Dawn is a serious paddler - she is one of only two females to ever finish class 2 of the Everglades Challenge - a 300 mile race from Tampa to Key Largo that lasts a week. She also has a Masters Degree in Multicultural Literature. Raised on the edge of the Linville Gorge Wilderness Area in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Dawn is proud to be a “Hillbilly Indian.”

Experience:
Outward Bound Instructor (multi-element expeditions)

International Sea Kayak Expeditioner....
Loves to do the “larger than life” for the sheer heck of it. Does not watch TV

Solo and self-sustained she paddled Freeport, Maine, to Deer Island in the Bay of Fundy, Canada in 18 days---and then hitchhiked back from Canadian Border with the aid of the informal Lobsterman Network---“Mainiacs” still refer to the woman with a 19ft kayak and no clean clothes affectionately as the “Southern Salt”

She owns and runs Pirate Queen Paddling full-time in the two locations of Oriental and Morehead City.

Wilderness EMT and North Carolina EMT

Survival Instructor for military courses---has been spotted eating lilies and dandelions from yards of neighbors.

Favorite Quote:
Said by an 80+ year old icon, Verlen Kruger, when asked what his secret was to setting expedition records, “When you aren’t paddling, you aren’t moving.”

Favorite Paddling Memory:
I was paddling at sunrise off the coast of Maine. The water was still, the lobster boats and coast were miles away, the calm silence of the morning was entrancing. Then the faint sound of snoring came drifting across my bow. As I looked for the nearest boat or house, I knew even the loudest bedmate couldn’t be heard from this far off shore. Suddenly the dreamer awoke off my bow as the startled harbour seal let out a screech of shock matched only by my own squeal of surprise.