Around Madagascar on My Kayak Book Review
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I just finished Riaan Manser’s Around Madagascar on my Kayak
The Good
First, the good stuff: Manser’s writing style is frank and open. He’s not guarded in what he writes, which allows the reader to at points get into his head. The beginning part about gaining sponsorship and putting together the trip is interesting. There are a few harrowing sequences that are fun to read (but become repetitive).
The Bad
Second, the basic bad stuff: The narrative becomes highly compressed towards the end of the book. Whereas in the first two thirds of the book, we hear about almost every day and night on his trip. In the last quarter of the book, he glosses over almost 2/3rds of the trip. Much of the “adventure” he has on the trip is repetitive and goes like this: the water gets rough, he gets tossed from his kayak, his gets back on his kayak and gets tossed again. He thinks he is going to die. Somehow he gets through 6-foot surf over coral reefs. He “lands” on the beach. His kayak fills with water and breaks. Then he eats spaghetti bolognaise and watches rugby at some hotel or restaurant in a village. Seriously, this happens more than once! You see how privileged this guy is as he constantly looks down his nose at the locals and other travelers and solves his problems by pulling strings or throwing money around.
The Ugly: Sexism and Racism
There’s subtle racism and sexism in the book. I’ll cite three examples without diving into the matter too much, because I think it’s pretty apparent from these examples.
On page 46 to 47, Manser writes about an encounter at a hotel with three women. A “butchy-looking” woman pushes past him in line in an attempt to get the last remaining room before Manser books it. Instead of just calling her rude, he dives into a diatribe about how South African men are forced to “elevate women to a higher plane” and that the encounter was “a sad example of women’s lib at its worst.” I don’t think I really need to explain the sexism expressed here; if you think I do, please, explain to me why this isn’t sexism in the comments.
In multiple places, he encounters a old white European dudes with a Malagasy girl or young woman. He never once gives the girl a name, but the old white guy often gets a name in his descriptions of conversations with them. This could either be racism or sexism or both.
From pages 86 to 92, Manser writes about how he wants to meet the mayor of the town that he’s in, but the mayor ends up getting too busy and can’t make the meeting. When Manser sees the mayor on the street, he interrupts the mayor, and when the mayor asks to see his passport, he overreacts, gets tough and assumes that the mayor is going on a power trip. Manser ends up getting arrested, and we find out that he was breaking the law because he was traveling with an expired visa. After he calls a few people and pulls some strings, he gets his get out of jail free card and moves on, but on page 92 we learn from him that:
With colonialism and its oppressive history as convenient excuses to employ these irrational power trips, we (meaning white people) cannot be surprised at the irrational behavior of a short, uneducated, spluttering, scooter-driving, populist [black] mayor’s interpretation of our disrespectful actions toward him.
<sarcasm>Yes, the old reverse racism argument is exactly why this happened.</sarcasm> It doesn’t at all have to do with the fact that Manser is just some dime-a-dozen tourist that for some reason thinks that town dignitaries should meet him. And that his interruption should be respected even when he’s illegally in Madagascar. Seriously, the editor of the book let him keep this segment in. If you’re an adventurer and have a following and a book, big deal. Why does that make you better than any other traveler that you should automatically get respect even when you’re rude?
These three examples are only a few of the many in the book, and are a good enough reason to skip reading it. Now, obviously, I’m an American and not a South African, so someone could make an argument that I’m projecting my cultural morality on their’s, and that may be the case, but I do believe that both sexism and racism have no place in this world and those that practice it are simply wrong.
Adventurer Savant?
The Savant Syndrome is when a person with mental disabilities, such as autism, shows above normal capacity in some specific area, such as music or math. Could Manser be an Adventurer Savant?
Adventurer Savant: Someone who completes an expedition despite a serious ineptitude in both the physical and mental skills required to succeed at the sport and an inability to properly judge risk thus putting him or herself into serious danger.
Here’s an adventurer with persistence and good sponsorship deals who almost dies by his own words many times because a) he’s not skilled enough, b) he makes bad choices and c) his kayak isn’t well-designed for the journey.
Some of the questions that you should ask yourself when judging risk are:
- Do I/we have the skills for the conditions?
- Have I/we or several people in our group paddled in these conditions before?
- Do we have the right equipment for these conditions?
If you find yourself answering any of these questions “no” then you should seriously consider sitting on shore until the conditions improve, especially in remote areas where getting to shore safely after a swim would be difficult or impossible. After reading this book, I doubt that Manser would be able to answer any of the questions “yes” in many of the situations that he found himself in. Worse still, I doubt that he even knew that there were questions he should ask himself. Seriously, if I capsized as much as this guy does, I’d quit kayaking and take up something like biking.
