Author: Justine

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.

Sarah Outen is one tough cookie. She’s also a really nice person. She inspires me by what she’s doing and the way she’s going about it. She’s about to set off on a solo 4,000 mile row across the Pacific ocean from Japan in a bid to become the first woman to row non-stop across the Pacific. Sunday is launch day from Choshi marina, Japan.

This amazing row is just one stage of a human-powered loop of the world. She’s already kayaked and biked from London to Japan – mostly solo. I was lucky to be asked to accompany Sarah on the kayaking legs of her incredible journey from London to France and from Russia to Japan. My camera and I also joined her for 1000 km of her bike journey so I could film her pedalling from Kazakhstan to China. I’ve got to know Sarah really well over the last year, and really enjoyed spending time with her on her big adventure. She manages to achieve amazing things with humility & a great sense of humour. I was meant to be in Japan now helping her with her final preparations for her Pacific row and filming her launch into the big blue (but injury meant I couldn’t fly). So it’s with a mixture of excitement and sadness (that I’m not there) that I wave Sarah off from a little further away in Wales. Whooooop whoooooop Sarah. YOU GO GIRL!  And don’t eat that chocolate I sent you for at least a week!

Sarah will be blogging about her trip & even sending back audio recordings and the occasional photo and video. So keep an eye on her website if you want to join her and her trusty boat Gulliver on their big voyage. Or check out her YouTube channel for more videos. I’ll be keenly watching their progress, and I’m due to meet Sarah on the other side…. ETA September, October or November 2012, target – Vancouver! I’ll take another bar of chocolate & a few of her favourite Mars bars – I think she’ll be even more glad of them by then!

There will be footage of Sarah & I on the kayaking legs of her journey in “This is the Sea 5”. Due out March 2013.

Unfortunately postage prices are about to go up hugely in the UK. To post 1 small DVD from here to Europe today costs £1.49. On 30th April, it will cost £2.70. To Australia the prices increase from £2.07 to £3.30.

Cackle TV has offered free postage for our PAL DVDs to Europe & Australia since we first made “This is the Sea”. But this next price hike means we will start charging for postage to the Europe & Australia from 30th April.

So if you have been debating whether to buy our new DVD, “This is the Roll” which has had lots of great reviews, or been thinking about treating yourself of a friend to our “This is the Sea” box set, or you have your eye on any of our other DVDs… now is the time to buy them while we still post them for free.

In the US & Canada, I recently started charging for shipping DVDs, but I’ll remove the charges until 30th April…. so wherever you are in the world, you have a couple of days to take advantage of free shipping!! Go on, treat yourself!

UK/ Europe/ Australasia store.

USA/ Canada/ South America Japan store

Carlsberg lager and tasty pastries come to mind when I read the latest review of “This is the Roll” DVD. The pastries because the humorous John Herbert from the very popular KayakYak blog was disappointed not to find some instructions on how to make bread! However, he seems to have forgiven the omission as he had some very positive things to say about the DVD. He comments on what excellent presenters Cheri & Turner are and feels this is the most in-depth rolling DVD. In fact the conclusion of all his friends who watched the film was “probably the best instructional DVD any of them have seen”. In the comments, Paula has added “How can I make it clear that this is the single most helpful instructional kayaking video that I’ve ever seen?” (please read her comment to hear why she thinks that).

I was delighted and flattered to read such high praise. English folk will probably now realise why it reminds me of Carlsberg – as that was widely advertised as “Probably the best lager in the world”! But please – if you don’t like Carlsberg – don’t be put off!! It tastes nothing like it. Read their full review here.

Dutch paddler Axel Schoevers has also written a review which you can read here.

My ribs continue to improve and I went kayaking for the first time last Saturday. It felt great to be on the water on a short, slow paddle from Porthdafarch to South Stack, although in some ways I felt like a beginner as I was nervous of hurting myself. I’ll continue to build up slowly!

On a separate note, my website has recently swapped hosts so there may be a few glitches where things didn’t move across properly. If you spot a problem, then please let us know at info@ cackletv.com (minus the space – that’s there to try to prevent spam!).

Happy Paddling!