A Brush with Greatness

Isles of Capri residents Deb and Dave Ersland feel like they had a brush with greatness last week when they hosted Freya Hoffmeister—considered the most famous endurance kayaker in the world—as she completes the first-ever kayak circumnavigation of North America. In fact, they were so intrigued that they stepped out of their comfort zone and contacted the Coastal Breeze News about the visit.

“We’re not usually public people,” Dave explains. “But we just thought this was so special,” Deb adds. So Coastal Breeze News agreed to show up at the Erslands’ home on Isles of Capri before sunrise on March 19. Deb had given us a little primer on how to approach the stoic Hoffmeister and her more outgoing kayaking partner, Bjorn Myrset, a longtime family friend. Deb made it clear that Hoffmeister wouldn’t entertain questions. In fact, she warned, it would probably be best not to try to go beyond a polite hello with their extremely focused houseguest, who doesn’t mince words.

“It isn't anything about being rude or short,” Deb explained. "It's just how she functions. It's the kind of energy it takes for her to get to the next place. We were chit-chatting at dinner, and even then…"

"It was very quiet then,” Dave interjects. It was a different experience for the couple, who hail from Wisconsin and describe themselves as Midwest-friendly.

"I was trying to understand,” Deb said, "and I asked her at the table last night about where all this intensity, passion, and athleticism come from. And she was like, 'I just have it.' That was it. That was the end of the conversation."

“She's a very modest person,” Dave said. "She just doesn't brag about anything,” Deb said. "It's a 'just what I do' kind of thing. I'm so grateful to have met her woman-to-woman. It's a personality you don't run into every day. She's always thinking about her next step. And I think she contributes conversationally only what she needs to. At the end of dinner I said, ‘If you would like to go do something else, feel free.' She said, ‘Well, I'm trying to be social.’"

"I said, 'Don't worry about it,'" Dave said.

"You don't have to sit and visit with people you don't know,” Deb told her. "You can just get up and do whatever you want. We're not offended. Just take care of yourself. So after dessert, she excused herself and she went and took care of her stuff."

Myrset, on the other hand, is more affable. His relationship with the Erslands goes back decades.

“We met Bjorn in the 1980s,” Deb said, "He reached out to me a few months ago, and asked if we'd be down here. At the time, I wasn't sure. I was caring for a friend who was dying. And so I didn't know what the timeline was going to be. But we were here by the end of February. So we've just been in touch, trying to figure out when they were going to arrive. Originally, I think they were going to stay maybe two nights. But as it turns out, there was somebody in Bokeelia that took them in and they stayed there for two nights, rested and restocked. And then they ended up spending a whole day on a sandbar up in Pine Island because the weather was so bad. So we were never sure quite when they were going to get here.”

Deb said conversations with Hoffmeister were brief.

"We didn't have long conversations,” Deb said. “Even in the evening, she was focused on what she did next. I don't come from a family who trains intensely. So it was interesting to see how she was kind of taking care of business, what you do next, go to sleep, get up, have things ready in the morning. You know, it was so impressive.”

The Erslands downplay their contribution to Hoffmeister’s incredible journey.

"We had nothing to do with anything,” Deb said. "I mean, we gave her a bed and food and a place to put her boat, but we had no contribution to anything other than we felt fortunate to get to meet her and have our friend Bjorn here. Would you agree, Dave?

“Exactly,” Dave said, "Just so happy to be supportive."

Hoffmeister, who once competed in the Miss Germany pageant and finished sixth, was already up and preparing when we arrived a half hour before daybreak. After quietly and efficiently packing her kayak, she ate her breakfast from a small bowl on the edge of the dock, moments before launching.

"She has it down,” Deb said. “She had her breakfast put together last night,” Dave said. “This morning I made a little omelette for them,” Deb said, "and she wouldn't eat that much. She knows what it takes to make her body work, right? I think she's very consistent. It sounds like that's what she does every day. They have to be able to eat on a sandbar."

Even though she is carrying a larger load in her kayak, Hoffmeister is ready well ahead of Myrset.

“She's got quite a bit more,” Dave said. "When she was unpacking her kayak last night, oh my gosh, it was incredible."

"It was like a clown car,” Deb said. "Like how many more clowns can come out of that thing? It was just a big, big thing. And then I went and picked up 12 gallons of water.

So that was packed in there, too. When you look at their kayaks, they're so narrow. So you think about everything they have in there, including tents and sleeping bags.”

As day breaks, Hoffmeister is quickly ready to launch.

"I just had to make sure I stayed out of her way,” Dave said. "If she fell in, I'd be there. But other than that, I'm staying out of her way."

"I don't want to say Freya’s demanding,” Deb said, "but she has an expectation that you can't hold her up. It's her expedition.”

Deb asked Bjorn if he was enjoying the experience of accompanying Hoffmeister. He was emphatic with his answer.

"I asked him this morning,” Deb said, “Are you having fun? And he said, ‘Oh, it’s just such an adventure. How many chances would you get to be able to do something like this?"

Indeed, Myrset feels honored to accompany Hoffmeister on her incredible adventure.

"I met Freya the first time 22 years ago in an Arctic sea kayak race in Norway,” Myrset said. "And she came over to me. We were sitting by the fire and there were about 200 people or so on the beach. We talked some that week. Then I was in a meeting in Sweden where they asked me if I knew Freya Hoffmeister. I said, ‘Why do you ask?' They said they were sponsors for her when she was south of Cape Horn in South America and came out in a hurricane in 120 knots and her kayak was broken in two pieces. And after that, I started to follow her on Facebook. And then I saw at Christmastime she was asking if somebody's keen to follow her around Florida this winter. I said, ‘Oh yes, me.’ Then she called me and we decided to do it.”

Hoffmeister is very selective when it comes to picking a kayaking partner: “twice the kayakers, twice the problems” is her motto. But so far things are going swimmingly with her old friend Myrset.

"I say that everything has been near to perfect so far,” Myrset said. "It was so windy yesterday. We were talking a bit if we could go or not, because we were going to go up the river and there were breaking waves. But then we went and looked at the conditions and we found out that we could go. I flew over here March 2 and I’m going to go back the March 26. She has experience like nobody else. She can do everything, I think. Yes, I think that is correct that she is the G.O.A.T, the greatest of all time when it comes to endurance kayaking."

Myrset, 70, said it took a while to get used to the pace of Hoffmeister, 61.

"The first two days were worse and worse, but after three days, it started getting better,” he said.

As Hoffmeister and Myrset paddled away from their dock, the Erslands waved goodbye.

"I very much respect her,” Deb said. "I mean, she really is a force. Dynamic. Strong."

"Very focused,” Dave adds.

“It's an anomaly for me,” Deb said, "because that isn't necessarily the people we hang out with."

"That's not who we see,” Dave agrees.

“To me, it's like, wowza,” Deb said. "It's a really big deal. She’s very focused on her passion.”

After reaching Miami, Hoffmeister will return to her native Germany to recover and work in her two ice cream shops before returning to her passion. Myrset will return to Norway. Though she hasn’t set a strict timeline to complete her journey, Hoffmeister estimates it will take 10-12 years to complete her circumnavigation. She started in 2017. The total trip is approximately 30,000 miles.