Follow CackleTV

Search

Archive for the ‘justine Curgenven’ Category

PostHeaderIcon Sunny Sicily… short and sweet

Passing_Etna“This looks like a good spot to camp”, Barry said at the top of the brown sandy beach. The nearest houses were a couple of hundred metres away, which on Sicily’s mountainous but built up coast was distinctly ‘wild’. We pitched the tent on a flat grassy patch and watched the pink sun setting over a turquoise sea. What we didn’t bank on were the trains thudding and rattling past every hour, shaking us from our sleep. When that clunk clunk finally stopped, around 11pm,  I was just starting to drift off when the silence was pierced by the unmistakable screech of terrible singing amplified over bad speakers. It was Friday night and one of those distant buildings must have been a karaoke bar.
Camped under the train lineWe soon learnt that there are more secluded beaches every so often along the Sicilian coast – underneath contorted cliffs, in between villages or even on the private beach of an empty hotel that hadn’t yet unboarded it’s doors for the holiday season. The lack of holidaymakers was a distinct advantage for 2 kayakers and the temperatures in March were perfectly warm enough.  The sea was a pleasant 13 degrees Centigrade and when the sun was out it was deliciously warm. After the first day sweating in my gore-tex bibs, I changed to my surf skin shorts.
Perched-HousesBarry Shaw and I were attempting to kayak about 500 miles around Sicily. It was the most populated place we’d paddled in and I was worried I wouldn’t enjoy it as much as other places.  Houses perched impossibly on cliff edges, roads on giant stilts, tunnels through mountains and hundreds of colourful fishing boats made for an interesting and always changing view. A temperature 10 degrees above our home of Wales at this time of year helped, as did the easy access to pizza restaurants – although most of the beachfront diners weren’t yet open.
Flat Earth SailsFlat Earth Kayak sails on our borrowed Overline Kayaks brought a smile to my face every time there was enough wind to pull them up. One thing I love about kayaking is that there’s always something new to learn. Playing around with the sail angle relative to the wind, it was great to see how much ‘free’ distance a sail could give you, while adding excitement and intrigue. Thanks to Kari-tek for providing the sails.
Roads_and_tunnelsIn the end, we cut our trip short as our house in Wales was broken into. While that bad news hung over us on the last few days of the trip, we also eased the paddling pace and spent more time relaxing on the beach, cooking nice treats over the camp stove and enjoying the place and the sun. It was a good reminder to make sure you have time to stop and smell the roses. It could have been the perfect end to the trip, if only those two dogs hadn’t found out tent on ‘their patch of beach’ and barked outside for half an hour – twice.
Camping-outside-a-HotelWe are extremely grateful to our friends Giueseppe Di Mauro, Francesco Petralia & Gianfranco Liotta who made time in their very busy schedules to pick us up, drop us off, feed us, make us laugh, lend us some great kayaks, drill holes in the boats so we could use sails and generally being supportive and kind. Instead of greeting us back in Catania after about a month, as expected, they drove for almost 3 hours to pick us up after a week of paddling. We look forward to looking after you all when you come to Wales!
Maybe-Take-a-hairbrush_nexttimeOverall Sicily is a lovely place to paddle – warm, relaxing and never far from amenities while feeling wild and isolated at times. This time, we cruised by the snow-covered flanks of Mount Etna, which erupts every year or so. If you like volcanoes, there is also the consistent island of Stromboli where you can see a show of lava about every 30 minutes, and an entirely different sort of volcano in the west — that one I haven’t been to yet, so I’m sure there will be another visit to Sicily at some time.
Messina

PostHeaderIcon “This is Justine”

Paddling articleSorry about the narcissistic blog title! It’s the name of an article in this months Paddling magazine in Norway. While the title slightly embarrasses me, it now seems an obvious choice for a profile article about me, considering that I’ve been making films branded as the ‘This is the Sea’ series for 10 years.

I was lucky enough to go to a sea kayaking symposium in the south of Norway last year organised by Kajakkentusiastene. During the event, I was interviewed by the curious Sissel Lahna who was keen to get an insight into what drives me to paddle on trips and to make a series of films about kayaking. Some thoughtful emails and discussions followed the initial interview and I think she was happy that she’s found out a little bit of what is Justine! It’s on sale now!

Norwegian_mag_page2

PostHeaderIcon Icebergs, Kayaks & Penguins in Antarctica

penguins_booth_walking

I knew I had to dive in or I wouldn’t do it. 1 -2- 3 – launch. The icy water  penetrated to my core before I had time to squeal. The ‘swim’ was 2 strokes back to a sun-baked rock that offered a glimmer of warmth after the plunge. It was night 2 of a 3-day kayak camping trip on the Antarctic peninsula, the wind had dropped and at 9pm it was still light and sunny.  An hour later wrapped in layers of down, the shivers were a satisfied memory. Huddled over stoves on a table-flat rock, the four of us cooked up some pasta, glancing up frequently at the black and white landscape of glaciers, snowy slopes and ice bergs.  Occasional steep black spires pierce the sky but in most places only a few bare rocks fringe the shore, offering a precious foothold onto this icy continent. We look for small rocky peninsulas where we can land for lunch or set up camp and that’s where we find the penguin rockeries. Hundreds of gentoo, adelie  and chinstrap penguins nest flipper to flipper on every available rock. We often smell and hear the creche before we see which type of penguin is nesting here. But they look so cute that you can almost ignore the rich stench of their projectile poo as you watch them collect rocks for their nests, guard their chicks from aggressive skuas, preen, screech, waddle along or just sit and contemplate life.

