Author: Justine

  • Golden Gate Seakayak Symposium

    What a great event the GGSKS is. A fantastic location, experienced and fun coaches, keen and interesting students, tasty food & I guess 3 days of sun helped too! Thanks so much to the organisers Sean Morley & Matt Palmariello for inviting me & to Kokatat for sponsoring my flight to the event. I paddled a very pretty Gemini SP thanks to Valley sea kayaks & Rob Avery.

    I’m a bit tired after ‘not quite enough’ sleep but I’m smiling at the memories of 3 great days on the water. The first day I joined Sean Morley and a fun group for a paddle outside the gate (which I learnt meant going under the bridge to the outer coast). We had a beautiful one way trip to Muir beach, stopping to do a few rock hops & dealing with small surf at Rodeo Beach so we could land for lunch. The swell is always present here – but this day it was ‘relatively’ small allowing us to land on the outer coast comfortably.

    On Saturday, I worked with ‘tall Matt’ talking about tides & then using them to paddle to Alcatraz & around Angel island. Another gorgeous paddle. Yesterday was a tidal race day with Ben Lawry. The waves were smaller than on the other days but that didn’t stop everyone having fun and learning lots.

    I gave a talk on Friday night about some of my adventures & the upcoming “This is the Sea 5”. On Saturday night, Jason Self, Chris Bensch, Shay Bickley from Out of Sight, Out of Mind talked about their project to help reduce & clean up litter from our waterways and the ocean. They have a Kickstarter project and are looking for money to fund their work. More info here. Ken Campbell & Steve Weileman showed a film of their journey up the West coast looking for debris from the Japanese Tsunami. More info about their Ikkatsu Project here.

    I’d thoroughly recommend the Golden Gate Sea kayak Symposium for any sea kayaker wanting to attend a festival.

  • “This is the Sea 5” is coming

    “This is the Sea 5” has been 4 years in the making so I’m excited to see it finally taking shape before me. It may seem like I spend lots of time doing fun things (and that’s what I aspire to!) but I fit in a lot of desk-time too. I’ve been editing 8 sea kayaking adventure films which will be released on another bumper-filled DVD in just a couple of months. There are 4 documentary length trip films & 4 shorter features; in total about 3 hours worth of inspirational movies. I’m still editing the last couple but can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

    Beth Kennedy from Rapid Media has produced another great cover, with help on the words from Adventure Kayak magazine editor, Virginia Marshall.

    “This is the Sea 5” will be launched at Canoecopia on 8th-10th March. I’ll be there to present the film at the world premiere party on the Saturday night & to show highlights of the film during the day. I’m also giving a presentation about my 1,000 mile paddle around “Tierra Del Fuego”.

    I am likely to be going on a short tour of the US in March to present “This is the Sea 5” – if you are interested in hosting a showing then please get in touch.

    Big thanks to Kokatat and Valley Sea kayaks for being title sponsors for the DVD & for supporting me in my paddling adventures.

    I’m really grateful to 3 kind souls who are quietly creating French, Spanish & Italian subtitles for the DVD. These optional titles mean that the films will be able to be understood and enjoyed by thousands more people, so big big thanks to Gianfranco Liotta, Ivan Lamas & Yves Thomazeau for working really hard over the last few months to translate thousands of words. You are stars.

    SPECIAL OFFER
    To celebrate that a new inspirational sea kayaking DVD is on it’s way, I’m offering “buy one, get one free” for many of the DVDs in the Cackle TV store for the rest of January. The offer applies to “This is the Sea 1-4”, “This is Canoeing”, “Pacific Horizons”, “Eastern Horizons” and “Wilderness Quest”. In fact if you put in the discount code ‘january’, you will be given 50% off any of these DVDs (minimum order 2 DVDs). So if you’ve been ‘meaning to buy one or more of these DVDs’ then there’s never been a better time! Enjoy!

  • From Bike to Boat


    I’ve recently returned from a great 520km mountain biking journey in Nepal from the stark grey mountains of Jomsom, down through fertile valleys and  tiers of paddy fields, past the shimmering blue Pokhara lake and onwards to the brown haze and honking horns of Kathmandu. It’s my first visit to the country that I will remember as full of smiling faces, colourful clothes, dusty roads, mist-filled valleys, lofty ridges and magnificent snowy peaks.

    There was always something to look at – noisy kids running alongside with a rubber tyre and a stick; endless roadside puppies, goats, water buffalo & chickens; walking bushes that turned around to reveal a small woman shouldering a heavy green load; prayer flags streaming from temples, wooden huts decorated with Nepali chocolate bars, almost-cold coke  and delicious-looking samosas that I was advised not to eat.

    Namaste.

    Now I’m home, I made the most of a calm sunny day to go sea kayak surfing with Barry. It’s been a while since I was on the water but it felt good.

    I’m working hard to finish editing “This is the Sea 5”. Half of the 8 films are finished – a circumnavigation of Sardinia, Paul Kuthe surfing, Tierra del Fuego & sea kayaking amongst active volcanoes in Sicily. Others need a bit more work.

    In 2 weeks, I’m travelling again. This time to the Golden Gate Symposium in San Francisco. I’m excited about this event as there’s something magical about paddling under the giant suspension bridge & maybe getting out towards Alcatraz. There’s a really strong line-up of coaches and paddlers. It will be great to see some friends again, and to meet a few new people. There are still spaces at the event so if you fancy some West Coast US paddling then get in touch with Sean Morley or one of the other orgainsers!

  • Nepal mountain biking

    Cheryl and I have been friends for 30 years, it’s her fault that I discovered the exciting world of adventure as a little over 15 years ago she dragged me along to the Jersey canoe club. She also planned our first walking trip in Scotland and persuaded me to buy a bike so we could cycle across the Pyrenees.

    She now runs Rather be Cycling, taking people biking to some exciting & interesting locations. When she excitedly said I should join one of her trips to mountain bike in Nepal this Christmas, I couldn’t resist. So here I am! I arrived a week early to do some biking with Cheryl around the foothills of Kathmandu & have had some good rides – as well as a great introduction to the friendly people.

    Soon we set off on a 500km mountain bike journey from Jomsom back to Kathmandu – details here.

    Yesterday’s ride!