Benjamin Donner

Benjamin is the owner and head coach of Aavameri, a Finnish sea kayaking company with most of Europe’s finest kayaking waters as its playground and work field. Ben has over 1300 nights in the open air behind him, instructing sea kayaking, sea safety and survival, white water paddling, leadership and mountaineering. Much of his work focuses on guide coaching and assessing sea kayak leaders, even though he also much enjoys taking out families kayaking in his favourite waters and arranging exeditions. He has guided and coached around the world since 1995, with places such as the Norwegian Lofoten and Helgelandskysten area, northern Wales, Cornwall, Greece, Scotland and of course his own local Finnish Archipelago Sea with its 50.000 islands as favourite spots.

At home in Finland, part of his work has circeled around developing coaching and proficiency training syllabuses and assessments for Nordic and national sea kayaking associations. He holds the highest coach and assessor certificates in Finland and Sweden and is also amongst others a BCU 5 Star Leader and Wilderness First Responder. He was the initiator and head of one of the biggest sea kayak symposiums, Hanko Sea Kayak Gathering in Finland, during its first six years, but today focuses more on his company which nowdays offers courses, expeditions, day tours, expedition support in Finland and rents and sells sea kayaking equipment.

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