Author: Justine

 

This year many people are heading out for adventures in their sea kayaks. It seems like paddlers are taking on more and more ambitious journeys. Here’s a round up of the current trips I could find.

Keirron & George are in the Aleutian islands attempting to kayak the length of the islands.

Sandy Robson is starting stage 2 of her 5 year expedition to retrace the footsteps of Oscar Speck. This year she plans to paddle from Turkey to India with expedition partner Jugoslav Rudovic (from Serbia). Oskar Speck set out in his folding kayak on the Danube River in 1932.  Seven years, 3 kayaks and 50 000km later, he landed in Australian waters. Sandy hopes to get home to her home waters in Australia following a similar route.

Norwegian paddlers Magnus and Lars are paddling from the South tip of Norway, Lindesnes to North Cape (Nordkapp), a distance of 2000km. The expedition is dedicated to Redningsselskapet, the Norwegian Sea Rescue Organization. Their blog is mostly in Norwegian.

A Hungarian kayaker is paddling around Europe. He plans to do it in 4 sections in 4 years. He started from Budapest on 14th of April and just reached the Black sea.

Amy and Dave Freeman are part way through a 3 year, 12,000 mile expedition across North America by canoe, kayak and dog sled. They are kayaking in the Great Lakes at the moment.

Matt Abbots, his wife & a friend are leaving next week on our way to Russia for a 3 month, 1300 mile circumnavigation of Lake Baikal.

Halldor Sveinbjornsson and Baldvin Kristjansson are attempting the first kayak journey across the Arctic Ocean from Iceland to Greenland later this Summer.

Shay Bickley, Chris Bensch & Jason Self have are on a 100 Mile Portland to Ocean Trashpedition collecting as much rubbish from the waterways as possible.

On 19th April, Mike Mayberry & Steve started their circumnavigation of Wales.

In New Zealand, Tara & Sim are about to start an attempt at the first Winter circumnavigation of the South island of New Zealand (and Stuart Island). Having paddled around the island in Summer – that was challenging enough so good luck to them!

Chris Duff has switched his kayak for a rowing boat that he made himself, and is attempting to row from Scotland to Iceland, via the Faroe Islands. He’s not been lucky with the weather so far.

Sarah Outen – who I kayaked from Russia to Japan with last year as part of her human-powered round the world trip has just left Japan in her rowing boat Gulliver. Next stop is hopefully Canada in 5-7 months time (although she may get pushed south into America). In the first week poor Sarah has had some challenging conditions – she’s already been rolled & sustained a bit of damage to one of her vents. I’ll be heading over to meet her around October, which I’m excited about.

A Portuguese team are rounding the Iberic Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) at the moment.

Paul and Marian, husband and wife, are the ‘Dutch paddlers’ who will try to paddle around Iceland starting on June 1st, hoping to become the first Dutch paddlers to do that.

If anyone knows of any other trips, please put them in the comments section!

There are lots of people kayaking around Great Britain this year..I already wrote about that… click here for a round up of those trips.

Last night was the final of ‘Britains’ got Talent’ on TV. And this year is a bumper year for people kayaking around Britain. I’ve tried to collect together the websites of everyone who is having a go – please let me know if I’ve missed anyone.

But first, a note of caution for any circumnavigators –  beware as you might end up looking like this lot in the photo above. This is Barry, Phil and Harry the day they finished their 80-day circumnavigation back in 2005. These 3 share the current record for the fastest circumnavigation with Marcus Demuth, who paddled around solo last year.

Joe Leach set off from Cornwall about 12 days ago and has already reached the North Coast of Anglesey – in readiness for a crossing to the Isle of Man. He’s out to break the solo record set by Marcus Demuth of 80 days. I happened to be at South Stack lighthouse with a video camera when he kayaked past yesterday, so here’s a short video.

jo_leach-SStack – click to see video.

Joe might find that the ‘record’ of 80 days has already been broken by the time he nears Falmouth again. The human dynamo John Willacy is 5 weeks into his speedy circumnavigation, having left from Anglesey on Friday 13th April. John can’t help himself going fast and breaking records, and holds half a dozen records for the fastest crossing of the Irish sea in various places, aswell as a sub-10 hour circumnavigation of Anglesey (which is about 75 nautical miles around!)

Martin Lee is also kayaking solo & clockwise and left from London on 1st April. He’s also completing some long crossings and making fast progress.

Czech couple Natalie Maderova and Michal Madera set off from London on the same day and are taking a “less fast” pace – follow their blog here.

