These three men have paddled across all five Great Lakes and raised money to protect them

The final paddle across Lake Ontario was the most grueling.

When Kwin Morris, Jeff Guy and Joe Lorenz paddled away from Toronto they were supposed to have a tailwind. Instead the weather switched, bringing a crosswind that pounded them with four foot waves from the side for six hours.

"It was brutal," said Jeff Guy, a financial advisor from Traverse City, Michigan who along with Morris and Lorenz, also from Michigan, traversed all five Great Lakes on standup paddle boards to raise money and awareness for environmental issues around the basin.

The Lake Ontario crossing was supposed to happen in 2020, but was delayed for years because of travel restrictions due to the pandemic. In 2022, the safety boats that accompany them during the lake crossings pulled out at the last minute. But the paddlers completed the mission in June this year, paddling 74 total miles across Lake Ontario from Toronto to the U.S. and back again.

The adventure of a lifetime all started at a Christmas party in 2014, when Morris turned to Guy and asked whether it was possible to cross Lake Michigan on a standup paddle board. It evolved into an opportunity to make a positive impact.

Morris, Guy and Lorenz aren’t professional paddlers. In fact, Morris and Guy only started standup paddle boarding together a few years before their Lake Michigan crossing. Lorenz first picked up a standup paddle only a year before.

The group never intended on traversing all five lakes, but after they made it across Lake Michigan, the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary – home to an estimated 200 shipwrecks – approached them about paddling across Lake Huron.

“It started as an adventure and then kept growing,” Morris said.

When they paddled across Lake Michigan in 2015 the group decided to raise money for a Great Lakes-based organization. They chose the Alliance for the Great Lakes in Chicago.

And then before they paddled across Lake Huron in 2017, the paddlers started Standup for Great Lakes, a nonprofit organization the group started to raise awareness on the threats that freshwater systems face.

Not only was the route specific to each lake, but so was the organization they chose to donate money to.

During their 2018 paddle across Lake Superior, the paddlers wanted to bring attention to shipwrecks, so they paddled to the site of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald and participated in a wreath ceremony. They raised money for the Great Lakes Historical Shipwreck Society

In 2019, they crossed Lake Erie and donated money to the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research, a research consortium that monitors the lake’s yearly summertime algae blooms.

Again, the group raised money for the research institute when they crossed Lake Ontario earlier this year. Researchers with the institute are also working to improve weather forecasting. Unpredictable weather switches – which the paddlers saw firsthand on their slog across the lake – cause coastal flooding and erosion, an issue for many of the lakes.

Each route took roughly 24 hours.

Every paddle was just as much mentally exhausting as it was physically, Guy said. The mornings were the easiest, he said, because everyone is still “amped up.” Midday is when energy levels start to wane, so they stayed mentally busy by keeping the conversation going.

“The night is the make or break point of the paddle,” Guy said. “You have to be locked in because the horizon has disappeared.”

The sunrise on each lake provided a much needed boost of energy, he said, but only if it was clear enough that the horizon became visible, which wasn’t always the case. The last ten miles was the home stretch that gave them the energy they needed to find shore.

The chocolate-covered espresso beans also helped keep Guy's energy levels up. Morris, however, preferred to refuel with pizza and dried mangoes. Lorenz tried to “keep it scientific” by figuring out exactly how much protein, carbohydrates and electrolytes he needed.

Morris, who started on this journey in his twenties and now has two kids, said he has grown up with every lake they paddled. He hopes his adventures will inspire his kids to get outdoors and appreciate the lakes like he does.

“The more people that have passion for the lakes, the more likely there’s going to be some good that comes out of it,” Guy said.

More: Surfers acutely aware of environmental challenges facing Lake Michigan

Caitlin Looby is a Report for America corps member who writes about the environment and the Great Lakes. Reach her at clooby@gannett.com or follow her on Twitter @caitlooby.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: These 3 Michigan men paddle boarded across all 5 of the Great Lakes