Obviously biking takes skills, too, and there are dangers in biking, but when you compare the two from a risk standpoint, I think that long distance kayaking is inherently more risky because if you fall in and survive, you’re still in a potentially life risking situation, whereas in biking, you’re usually safe once you stop rolling. Manser was leapfrogging his kayaking trip on the fame he gained from biking around South Africa, but I think that he underestimated the risks and didn’t bother getting the proper training that would even allow him to evaluate those risks. He’s lucky to be alive.
His book is a classic demonstration of Dunning-Kruger in action. Dunning-Kruger effect via Wikipedia:
- Incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill.
- Incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others.
- Incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy.
- If they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill.
There are sections in the book that demonstrate each of these situations. We learn that he meets criteria one and two early in the book when he goes out to sea in a storm that has caused problems for highly-skilled surf ski racers. A search and rescue was launched and the winds were blowing like crazy. Instead of sitting it out, Manser believes that he’s skilled enough for the conditions and then goes out, gets lucky (perhaps the wind was offshore, but we don’t know because he doesn’t let us know the conditions) and comes to believe that he is highly-skilled because he survived the day when the racer got in trouble. We see him meet criteria three over and over in the many situations that he finds himself in when he capsizes, by his own words almost dies and then he does it all over again expecting a different result. He never experiences criteria number four in the book, perhaps, because he didn’t take a lesson.
At any rate, I could be reading this book wrong. Maybe he’s just writing about these situations in a way that makes them seem more risky and dangerous than they really were, because he does go on to circumnavigate Iceland in which his website says:
Only once they’d begun their circumnavigation did they realise just how challenging the weather would be. They knew that the inclement winter weather would cause delays but they could never have predicted how often and how long these delays would be.
Landings were another of the pair’s biggest challenges. Approaching rocky shores that are being pounded by wind and surf is a hazardous business. Between timings and luck, you’re a second away from disaster at any moment. Their landings were made even more difficult because of their “sea-legs” which they’d develop after a long day’s paddle of 8 – 10 hours. Often, even the softest landings would result in Riaan and Dan spluttering and crawling for a few moments on the black sand on all fours after tumbling out of the boat during the landing.
Anyway, with that quote from the Iceland trip, I rest my case, and I recommend skipping this book.
If you’ve read this book, I’d be curious about your thoughts.
Buy it at Amazon.com: Around Madagascar on my Kayak
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16 Comments
Shane
Great! Now I have to go back to the library. Thanks for the honest review.
Bryan Sarauer
Thanks for the great review, Bryan! And, Don Starkell would drive you nuts. Another Dunning-Kruger effect fellow. But I highly recommend his books, they are very entertaining in an exciting and maddening way.
Dru Spork
Picked up this book on my way back from a kayak fishing competition in Mozambique. You need something to in airports after all. I reached more or less the same conclusion when he arrives in Madagascar and immediately decides to change the direction of his trip. Trip preparation is almost non existent. Paddling skills are basically what he self learns during the trip. Hardly any info in the back end of the trip.
This review is spot on.
Jean Sorin
What a bullshit review, despite a few good lines (” obviously, I’m an American and not a South African, so someone could make an argument that I’m projecting my cultural morality on their’s”) I can’t disagree more. Many facts you quote are totally wrong (solving problems with money, racism, arrogance…) and it feels your extreme political correctness view makes you unfairly critical.
Of course the guy is a beginner in kayak, of course he is not well informed, and can be quite naive but he does not really pretend the opposite. This book is to me very entertaining to read, his adventure is simple and anybody could do it so we can relate easily.
I would recommend this book to anybody who like adventure books or kayak.
PS: sorry for my english
Bryan Hansel
I’m open to listening to you, but if you just come and say I’m wrong without providing an argument as to why I’m wrong, then, well, you don’t have an argument.
Please, provide an argument as to why what I cited and appears throughout the book isn’t racism, sexism or solving problems with money. I used examples from the book’s text. Feel free to do the same.
On another note, if as you say my “extreme political correctness,” which is my belief that all races and sexes are equal, clouds my views, then I’m fine with that, because all races and sexes are equal. I don’t accept racism or sexism in any form, and as in the examples I cited above, racism and sexism was apparent throughout the book.
Jean-Marc S.
Thanks for your answer. I’ve read the book a few weeks ago and I don’t have it in the place I currently live so I can’t be very precise.
I reacted a little bit harshly as you judge this guy on his inexperience in kayaking (which to me is refreshing and change from adventures of kayak experts) and his experience of Africa (which he knows much better than you do, and it’s also good to hear sometimes stories from practical ground-based people rather than from idealist 10000km away). I ‘ve lived in Madagascar for a while and I doubt you find many people who knows the country who will disagree with the writer or think he is racist (for sexism I’m not too sure lol).
