Author: Justine

So it was like this…. a sunny California morning, clean glassy 4foot waves on a reef break, no battling to get out back, just a paddle out on flat water; turn, wait and surf back in towards the shore at Sunset Cliffs. Alun and Jake were ripping it up on either side of me and pelicans were crusing by in convoy just above the waves. I found myself thinking I could every easily move to California!!! And after 3 days in the Spyder surf boat I’m finally getting to grips with it. Instead of catching an edge and flipping on almost every wave, I’m feeling comfortable turning it on the wave and really enjoying it. We had the pleasure of meeting the man known only as Spike (!), who designed the boat and I can aspire to be able to do some of the things that he can in it!

We had a good time filming in Baja with Jen & Jake from Aqua Adventures, and the Johnson Outdoor Crew. It’s a beautiful stretch of coastline about 2.5 hours drive south of San Diego and we enjoyed rock hopping and touring in the sun. We have some great shots which will be fun to edit. It was all topped off with delicious food cooked by Jock Bradley. Some work is better than other work !! The photo is of Jeff from Canoe & Kayak magazine by the largest blow hole in the world.

We’re off to Canoecopia tomorrow with a bright and early flight to Chicago…. I better go and get organised!

I’ve surfed, swum, filmed, fished, eaten, drunk and been merry in our first 2 days in San Diego. Thanks to Jen for looking after us so well and taking us surfing yesterday. There’s something about surfing in California which makes me smile! I tried out a Necky Spyder which was a lot of fun, although I wouldn’t say that I quite mastered the fins ( being more used to a Mega Cyclone) and I got flipped uncompromisingly a lot of times!! I had some good ‘moments’ on the waves though and should have stuck to it because when I swapped boats with Alun, I managed to get a wave in my deck, the deck popped ( yeah, that old story, but REALLY it did!). One minute I was surfing and the next minute my kayak cockpit was filling with water and the front of the boat sunk underneath me! It was a long swim to shore!!

Today we were up early to film Jim Sammons and friends kayak fishing at La Jolla. Alun was filming from a boat and I was filming from a kayak on the water. Except poor ALun got a bit queesy bobbing around on the swell and looking through a viewfinder and decided to feed the fish himself. Thanks to Jock Bradley for these photos!

I’ve been busy posting out hundreds of DVDs to the UK, Europe, Australia & New Zealand so that ‘This is the Sea 3’ will be at your nearest kayak shop for the release date of 10th March 2007. (US DVDs will be shipped this week from Colorado).

A few ‘review’ copies have got into the hands of their reviewers very quickly. Here is the first review that I know about, written by Harald Rishovd from Norway.

“I have now watched the whole DVD to my eyes got big and wet:-) You should
really look forward to the “this is the sea III”, it is at least as good as
the two first films, and really has something for everyone. My favourites so
far is the hardcore sea kayak playboating in Scottish Tidal Races, the
surfing from New Zealand, an incredibly cool sequence with rolling and
tricks from Freia Hoffmeister and Cheri Perry, and not to forget, the
incredible film from the Antarctica Kayak Expedition – really extreme stuff.
Total length of the DVD is 2 hours”.

Harlad will be writing a longer review for ‘Paddling’ magazine in Norway, but has written his first impressions on 2 Norwegian paddling forums. If you understand Norwegian then you can see the review here !
or here

It’s the same review on 2 different forums, but there may be different comments added to each one.

What do you do on a cold, drizzling, winters day?
The surf was big and all over the place at Hells mouth – not much fun in a surf boat – so we decided to go and mess about in our seakayaks in the smaller surf at Dinas Dinlle. It was great fun and good practise. Neither of us have spent much time trying to surf waves in our seakayaks. Usually on trips with heavily laden kayaks we’re trying to avoid big surf and come in on the back of waves, and if the surf is up at home we go out in our surf boats. So today was great for experimenting and having a laugh – well, as much as you can when you’re fingers are tingling with the cold!! An hour or so later, we emerged from the beach smiling, after 5 rolls between us, one of them when we collided with each other!!

On a separate note, the PAL ‘This is the Sea 3’ DVDs have landed in Wales and have taken over the house ( much to Alun’s annoyance!). I wish I could post them to everyone right now, but I have to wait a while so that they arrive on the release date of 10th March. The pre-orders are all packaged up and labelled in separate boxes – one for Europe, one for the UK and one for Australia and far away places like that!! I’ve already posted a few out to magazines and websites who want to review the DVD, so we might start to see trickles of feedback very soon!! I’ve also sent them to UK and Europe shops so they’ll have them on the shelves on 10th March.

The US DVDs are still being made – they should be finished this week and then a similar process will happen there.