Team Topa Honu: original purpose and dispatches
The Team Topa Honu Keys archive provides historical context and links to its surviving dispatches. Its planned 226-mile route should not be confused with the later Liquid Rhythm summary of 90 miles across two trips in 2008 and 2009. The original dispatches and the later summary are separate accounts.
The January 2009 outcome: In Paddling the Florida Keys, published January 24, 2009, Jeff records the decision to return home after two weather days at Long Key State Park. The planned circumnavigation was not completed on that trip.
Kevin’s shore-side reporting
Kevin’s help belonged to the expedition too. His original posts document the loan of a boat, help with equipment, and the work of maintaining updates while the team was away.
January 16, 2009 — Kevin (Kayakkev), Posting Progress. Kevin announced his shore-side reporting for the Keys expedition. He recorded lending Jeff his wooden Expedition Single kayak and helping Sean acquire an Atlantis MisT. His contribution included equipment and keeping people ashore informed.
January 18–23, 2009 — Kevin (Kayakkev), Where the Boys Are. These dispatches were assembled from calls with the paddlers. Kevin’s original includes a January 23 return-home update that is absent from the copy preserved on Team Topa Honu. Read it alongside Jeff’s January 24 account, which explains the weather delays at Long Key State Park and the decision to return home.
Weather and mileage figures in the dispatches are reported observations, not independently verified measurements. The original posts retain their own wording; planned distances should not be read as completed mileage.
News coverage of the earlier Keys plan
- Stephen Thompson, The Tampa Tribune, May 6, 2008 (archived). Reports the proposed route and outreach purpose.
- Stephen Thompson, The Tampa Tribune, May 12, 2008 (archived). A later version of the reporting on the planned departure.
These reports describe the 2008 plan. They do not establish that the planned circumnavigation was completed or resolve its relationship to the January 2009 journey.
Photographs, boats, and the outcome
Kevin’s Posting Progress includes a named team photograph and boat information. Jeff’s January 24 account records returning home after weather delays. The Liquid Rhythm dispatches and Team Topa Honu dispatches preserve the original reports and their comment threads.
Calusa Blueway expedition interview
From another journey: watch the interview about Sean Fitzgibbon and Jeff Fabiszewski’s 2011 Great Calusa Blueway expedition. This interview concerns the Calusa Blueway trip, rather than the expedition described above.
