Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Would you buy a card with a great sea kayaking photo on it?

Cackle TV are teaming up with Carol Lang from Gael8, & Pete Baars from ‘Summit to Sea‘ to make some greeting cards with a sea kayaking theme. We’ll start with one design & if it’s popular then we’ll develop more of a range.

They would be A6 size on recycled card, and would be blank inside. We’d try to keep the cost down & would sell them for about £1 each.

If you like the idea, please let us know if you like any of these photos enough? Which are your favourites?

In the future, we may even ask people to submit their own photos — but one step at a time!

If you hover over the photo – a name comes up. Please let us know what you think.

 The nights are drawing in and the down jackets are coming out in the Northern Hemishpere. Some people are starting to look for Christmas presents for the paddlers in their lives. As usual, we have a large selection of DVDs for sale – as well as books & designer wrapping paper.

The good news is that we’ve just dropped the price of some of our DVDs so you can treat yourself – or someone special’s without breaking the bank. Our popular “This is the Sea” boxset is now just £40 / US $60 – a reduction of £10 / $15 – and half the price of buying the individual DVDs. The 4 award-winning DVDs contain over 8 hours of inspiring sea kayaking films in dream destinations, featuring great stories and interesting characters. We think these are the best value sea kayaking DVDs out there.

You can also save 25 % off Bryan Smiths’ award winning DVDs, ‘Pacific Horizons’ & ‘Eastern Horizons’, or buy one and get one free. The DVDs contain beautifully filmed sea kayaking action from the Pacific & Atlantic coasts of North America. Get them both for just £19.99 / US $29.95. Paul Caffyn’s book about his circumnavigation of New Zealand is reduced – and there are great deals if you buy more than 1 canoeing DVD.

For those of you going to the Scottish Canoe Show in Perth this weekend – Karitek will have some great exclusive deals on our DVDs so make sure you visit their stand! And the lovely Carol from Gael-8 will be selling our unique designer wrapping paper alongside her beautiful t-shirts.

Check out the US/ Canada/ Japan store here.

Or the UK/ Europe / Australasia store here.

And have a great weekend whatever you do!

Swell, sunshine & smiling faces helped make the first Essential Sea Kayak Festival a great success over the last 3 days. I was very happy to be involved, both on the water & by giving a talk one evening. It was good to work with some of North Wales most experienced paddlers & coaches & to hang out with them – and the participants – in the evenings. Aside from all the learning opportunities – it was FUN! And I reckon that’s pretty important.

Light winds & mild temperatures combined to provide more of a summer than the summer did! Although a cheeky swell made sure there was  enough excitement to be had for those wanting to improve their skills, or spend some quality time in the tidal races & surf zones.

I worked with Jim Krawiecki on Saturday,

taking a group of people from Rhoscolyn out to the exciting waters surrounding the Beacon & then along some of the beautiful cliffs & caves that adorn the coastline to the north. I collected a few pieces of litter from the sea – including a rather large orange hat that was quite hard to transport back!

On Sunday I assisted Olly Sanders with a group in the tidal races. A larger than expected swell created some conditions at Penrhyn Mawr that people variously described as – exciting – intimidating –  fun – scary. Sometimes all of those at once. I think everyone improved their skills & gained confidence & I got to practice my rescue skills a few times which is always good ( for me anyway)! We finished the day with a paddle around the beautiful coastline of the ‘Stacks’ & had a play in North Stack before heading home.

On Saturday night I talked about Barry and my adventures in Tierra del Fuego & showed some clips from the upcoming film – which will be released as part of ‘This is the Sea 5’ in March 2013. On Sunday Marcus Demuth regaled us with some funny & sometimes harrowing tales of adventure and mis-adventure on the high seas. Have you ever looked into a mirror to see if you were still alive? No – me neither!

On Monday, I took an experienced group to the Skerries, which is always a wonderful destination. The paddle there from Church Bay was very pleasant with a slight following sea.  We arrived at the south end &  paddled around the island past hundreds of seals (and a few fat seal pups) before having lunch and a look around the lighthouse. From the top of the island, the sea to the east and north of the Skerries looked totally different from the sea we’d arrived on!

Force 3 wind against the tide & some shallow spots combined to provide some ‘exciting’ conditions on the way back. We avoided some areas where the sea looked particularly white and weaved our way through some 2 metre wave trains. The roller coaster ride looked pretty wild & felt exhilerating, but the waves weren’t breaking very often or for long. Most people had smiles on their faces during the crossing – and everyone did by the time we safely reached the Anglesey shore without any mishaps!

Thanks to Nick, Matt, Ulrika, Ali & Katy for a well organised, rewarding & fun event. Please invite me back next year!

There was seaweed on all over the road to the Sea Zoo this morning – a tell-tale sign that the tides are pretty large at the moment. When Marcus Demuth and I launched from the slipway, the tide was quite far out but rising… The prediction is 9.8 metres HW at Liverpool – we’d need to be back before high tide or my car might not be there!

John Willacy created the ‘Menai Challenge‘ last year – a time trail on the Menai Straits between the Sea Zoo & Gallows Point (close to Beaumaris). A big tide means a fast flow and fast time, but there’s an optional ‘loop of the bridges’ which spices it up a bit since you have to paddle against the tide for about a mile and a half. By the Sea Zoo, the wind was brisk enough to pick my empty Rapier up and bounce it along the beach for a few metres while I was helping Marcus get his Epic ski off the roof. Unfortunately, there is a bit of damage to the gel coat on the top & a lot of new scratches, but she’s still seaworthy.

We set off at a good pace – although the GPS / speed track shows we didn’t move out into the faster current for about 4.5 minutes. It was good to have Marcus there as it spurred me on to try just a bit harder if I was feeling tired. Marcus decided against a loop of the bridges, so I was on my own as I backtracked from Menai Bridge back up to Britannia Bridge. It was hard work going upstream as there wasn’t an eddy very often. The heartrate monitor shows how I had to work extra hard to make it around Britannia Bridge pillar before the fast tide swept me past on the wrong side! A group of people in a RIB in the eddy beside the Pillar saw my face at it’s reddest!

From here on I was tired and had to motivate myself to keep working hard. The heart rate monitor & GPS helped as I could see when my heart rate and/ or speed dropped. That distracted me from the pain & pushed me to dig deeper.

In the end my time was 1 hour, 31minutes,35 seconds – a whopping 8.2 minutes quicker than my fastest time last year – so I’m pleased with that!  John Willacy – who had been playing on the Swellies wave in his C1 – came to see us at Gallows Point. By the time we’d finished chatting, the tide was creeping up & my car got a good splashing from the waves before we finished the shuttle and headed home!

You can see the 2012 Menai Challenge times here. There’s still plenty of time & a few big tides before the end of the year if you fancy a go!