One wouldn’t know it upon a first meeting with Victoria Burgess that the soft spoken redhead from Pompano Beach, Florida is a spark plug of energy. Participating and excelling in several sports in her school years led her towards the high intensity world of fire-rescue. Growing up surfing, she made a graceful transition to the rapidly growing sport of Stand Up Paddling, mentored by her soulmate, expert waterman, Roray Kam. 

   Naturally, a radical idea transpired in her mind. The onset of SUP upon the world brought forth many challengers. Victoria wanted to create a greater awareness of women participating in athletics. So one night in late 2016, she formed a plan to paddle a 14 foot long stand up paddle board from Havana, Cuba, to Key West, Florida. Only one other person (a man) attempted and completed it. Due to the competitive nature of the sport she kept her plan secret, so no one would attempt it before she did.

    The day came when months of planning and preparation was executed. On the morning of June 27, 2018, Marina Hemingway appeared still and humid. Dockside was a different story. Journalists from across the globe jostled around Victoria for their possible moment of coverage. She stood up on her board, pushing away from the dock, and commenced on a paddle like no other she’d done before. Paddling all day, into and throughout the night, across the diabolical Straits of Florida sidechop seas, & baseball diamond sized mats of sargassum sea weed, Vic endured, arriving at Key West, Florida, on June 28, 2018, 27 hours and 48 minutes later. She officially received a Guinness world record for fastest time crossing from Cuba to Florida on a Stand up Paddle board. But that’s not why she did it. She did the paddle in an effort to raise awareness about women in sport. As a coach and nutritionist, she works with a number of female athletes and finds that oftentimes,they aren’t aware of their own strength and are hesitant to push themselves to their limits for fear of failure.

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“I want to show young girls that anything is possible, regardless of your situation,” says Burgess. “You just have to go for it.”