Geoff Cater, Mike Greenslade and Andy Mullins set off from Portscatho on 1st May on their ‘midlife kayak’ – follow their blog here.

Lee Wilson is joining brothers Craig & Stuart Leslie on an unusual anti-clockwise attempt to kayak around mainland Britain. They start later this month in Northumberland – their blog reflects this – “with land on our left”. They are also planning to “take a crack at the 80-day record”.

Rowland Woollven is on the South coast of Britain with Wendy & Barry hoping to complete his circumnavigation this year.

There’s also an unusual attempt to circumnavigate the majority of mainland Britain this year… by sailing canoe! Gavin Millar will leave from his garden in Southampton in June. He’ll go through the Caledonian Canal

I’ll be using some footage of Barry, Harry & Phil’s circumnavigation Great Britain in ‘This is the Sea 5’, due out March 2013. The feature will also show Harry surfing ferry wakes on his local stomping ground in London.

I’ll also put together a blog about other sea kayaking expeditions that are happening at the moment, so please get in touch if you have news of a trip elsewhere in the world!

 

Brittle stars, sea slugs & ospreys are some of the friends I made in the beautiful Tayvallich area of Scotland. The people weren’t bad either, & I enjoyed seeing old friends & meeting some new people at Karitek’s 2nd sea kayaking symposium for beginners & improvers. It’s a lovely location for sea kayaking with a beautiful indented coastline, a small friendly community, great pub & sheltered and not-so-sheltered waters.

Barry and I were up to help out and did a bit of guiding and coaching. The nearby Fairy Isles & Ulva isles are a popular choice as the shallow clear water allows you to spy on the sea life below – hundreds of spindly brittle stars, many types of seaweed, fat muscles & the occasional seal are spotted. I joined Dave Bleazard  on a trip to the Ulva islands to look under our hulls. Dave is a Marine biologist, as well as running Outside Edge, a well-stocked outdoor shop in Oban. He used his pink net to collect urchins, sea slugs & sponge fragments from the depths for us to look at. It was really fascinating!

You may also get lucky enough to glimpse ospreys in the area as a breeding pair make their nest near by. Thanks to Ruth for this photo of an osprey watching over her (or his) nest.

I recommend this symposium next year for anyone wanting to improve their skills – there are fun guided paddles as well as lessons on things like forward paddling, recovery strokes, edging and turning, linking strokes, trip planning, kayak sailing and rolling. There are also over 30 different sea kayaks to try out. Geoff & Ann Turner  from Karitek did a great job – although I recommend avoiding Geoff on Saturday night’s ceilidh unless you have strong arms! Thanks to Pat for organising a fun quiz on Sunday night, although Kate Duffus made an error of judgement when she joined our team thinking we were good — actually she got most of our correct answers & we still didn’t win!

We travelled up most of the way with Chris Reed from Chillcheater which was entertaining! Chris is a great guy as well as making quality paddling kit.

I was impressed to see a new product there called Keel Eazy. It has the tagline “protecting beautiful bottoms worldwide”! and it’s a tape that you stick onto your kayak as a keel strip. It’s half the weight of a standard keel strip, & much easier to apply. Chris Mitchell, the ‘inventor’ of this tape applied one to my Atlantic LV so I look forward to seeing how it holds up. You can watch a  video about Keel Eazy here. The product is distributed by Reed in the UK & Europe, & by Chris Mitchell in North & South America.

I paddled for 4 days in a row in Scotland – including a 5 hour paddle in wind on Friday – and my ribs are feeling better every day. Sometimes while paddling slowly I even forgot they were sore.. so process is good !

It’s that time of year again! And it finally felt like it today. The fleece that I have been living in inside and outside the house stayed on the back of my chair today and I spent far too long gazing out of the window at the still, sunny, summery day that beckoned me out to play.

This coming weekend is the first May bank holiday weekend, traditionally a time of sea kayaking symposiums in the UK. Barry and I are heading north tomorrow to Scotland to the 2nd Karitek Midwest symposium. The forecast is pretty good and I’m looking forward to a few days on the water with old and new friends in the pretty Tayvallich area.

On Anglesey is another symposium – anyone attending that who wants to buy any of my DVDs can get them from the Summit 2 Sea shop who are relocating to Anglesey outdoors for the event.

Later in May is the first Seapoint & South East Sea Kayak Symposium, which is being held on 19/20 May in Kent. Jeff Allen is instructing & talking and if you buy a raffle ticket, you might win my latest DVD, “This is the Roll”.

So whatever you are doing this weekend – I hope it involved a bit of fresh air, and a splash of water.