1ST_SIGHT_LANDIt took 6 days to get from Ushuaia across the notorious Drake Passage to Enterprise island on the Antarctic peninsula. It would have been quicker but a storm held us in the Chilean islands for a day.  Our yacht, the Spirit of Sydney, runs charter trips there about 3 or 4 times during the southern summer. It was a cosy crossing with 2 crew, and 7 guests – 5 of which were there primarily to go kayaking.

Icebergs and bergy bits made all the difference to the kayaking for me. The glaciers and ice cliffs were stunning but somehow there’s nothing like bouncing through a jigsaw puzzle of brash ice, weaving around gently rocking car-sized hunks or steering clear of towering apartment sized blocks. The older bergs are an amazing deep blue and the 2/3 of the berg that is under the water glows emerald green.

carry_kayak_penguinsIt took me a few days to get to grips with the scale. An ice cliff on a neighbouring island looks a mile away, but the map shows it is 5 times as distant. Without houses, trees or other familiar landmarks to show the size of things, constant reference to the map is needed. When islands overlap so you can’t see water between them, you need faith in your compass bearing and to look for subtle breaks in the black and white patterns. Frequent 1-4 mile crossings between islands were some of my favourite paddling as the view is constantly changing and the many bergs break up the open water in a charming way.

peaksWe had mixed weather which was stormier and more overcast that is typical for this time of year. I’m told the Peninsula is more often sunny than not in the Summer, and the myriad of islands to the west guard the peninsula from most swells and strong winds. We enjoyed 6 days of fairly calm weather before a few days of strong North-Easterlies. Some of us paddled every day except one, battling into winds for short distances, or enjoying a downwind blast when the yacht was travelling the same way. One day visibility was limited to 1/4 of a mile and we nervously heading into a white mist to a island full of nesting adelies. The same day we gratefully sheltered in an Argentinian hut for lunch, but by evening the veil lifted, the wind eased and we found a lovely campspot on a gentle snow slope on Booth island.

last_campAntarctica is one of the world’s last wildernesses in that there are vast areas without human influences. However, dotted along the peninsula many countries have a research base where scientists spend a few months, or all year, studying the climate, weather and movement of ice, as well as claiming a stake in the southernmost continent for their nation. We visited a few of these bases and I always enjoy meeting people who live in isolated places and gaining an insight into another way of life. The most memorable was the Ukranian base at Vernansky, where our tour started at 9pm and by 9.30pm we were in the bar downing shots of vodka that they make on-site. The evening involved many more of those shots, some guitar playing, dancing and a lot of laughing. The next day we were treated to using their sauna. We sat in the small steamy hut until we couldn’t bear the heat anymore then scampered outside, down a rickety ladder and plunged into the sea. Then did it again. And again. And again. And again.

paddling_team

Thanks a lot of Berghaus for some great lightweight and toasty kit which enabled me to get warm again after a swim in the frigid waters. The hydrodown jacket is hydro-phobic which meant I didn’t need to worry about it getting a bit damp. Thanks to Iridium for lending me a satellite phone and access point which allowed me to send photographs and updates back from the middle of nowhere, using my mobile phone. The access point turns the sat phone into a wifi hotspot which my smartphone could connect to. It was really easy to use and took about 3 minutes to upload a compressed photo. My phone was protected by a great lifeproof case.

exped-downbagThanks to Hilleberg for the soulo tent, footprint and snow stakes, which worked really well. Thanks to Lyon equipment for continued support with Julbo glasses, Ortlieb drybags, petzl torches & Exped kit. I got a new waterproof down sleeping bag from Exped for this trip which was fantastic. The water bloc 1200 was really warm and I didn’t have to worry about getting it slightly damp. Patrick had the Waterbloc 1000 which he said was plenty warm enough.It’s a testament to the quality of Kokatat kit that all of us chose Kokatat drysuits for the trip. My drysuit is over a year old and has seen a lot of use but it still kept me perfectly dry.

justine_booth_islandOver all I had a fantastic experience in Antarctica – the kayaking, the sailing, the warmth and good food on the yacht, the new friendships. Would I recommend it? Absolutely!

PostHeaderIcon Cover girl

 

Paddler article

I’m a cover girl this month in the on-line Paddling magazine, the Paddler. Well, I’m one of their 4 choices. You can chose your flavour as the magazine covers sea kayaking, whitewater, SUP and caenoing.

It’s a free on-line monthly magazine that you can read here. The current November issue has an interview with me, and lots of nice pictures.

Don’t forget, we have a selection of 16 different DVDs in our UK/ Europe webstore (10 in the US/ Canada store), plus sea kayaking cards, orca print wrapping paper, the best paddling map cases on the market IMHO and a few copies of one of Paul Caffyn’s books. We’re also thinking about making a sea kayaking calendar. Are you interested?

Paddler Ezine article