Corona del Mar Man to ‘Walk’ the Bering Strait

Corona del Mar resident Don Hodes has always looked for new challenges. When kayaking, swimming and marathons grew stale for the 35-year-old attorney, he looked for something different.

In 1986, he started walking on water.

Using two pontoon-like shoes and a long, double-sided oar, Hodes skates across the Pacific waves near his Crystal Cove condominium with balance and poise of biblical proportions. Since he picked up the sport--developed in Europe as an off-season training tool for skiers--Hodes has taken on long-distance crossings of some of the world’s major waterways, including the Strait of Gibraltar, the Irish Sea and the English Channel.

So where does the next challenge lie? Perhaps in crossing diplomatic channels.

For his next act, Hodes is negotiating with Soviet and American officials for passage through the Bering Strait in September. Call it glasnost on water, or pontoon peristroika-- he’s off to Alaska in less than a month, and hoping to return with a few more water miles under his feet.

“The real challenge with this one has been coordinating everything politically,” Hodes said in an interview Saturday before embarking on another weekend training jaunt. “When I first started this, I set my goal to walk across all the major walkable bodies of water in the world. . . . I’ve had this one in my mind for many years.”

With the assistance of Lynne Cox, a Los Alamitos woman who swam across the Bering Strait in 1987, Hodes began contacting the appropriate Soviet and American officials about a month ago. He met with Alexander Kozlovsky, the Soviet deputy director for physical culture and sport during the summer’s Goodwill Games in Seattle.

Since then, also with Cox’s help, he has reached everybody he needs, from the two Alaskan senators to a helicopter mail service. And things are rolling.

The plan, he said, is to fly from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska, and then take a small bush plane over to Whales, a tiny Eskimo village at the tip of the Bering peninsula. With luck, he will catch a helicopter shuttle to the American island of Little Diomede and set off the next day to walk to Uelen.

With water and air temperatures expected to hover between 30 and 40 degrees, this walk will be, by far, the coldest one that Hodes has undertaken. The 22-mile journey, roughly the same length as the English Channel, should take him about seven hours, depending on the waves and winds.

For the journey, Hodes hopes to be accompanied by both Soviet and American ships. The idea is to demonstrate mutual cooperation, he said, and to show that the diplomatic channels closed years ago are now open.

Once he arrives, there will be a ceremonial gift exchange with some of the people who have helped him on his journey. Then it’s back home again by Oct. 1.

So, with a month before he heads out, Hodes is pushing his workouts. Each weekend, he spends one day on the water, walking from his home near Crystal Cove to Laguna Beach and back. He also tries to get out on the ocean at least once during the week.

All told, Hodes’ trip will cost him roughly $15,000. He is hoping to get corporate sponsorship, but so far has not heard from the companies that he has contacted. But, as he says, the cost of the trip should not be an obstacle.

“I do it for the athletic challenge, but more than anything, I do it because your time on this world is limited,” he said.