Author: Justine

I’ve just had one of the best days surfing I’ve ever had in North Wales.
Clean head-high lines of surf rolled onto the north coast of the Llyn Peninsula all afternoon. We put in at the pretty harbour of Trevor, a place we usually drive past on the way to the ‘proper surf’ at Hells Mouth. Today, most people avoided the pounding unpredicatble walls of white at Hells Mouth and there were cars with roofracks parked all along the road on the north coast of the Llyn. The sun even shone for most of the afternoon and everyone had big grins as we crawled off the water as the sun set. Trevor is usually flat but it’s a great spot when it works, with clean steep lefthanders peeling for a few hundred metres. We started off trying to surf outside the harbour but I got caught in the already broken water on my first attempt and struggled to get off the pounding surf as I was driven towards some nasty sharp rocks. We thought better of it, and moved to a slighly smaller, friendlier, and excellent break in the bay. At this spot, you can take a fantastic clean ride in then paddle back out in flat water and set up for another go.

Despite the fun, I’ve had a shadow hanging over me today as I constantly kept thinking about Andrew McAuley and his family on the other side of the world. I found out last night, UK time, that he might be in trouble so close to the end of his solo kayak journey from Tasmania to New Zealand. I so admire Andrew for living his dreams, for setting himself goals, and methodically and sensibly working towards them. From the few emails I had from Andrew, I have been really impressed with the logical and rational approach he has to challenges – and the guts that he has. It made me feel alive just to read his trip updates every day – which has been the first thing I’ve done every morning for 4 weeks. So Andrew, as I was catching those waves today, feeling the adrenaline surge through my body, I was thinking of you & Vicky, sending you my best wishes and hopes & thinking of how the sea that we love can be so giving and so taking, how it can bring joy on one side of the world and despair on the other. It’s not fair but it’s that unpreditable, untamable beauty that draws us to the ocean.

I hope more than anything right now that you are OK. If it’s possible to send warmth and energy mentally then you’ve been getting plenty of help from all over the world. It must be daylight again in NZ now. My best wishes are with you and the rescue teams.

Ok, here is the world’s first glimpse of ‘This is the Sea 3’. You’re probably not reading this anymore and have clicked the link (!)…. but just incase someone sticks it out then I’ll explain that it shows a few shots from every chapter in the DVD, except for the 40min documentary about Antarctica. You can probably work out which chapter things come from by reading the accompanying text. Just to keep you coming back, I’ll add a separate preview clip of ‘Epics in Ice – An Antarctic Kayak Odyssey’ in about a weeks time. Thank you very much to Derrick Mayoleth who has been slaving away at his computer to put the video on the site ( and about a million other things!!).

In related news, ‘This is the Sea 3’ is already on sale on my website, and on a few other sites. In the next few days, I’ll be introducing a ‘special offer’ on the shopping pages. Buy any 2 DVDs and save, or buy any 3 DVDs and save even more! I will also be contacting shops and distributors this week to make sure that they stock up on the new DVD prior to the launch on 10th March. Feel free to hassle your local shop to stock some – they can email me for details.

If you are based in the UK, then I’ll be showing the UK premiere of ‘This is the Sea 3’ at the Outdoor Show in Birmingham on 17th and 18th March. Well, strictly speaking I’ll be showing some of it because it’s over 2 hours long andmy slots are only 45mins long!! All my DVDs will be on sale and if you are too tight to buy anything ;-)then “The North Face” are making some posters that will be FREE.

Blogger won’t let me post a picture.. I’ll try again later!

Well, phew…. ‘This is the Sea 3’ has flown out of my computer. The editing is over at last!!! I’ll post the master tapes off today and in about 3 weeks time the finished DVDs will arrive ( maybe slightly longer in the States because I have to post a master DVD over there). So now Derrick and I are madly finalising the back cover, and near the top of my long list of things to do is editing a promotional clip which I’ll put on the website in the next few days. For now here’s a photo of a demanding visitor we got to the house today. There I am with my eyes glued to the TV checking the master tapes for any drop-out or glitches and there’s a loud bang on the window. The pheasant who seems to be resident in the garden had decided we had been neglecting feeding him so he came to the glass door to say ‘hey, whatever you’re doing isn’t THAT important. I need some food!’ Alun opened the door and he came right into the house!

I know I don’t often write about general happenings in the seakayaking world, but if you’re not aware of Andrew McAuley’s expedition to kayak from Tasmania to New Zealand then you should check out his website and read the daily reports that his wife has been writing. It’s amazing what he is doing, in little more than a standard kayak. I’m proud to have one of Andrew’s other adventures featured in ‘This is the Sea 3’ – an amazing 800km journey that he made down the Antarctic peninsula with Laurie Geogheon, and Stu Trueman. He got back from that trip last February… he doesn’t sit still for long!! See his blog here

So I’ve been busy editing and all the other stuff associated with finishing off a DVD! I’m so close now and will finish the editing this week. ( I HAVE to finish the editing this week to get the DVDs made in good time for the launch! ) I’ve had a bit of time for play – Alun and I paddled around the Stacks in a bit of a blow last weekend and we’ve been walking lots in the hills.

A week ago, we went out with Aled and Gemma to film them ‘testing’ Rockpools brand new Greenland style rolling kayak. I’d already told Aled that I wasn’t really interested in filming it if they were just paddling on flat water and it needed to be a bit exciting! Well, he made pretty good on that promise. Trearduur Bay in Angelsey was full of white sea spray and powerful breaking waves. We got some good shots of Aled and Gemma immersed in it all and Aled even did a very real storm roll! Then Aled set himself up for a pretty steep wave. And the whole wave broke on top of him – the front of his kayak went straight down and the back popped up vertically about the same time as the front was sucked down with the breaking wave. That flung the back over towards shore where it too dug in deep. The back hit the bottom sending the front shooting up vertically in the air. Is this the first seakayak cartwheel caught on film? Will this become roll number 36 in the Greenland kayak rolling championships?

Don’t try to understand my description – have a sneaky look at it right here.

This clip is slow-motioned to 1/5 of the original speed – so it all happened pretty quickly! You can see a few minutes of the action in ‘This is the Sea 3’, out March 10th. You can pre-order it here if you want, or get it from your local shop at the time.

I’ll be working on a promo clip for the whole video early next week and will post that on the website then.

Thanks to Derrick for putting this video clip on the website – he snuck the Rockpool logo on there… nothing to do with me!!