Carson City man to use Internet crew on long voyage

      CARSON CITY -- Mike Dunn plans to spend the next year and a half sailing rivers from northern Canada to the southern tip of South America, and everyone is invited.
      Dunn's 16,000-mile expedition, called "Waterways of the Americas," will be chronicled on a custom Web page on the Internet, and Dunn is recruiting worldwide for members of a "Cybercrew" that will help him complete the voyage.
      "In essence , all I am is a travel guide," he said.
      He might be one of the most knowledgable travel guides a Web surfer can find.
      Dunn, 47, is a professional expedition/adventure travel guide who has climbed the seven highest peaks in the world, including Mount Everest. He said he has visited every country in the world except North Korea and Albania, and he once led Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, and Sir Edmund Hillary, the first West erner to top Mount Everest, on a trip to the North Pole. He also helped scout the sites for several small research stations in Antarctica.
      "I came up with this project when I was stuck in a snow cave on Everest in '89," he said.
      With two computers, two banks of batteries, three modems, and two global-positioning monitors loaded onto his 26-foot state-of-the-art sailboat, "Zeno's Arrow," Dunn will be able to communicate with people thr oughout the world during his trip.
      Many of those travel fans already have signed up as members of Dunn's Cybercrew and are helping him plan logistics and line up supplies along his route. After the voyage begins, Dunn's Cybercrew will send him weather forecasts and assist with navigation. They'll help him find vehicles to transport his boat over land between rivers, and they'll help him find locations to refuel and take on provisions.
      In some cases, with the help of the Global Positioning System and a computer link with the boat's autopilot, they'll be able to direct the craft while Dunn sleeps aboard.
      "This has never been done before on the Interne t. This is right on the edge," he said.
      Dunn plans frequent live discussions with Internet visitors, and he'll place photographs and a journal of his voyage on the website.
      A map of t he route in Dunn's website will contain links to local websites along the way, such as chambers of commerce and other businesses, so his followers can get a feel for the places he's visiting.
      The expedition's goal, he said, is to make the places he visits accessible to everyone by way of their computers.
      "It equalizes everyone on the crew," he said. "A kid with disabiliti es who helps with the expedition can be as effective as a retired four-star general."
      Dunn is especially excited about the possibility that schoolchildren will be able to follow his progress and help with the trip.
      "We're looking now for Nevada schools. I'd like to involve all these schools that are going online," he said.
      He's also looking for corporate sponsors to help foot the bill for his online communications. It will cost him about $1 per minute for a live broadcast from the boat to the website, and he'd like to spend an hour a day, six days per week, communicating on the computer with people around the world during his trip.
  & #160;   Dunn said equipping the boat and the expedition cost about $70,000, and he'll need at least another $24,000 to pay for an hour a day on the Internet. He has a few sponsors -- among them are North Sails of Minden, Powernet of Reno, and O nramp Internet Websites of Carson City, which created Dunn's elaborate website -- but he said there is room for more.
      Last month, Dunn took his boat to Olympia, Wash., to begin the initial leg of his trip. He's travelin g up the coast and should land in Skagway, Alaska, in mid-June. He'll sail and haul the boat northward to Inuvik, where he'll start his trip southward up the Mackenzie River.
      He hopes the trip won't end until he reaches Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America. The entire trip should take 18-22 months, he estimated.
      Dunn said he has visited most of the rivers where he will travel.
      "This is the first time they've been plugged together into something like this, connecting the inland waterways of North and South America," he said. "I'm looking forward to sharing these places with people. I'm looking forward to meeting people along the way."
& #160;     That includes thousands of people who Dunn hopes will follow his expedition and share their thoughts with him through the Internet.
      "When you have 10 people looking at a sunset and they al l start talking about it, you learn things you didn't know. Imagine what that's like when you have 10,000 people," he said.

The URL for the "Zeno's Arrow, Waterways of the Americas" expedition site is: http://www.planetwave.com.