WHO & HOW
The sea's most powerful spell is romance
Greg Landreth and Keri Pashuk are a husband and wife team who met in the Antarctic in 1986 while crewing on different boats. They were married in 1990 in Canada and began purchasing Northanger with the idea of using her for sailing and climbing expeditions. Keri is Canadian, from Bracebridge, Ontario and Greg is a New Zealander from Ashburton, New Zealand. Keri and Greg take special interest in high latitude sailing combined with expeditionary pursuits, climbing in particular.
The South Island of New Zealand was Greg's training ground for outdoor sports. Whitewater kayaking, ocean kayaking, rock climbing and mountaineering filled all his spare moments. A camera became as important a piece of equipment in his voyaging as his climbing tools were, and gathering images of his achievements have helped to document the magazine articles and slide shows about his voyages.
Growing up in the vast forest playground of Northern Ontario helped to fuel Keri's addiction to wild places. Skiing, hiking and canoeing were skills she gathered in her youth, which aid her today in her passion for rock climbing, ski touring and ocean kayaking. Photography came as a natural extension to her artistic background and with her photos her goal is to try to capture a moment or a feeling of the places she has visited in able to share her voyages with others.
Sailing came to Keri in 1985 by the way of an opportunity to join a vessel bound for Antarctica. It was a tumultuous introduction to the sea, leaving Christchurch, New Zealand and arriving in the Antarctic Peninsula forty - three days later. Undaunted by seasickness and a capsize south of Cape Horn on the French yacht Matahiva, sailing has become a way of life, and Northanger her home.
Greg began sailing in 1985, leaving from Auckland, New Zealand, also bound for the Antarctic. Crewing on Northanger, with then owner Rick Thomas, Greg's draw south was not the sea but the unclimbed mountains of the Antarctic Peninsula. An ice-locked anchorage entrapping Northanger and Matahiva in the Argentine Islands, created the moment for Greg and Keri to meet. Greg's passion for the mountains has motivated much of the Expeditioning they have done.
Sailing to climb has remained the main motivational force for both Keri and Greg, taking them and Northanger from the high arctic regions - to Greenland and Ellesmere Island and south to the Southern Ocean waters - to Patagonia, Antarctica and South Georgia. Latterly they have been using the skills garnered from years of operating in these testing places to widen the focus into supporting expeditions with diverse objectives in the realm of art, science and history. They both feel that this part of their life adventure has just begun.
Both Greg and Keri took up telemark skiing in their late 20's and have become addicted, now searching out wild, difficult-to-get-to places with untracked ski slopes, a safe anchorage nearby and maybe, with luck, a virgin summit to climb.
Through their travels, both Keri and Greg have gained a great respect for the natural wilderness, the ocean and the animals within, and have become convinced of the importance of teaching awareness of the framework of this higher reality upon which the smaller circles of all our lives are traced.
It doesn't matter what country we are from. We are all from Planet Earth.
