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CURIOUS SEAL AS WE LEFT THE SKERIES

I’ve been working pretty hard lately to get this DVD finished and although I’ve been paddling and walking and other activities, I haven’t been spending as much time doing them as I’d have liked. Although I’ve still got lots of things to organise, this weekend was a chance to forget about work and do some dedicated paddling! On Saturday Barry, Axel and I paddled around Holy island on Anglesey – a 22 mile paddle which involves kayaking through some of the best Anglesey races ( North Stack, South Stack and Penrhyn Mawr), aswell as weaving through a shallow estuary to the ‘inland sea’, and paddling underneath 2 narrow bridges where the tide pours in and then out of the inland sea. Despite paddling on Anglesey for years, it was the first time Axel and I had paddled around Holy island and it was great fun. It was windier than we’d expected which slowed us down at times but made it more fun. It was quite exciting to paddle under Four Mile Bridge with the current, and then we stopped for lunch for 2 hours at “Stanley embankment” to wait for the tide to stop pouring into the inland sea. Barry even swapped his seakayak for a playboat and had a surf.

ME ABOUT TO GO THROUGH FOUR MILE BRIDGE

Today was a beautiful sunny summers day and we decided to paddle to the Skerries, a wonderful offshore island with loads of seals and birds. Except we decide to make it a bit more interesting so we paddled there against the tide. We eddy-hopped from Cemlyn to Carmel Head and then ferry glided across to the island. A great weekend to remind me what it’s all about!

BARRY AT STANLEY EMBANKMENT

Thanks to Axel for the photos

On Monday I finally finished editing “This is the Sea 4″ and posted the master tapes to the company who is producing the master DVDs for me. Anyone who has done some editing knows that it’s a never-ending job which consumes you for weeks on end, but at some point you just say ‘That’s it. I’m happy with that!” Now I have to wait about 3 weeks before I can proudly show off the finished product.

A few friends have seen some of the finished DVD and feedback has been great. One friend was an hour late for his appointment when he sat down to watch a bit of the 50 minute New Zealand documentary and ended up glued to the screen for all of it! Other friends have scrunched up their faces in sympathy watching me try to follow expert whitewater kayakers Ken Whiting and Brendan Mark down the Ottawa river and end up sliding into a hole three times my height and much more powerful than me! And there is loads of other good stuff in there.

It would be nice to report that I’m now out paddling all day before coming home and putting my feet up & chilling out in front of the wood-burning stove, but alas – there is still lots to do to let people know that the DVD is coming, make sure distributors and shops will have the DVD in time for the launch date of 18th October, organize the premiere tour, decide what will be in the hour long ‘festival’ version of the DVD which I’ll be playing at the premiere events, make another preview clip etc etc…

Thanks a lot to Derrick Mayoleth, who has been working hard on the cover design and disc designs. I’ve ben finding plenty of time to hassle him!!

The premiere tour for ‘This is the Sea 4’ is coming together nicely. The Seattle premiere will be at Seattle Raft & Kayak Company on 5th November (my birthday), the San Diego premiere will be on Thursday 13th November and the venue is almost sorted! The Vancouver premiere has now moved dates and is on Saturday 1st November ( due to our original airline Zoom going bust and us having to re-book our flights). There is likely to be an extra premiere on Orcas in the San Juan islands, probably on 4th November and we may be able to add a couple more dates. I don’t think the organizers in San Francisco have found a venue yet so please get in touch with any suggestions.

In the UK, we’re arranging a premiere at Brookbank Canoes huge new store in Stockport (Manchester), probably on 31st October.

Details on the premieres will be updated soon ( once Derrick has recovered from all my other requests!), Keep up to date here.

You can see details of our premiere tour of America and Canada, sponsored by Lendal, on the website now. Click here.
Details will be updated as things are firmed up.

The photo is me filming the rockhopping in Baja section, at the world’s second largest blowhole!

I’m locked away in a dark room right now, busy editing “This is the Sea 4” so it can be on the shelves of your local kayaking store in time for Christmas. I’ve done an amazing amount of kayaking in the last 18 months – over 7 months worth of trips and symposiums in fact!! All in the interests of giving you an action packed DVD full of fantastic locations. In fact, I’ve got so much great material that “This is the Sea 4” is going to be a double-disc set, and the good news is that it will still be the same price as the others, $29.95, £20 or Euro 29.95. If making these DVDs were purely a business venture for me then I would be crazy to give you so much good stuff in one DVD when I could hold over half of it for a later date, but I can’t help being passionate about what I do and I want to share it all and inspire everyone else to get out on the water.

Editing is going well, it’s not over yet and things may change a little bit but here’s the line up so far. Or read about it on the webpage here.

There are 3 fascinating expedition stories; Haida culture & humpback whales around British Columbia’s Queen Charlotte islands; island hopping from Australia to Tasmania across the Bass Strait, & a 2400km trip around the stunning South island of New Zealand complete with intimidating surf & a helicopter evacuation.

Rough water rolling, Greenland rope gymnastics & commando kayaking with DUBSIDE, Kayak fishing in San Diego, Rock hopping in Baja, kayaking fun with father and son in Norways stunning fjords, paddling the Dead Sea in Israel, Seakayaking the Grade 4 Ottawa River, Lake Superiors Apostle islands AND MORE….

You can read more about the DVD on it’s own dedicated webpage.

There is a preview clip of the New Zealand expedition, and soon there will be another preview clip on there.
I hope you like the front cover, designed by Derrick Mayoleth from www.kayakquixotica.com

The exciting news continues, Barry and I are going ‘on tour’ with the DVD across North America. Thanks to sponsorship from “Lendal”, we’ll be presenting an hour long version of the DVD at about 8 different locations including Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago, Florida & New York. Details are still being sorted out, but if there is one near you then I hope to see you there! You can see the details of the tour on the webpage.

We’ll also be presenting the DVD in the UK at the Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival on 18th October, and at the Scottish Canoe Show in Perth on 25th and 26th October.

And if you can’t wait to see it then you can also now pre-order the DVD to make sure it arrives as soon as it’s ready. Go to the shop here. Shipping is free for a limited time!