But after reading different reviews you wrote, I may have to change my opinion as they are all brilliant and informative, so I have to wonder if the first post I read from you was the only bad one or if I was mistaken!?
Bryan Hansel
I don’t view this review as a bad review. I think it’s rather good. I state my case, use quotes from the book to support my case and then bring in outside information to continue to support my case.
You may disagree with it, but that doesn’t make it bad; it just means that your opinion is different than mine. And, I’m always willing to listen to other points of views and change mine if convinced. In this case, I’m still not convinced.
Jean-Marc S.
Yes, bad was not the right word.
It should rather have been unfair, as to me, you are very critical of the book because of your political views, rather than judging the interest of the book, which to me is the only thing important. If I want political correctness soup, I watch TV.
Bryan Hansel
I don’t view sexism and racism as political; my views come not from politics but from basic human rights.
As far as interest, I addressed that as well. I only have about this much ” ” tolerance for idiocy and hearing about the same problems again and again. And Manser displays that over and over and over throughout the book, i.e. D-K and adventurer savant. Seriously, how many times does the reader need to hear about how he almost dies because he doesn’t know how to paddle, how his boat almost sinks because it leaks, spaghetti bolognaise and rugby in a kayak adventure book? From that point-of-view, only interest matters, as I wrote about in the review, the book fails for me.
For me, the book failed on all levels, except I liked his frank and unguarded writing style. There are so many better adventure books out there that this one felt like a waste of my time.
Anyway, I appreciate the conversation.
Stevie McAllister
Thanks for the review.
Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t read the book.
I also find that style of elitist bigotry offensive. Being a white South African is no excuse.
The fact that he was somehow supposed to have the instant respect of the mayor sounds like racism to me.
The main concept of what makes a sea kayak sea worthy is the fact that you can roll them. It sounds to me like he never learned to roll?
I also agree about the Don Starkell reference that Bryan S. refers to.
Although I did find Don Starkell’s writing entertaining, he is also another case of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
Don was also ill prepared for his expeditions, especially his Arctic expedition. Very poor self rescue skills(he didn’t plan to have to need them), uneducated about the dangers including, Polar Bears, poor navigation, bad equipment choices, clothing that was wrong for the conditions. He nearly died from mistakes he made because of his ignorance, or was it bravery.
I wonder if either would have attempted their expeditions if they had prepared?
Bryan Hansel
He never learned to roll as far as I can tell. His kayak was some sort of weird combo sit-on-top with a half cockpit or something. I didn’t really think it was a wise choice.
brooklynkayak@gmail.com
Oh I just realized what kayak he used and it isn’t a real sea kayak.
I have seen one before. It is a recreational sit-on-top with a kind of snap on deck skirt thingy.
It is not meant for paddling in conditions and has the flat wide kind of hull that is prone to broaching by side waves.
No wonder he used was falling off of his kayak. It is more of a raft than a kayak.
I noticed there are many other reviews out there that say basically the same thing you say in your review.
Bryan Hansel
I did some looking and found this: http://www.seakayak.co.za/kayak_store/show_products.asp?type=2 The kayak he used was the PaddleYak Fusion Classic.
Jean-Marc S.
Thanks for the link. So it’s a “racing” sit on top with the possibility of adding a skirt.
This design would be absolutely great if there is good contact points between the body and the boat (esp. Knees) but from the small picture it seems there is little point of contacts?
What a pity, otherwise it would be a great and very safe boat (no need to empty it isn’t the ultimate safety device?).
I never saw a kayak self-emptying and with good point of contacts, was I blind or kayak builders do not want to take a creative risk?
Bryan Hansel
The sit-on-tops with good points of contact that I’ve seen and used have thigh straps that lock you to the kayak. When I worked retail, there was a brand of touring kayaks that we sold that were all sit-on-top with thigh straps. I liked the kayaks, and I wish I could remember the brand, but I think they went out-of-business, because they didn’t sell well.
brooklynkayak@gmail.com
I remember one sit on top that had the thigh straps. The one I tried had too much primary stability for conditions and although you could roll it, it was much more difficult to roll than a typical sea kayak.
I think there have been a few attempts at making a rolling sit-on-top.
I always thought it was a silly concept. If a person could roll, they wouldn’t want to paddle a sit-on-top in conditions. Too much boat out of the water to catch wind and/or too wide to have stability in waves.
Maybe a surfski style boat, but you wouldn’t be able to carry gear.
I used to paddle a Heritage SeaDart17. It was supposed to be like a real sea kayak and the fastest sit-on-top that could carry any gear.
It was a pig in comparison to the common expedition sea kayaks. It was difficult to get on edge and so would often broach in side waves.
A real sea kayak will usually stay upright in waves and can be edged on the wave face when needed in dumping surf or fast moving water.