Author: Justine

They say variety is the spice of life. On Saturday, Barry and I headed to the Wirral to catch up with his family and my sister, who was visiting the area. We went for a seapaddle out to Hilbre island at the mouth of the Dee Estuary – Barry’s local paddle when he lived on the Wirral. The tidal race out the back of the island was working well and we had a bit of a surf before having lunch on the island with some friends.

We headed back to North Wales and today joined John Domony and Gordon on a river paddle down the Seiont, a mostly grade 3 river which is right on our doorstep but which Barry and I haven’t done before. The level was high and we had to portage around one low bridge, but it was great fun and bouncy.

It’s been snowing on and off for the past week or two and yesterday afternoon I got out into the mountains for the first time this Winter. That’s the beauty of living in North Wales – we have sea, rivers and mountains right on our doorstep, which makes it possible to chose your poison depending on the weather and what you feel like.

Tara and I had a great walk up Y Garn and back down the Devil’s Kitchen. There was loads of snow and a bit of ice up top, and white-out conditions for the top 100-200metres. Map reading was quite tricky!! But we had a great day! Back to work today, before the weekend tomorrow!

posted by Justine Curgenven | 1:02 PM 

Last Saturday a windy forecast & big swell kept us from venturing onto the more exposed parts of the coast. Instead we opted for a ‘sheltered’ but longish paddle from Moel y Don on the Menai Straits, south and then out of the Straits to Lladwyn island. I’ve only paddled this stretch of coast once before and that was when I paddled around the whole of Anglesey in a day so I wasn’t really stopping to see the sights! A 30km round trip was enough on this day and we ended up returning practically in the dark. Barry’s godson Jake was visiting so he went in the double with Barry. The mountains of Snowdonia and the LLyn peninsula looked beautiful with a dusting of snow and I really enjoyed the different scenery and fresh crisp air!!

I tried out a Valley Aquanaut LV and Barry and I tried out Mitchell Paddles, which we liked.

I finally have a name for my canoeing DVD. I’m not sure why it took so much agonizing over because as soon as Paul Mason said, 

“Why don’t you call it “This is Canoeing”?” 

a lightbulb went on! I’d already thought of ‘This is the Canoe’ but it somehow didn’t have a good ring to it!

Some people will be relieved ( or disappointed?) that the acronym is the very respectable TIC !

The other big news is that I’l be launching the DVD at Canoecopia in Wisconsin in March 2010. I attended this event once before 3 years ago when I launched “This is the Sea 3”. I was impressed with the huge scale of it, there were so many stands and people there. At the time – as a seakayaker who had never tried canoeing – I was surprised to see that half of the hall was full of canoes and open boat stuff! Things I knew very little about!

This year, I’ll be looking with interest at everything at Canoecopia, on the seakayaking and canoeing stands! The programme isn’t finalised yet but aswell as launching the world premiere of “This is Canoeing”, I’ll be giving some salty and fresh water presentations. I’m excited that my good friends, Shawna Franklin & Leon Somme from Body Boat Blade will be there and we may even all give a presentation about our trip to the Queen Charlotte islands.

Back to now…..I only have 105 days left until Canoecopia! Realistically thats about 70 days left until I need to have finished the editing, graphics and cover! Plus letting customers, shops and distributors know about the DVD!
It’s a bit of a tight deadline but I’d like to launch the DVD at a big event at the start of the season, so the gauntlet has been laid down! Editing is going well and the stuff looks great! ( although I say so myself!).

The DVD is being sponsored by “CanoeRoots” and “Rapid magazine“. The staff there have just launched new websites which you should check out. They will also be designing the DVD cover for me so thanks a lot to Beth and Scott for that.

Right, back to it! I hope to see some of you there at Canoecopia!

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