their hopes up even though a little rain and wind are perfect for kayaking.