Married kayaking duo attempting ‘first-ever’ 225-mile paddle across all 9 counties

By Lena Howland

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    SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Up against gusty winds, strong currents and some low tides, Dallas Smith and his wife, Liz Wilhelm, took off on one epic kayaking adventure Thursday morning.

They’re hoping to be the first team to complete this journey.

“As far as continuously circumnavigating it by kayak, we haven’t been able to find that many people that have actually, or really anyone, that’s actually done this before,” said Dallas Smith, co-owner of Point Reyes Adventure Company.

Starting and ending in Pittsburg, they’re taking 12 to 15 days to kayak a whopping 225 miles across all nine bay area counties. Their goal is to paddle about 20 miles a day.

And to make it happen, the team is partnering with the San Francisco Bay Water Trail.

“Which is a series of launch locations all around San Francisco, San Pablo and Suisun Bays. And we’re like, ‘Hey, we can just, like, connect these dots’ and there’s actually some camping along the way and some really cool stuff to see along the shoreline,” said Liz Wilhelm, co-owner of Point Reyes Adventure Company.

Smith and Wilhelm have a combined 35 years of professional kayak guide experience, and they just opened Point Reyes Adventure Company together last year.

For now, they’re planning to camp for about eight nights. On other nights, they plan to stay at hostels or more affordable hotels along the way.

“We’re hoping to like try to create this route that will be recreatable for folks if they ever want to do this again,” Smith said.

This experienced duo isn’t launching their trek empty-handed.

“Splash pants, muck boots, splash jacket, life jacket, monocular, a lot of extra layers for at night time, when we get to where our camp is,” Wilhelm said.

And get this: they’re making the entire expedition on a tandem kayak.

“Luckily, we’ve been paddling together for 15 years, so we know each other’s cadence. You know the double kayaks, they have the nickname of relationship accelerators. But we’re married, so we’re excited,” Smith said.

“Feeling pretty confident,” Wilhelm said.

You can follow along on their journey on Instagram at @PointReyesAdventureCo.

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