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I’ve just returned from 10 days in Jersey. That’s the ORIGINAL Jersey – in the British Channel Islands, home of the famous Jersey cow and Jersey Royal potatoes! And my parents. I managed to combine the family trip with a bit of a paddling holiday with Gemma Rawlings. We took the ferry to Jersey so we could take all our toys. Jersey is a very pretty island with 40 foot tides and strong currents so we were looking forward to some fun exploring. We were hoping that we’d be able to paddle to some of the other Channel Isalnds which are lovely – in particular we wanted to make the 12 mile paddle to the small island of Sark where the only means of transport are tractor, horse and cart, bicycle and foot. Unfortunately it was too windy to make in to Sark but we enjoyed some good sea paddling aswell as some lovely walks and a bit of bouldering. The pictures are of Gemma and Kevin Mansell exploring the cliffs and caves near Greve de Lecq beach, and playing in ‘the Tour de Rozel’ tidal race on a particularly windy day!

Sorry I’ve been silent for a while. I haven’t been ignoring you on purpose, I have just been too busy doing things to write about any of them! I’ve decided to make a very short post just to make sure that I write something! I’m delighted to say that ‘This is the Sea Two’ is selling really well – it’s even more popular than the first DVD. All of the feedback that I have had has been positive.

I haven’t been seapaddling much for a month but on the weekends I’ve been enjoying walking, climbing and bike rides. This weekend Alun and I went for a lovely walk up Snowdon. Every day, we look out of our window at this mountain – the highest one in Wales – but (as is often the case with great things on your doorstep) we don’t go up it very often. This weekend was clear, cold and crisp with a few inches of snow on the top – definately a good day for a walk up a big hill. We avoided the main paths up the mountain but followed a sheep path up a pretty valley and then scrambled up a gully on ‘Cloggy’, a dramatic cliff covered in incredible moutain climbing routes ( a bit cold and icy for that at this time of year though ). Once at the top of Cloggy, we were walking down alongside the railway line which takes tourists to the top of the mountain. I mentioned that it must be possible to make a contraption to allow us to slide down the railway track all the way to Llanberis at the bottom! Alun looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and said “You don’t need to make anything”. I had forgotten that he grew up in Llanberis and spent his childhood exploring the hills and climbing venues in the area. A bit further down the track he started lifting up large rocks and eventually found one he liked. He carried it over to the railway track and started turning it around, turning it one way and then another. What a journey down!! You wouldn’t believe how well they slide….. I should mention that no trains run up the track at this time of year, and the stones don’t do any damage……..
(click on the photos to see them bigger! The top ones are of me stood on top of Cloggy on the way up Snowdon)

Phew! Give me a cup of tea, or should that be a whisky!? The PAL DVDs of ‘This is the Sea 2’ finally arrived on my doorstep in Wales at 3.30pm yesterday …. it’s a long story that I won’t bore you with, but that gave me less than 2 hours to repackage an awful lot of DVDs and rush them down to the post office. Fortunately we’d pre-prepared pacakging for all the individual orders so they were all posted yesterday. Most of the dealers orders were posted yesterday aswell, and the last few have gone out this morning. So get down to your local store early next week and they should have them in stock by then. A list of some of the shops that stock the DVD can be found at

www.cackletv.com/shops.html

If there is a kayaking or outdoor store near to you that DOESN’T sell it, then tell them to contact me and start selling it!!

So, now I can relax for a while and wait for feedback to start coming in. Please let me know what you think of the DVD – good or bad!! I’m off to put the kettle on!

Jim at “Riptides and Rapids” will have his frantic day tomorrow when the NTSC DVDs are due to arrive on his doorstep in California. He’s also pre-prepared packaging so all US and Canada orders will hopefully be shipped tomorrow.

Actually, it’s been lovely sunny weather in North Wales for 3 days now, but I haven’t quite got round to writing about what seemed like years of wind rain, wind rain, wind and rain (but was acutally about 2 weeks)! The rain drummed against the windows, the road became a river and even the bathroom flooded, nearly killing the cockroaches! We went surfing, and when it was too windy for that, we went walking by the sea, wondering at her power & trying to imagine what it would feel like to be thrown around in my kayak in a wild stormy tidal race. The best local surf beach is near to Bardsey Sound, a fearsome stretch of water separating the end of the Llyn Peninsula from a small island called Bardsey. The Welsh name is Ynys Enlli, which literally means ‘island in the currents’. It’s a really special place, just 4km away from the mainland but in a storm it might aswell be 400km away.

The tidal streams in Bardsey Sound easily reach 8 knots, and when the wind opposes it, it can be really wild. Just one farming family lives there all year, and a father and son fish for lobsters there for most of the Summer. You can take a boat there or kayak there when the weather is good, but in the recent stormy weather, we’ve been limited to walking on the cliffs and staring in awe at the waves. It was Bardsey Sound that gave Fiona Whitehead and I the most troublesome day on our circumnavigation of Wales – my first ‘proper’ seakaykaing trip. We tried to get around the tidal race at Braich-y-Pwll when the tide was still against us, and we couldn’t keep our balance well enough in the confused race to power our way around the point against the tide. 2 horus and 2 attempts later, we made it!! Ever since then I’ve had a special respect and awe for Bardsey Sound. I hope you enjoy these few pictures (taken by Alun).