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Paul Caffyn describes going on a sight seeing paddle ( or perhaps anything other than focused expedition paddling ) as Tikki Touring! I quite like that expression and think it could well describe what Barry, Axel and I enjoyed this weekend. I hadn’t been paddling for 3 weeks so I was hoping for a good play at one of my favourite familiar spots. Top of my list was Penrhyn Mawr and/ or a trip around the Stacks, but Winter has crept up on us and Axel reported that a Force 6 southerly was making Penrhyn Mawr a little more than playful. We decided to head instead to Puffin Island on the NE tip of Anglesey and enjoyed a more sheltered paddle around the island. It’s such a pretty spot with the nugget-like island sticking up prominently a few hundred metres offshore, with a slight tidal race running in the channel on Saturday. We saw dozens of seals on the far end of the island and then headed west along the limestone Penmon Cliffs for about an hour – a part of the coastline that I’ve not really explored before. I really enjoyed poking my bow around every corner, peeping into small caves and braving a few gentle rock hops. We even saw 3 swimmers in one bay – now they are brave!

On Sunday, we opted for a paddle around Great Orme and Little Orme, near Llandudno on the north coast of Wales. I paddled past these prominent limestone headlands when I paddled around Wales with Fiona Whitehead but we didn’t stop to have a look around. On Sunday, we spent the afternoon poking into every cave, getting showered by blow holes, and rock hopping. Sharp limestone covered with barnacles isn’t the ideal arena to get it wrong!!

I’m off to Israel tomorrow morning for a week long symposium. I have very definately left my dry suit at home!!

Barry and I have booked our flights to New Zealand. We leave home on 22nd January and arrive in Christchurch on 24th. We’ll start the expedition as soon as we get organised and buy things like food & flares – probably around 25th or 26th. A big thanks to ‘the North Face’ who have not only given us some of their lovely kit to keep us warm, but who are also giving us £2,000 towards the trip. (We’ve just given it all to a travel agents to pay for our flights!). Our kayaks are already half way to NZ thanks to Seakayaking UK and Lendal ( and Shawna and Leon from Body Boat Blade who are helping transport the kayaks from the NDK container to Lendal in Washington). Thanks to all of them.

I’m very excited for this huge challenge in a beautiful place, and I’m also full of anticipation. I’m reading with great interest how Freya is getting on on her circumnavigation of the South Island which is going on right now If you haven’t done so already then check out her blog – she’s not having an easy time of it with dumping surf keeping her off the water for longer than she’d like. http://freyahoffmeister.blogspot.com/

For the next 2 months, I’ll mainly be at home in Wales, starting to edit ‘This is the Sea 4’ ( to be released in late 2008), and getting out in my kayak in surf and challenging conditions as often as possible. I have just found out that I will be going to Israel around 22nd November to help Hadas Feldman out with a symposium that she is organising there, so that will be fun!

TRAINING SCENARIO PHOTO

I’m in Glenmore Lodge in Scotland doing a 6-day course about Wilderness First Aid. 5 days into the course my brain is full of all sorts of things that can go wrong in a remote place where we are far from outside help! But hopefully I also have a much better idea of how to deal with it. On previous expeditions that I’ve been on, someone else has had good first aid experience, but neither Barry nor I have much knowledge. Now when we go to New Zealands’ Fjordland and are miles from a roadhead, I’ll be panicing everytime Barry gets a headache but I’ll be able to make much more informed decisions if something does go wrong, from dislocated fingers to a severe bang on the head! II’d recommend the course to anyone who is leading groups in remote situations, or who is planning a remote expedition where medical help is not on hand. There is even a diamond miner who works in Africa here, and amazingly a girl who i went to school with and havent’ seen since! The course is quite intense, most days are 10 hours of lectures, practicals and scenarios. Today in our pretend scenarios we had to deal with injuries including a woman who had fallen on her paddle and impaled herself on it causing it to go all the way through her body. The photos are of the scenarios – not real injuries! I’ll be writing an article about the course for ‘Ocean Paddler’ magazine ( which is a ‘Wilderness First Responder’ course run by Wilderness Emergency Medical Services Institute, WEMSI ( Europe) .

A wild storm ushered us off the Hebrides this morning – not by kayak, but by ferry! Winter is definately on the way and it was definately too stormy to paddle 20-odd miles into. I had a great time on Lewis – it’s a beautiful, wild, wind-battered place with hundreds of craggy islands, improbably white sandy beaches and steep bleak cliffs pounded by swell. We had great fun paddling with the locals and appreciated their love of down-wind paddling. I’m glad we got to paddle down Loch Seaforth in a stiff southerly as I remember Mike talking about it a year ago on Mull – what a fantastic idea to just paddle one-way pushed by the wind! The Storm Gathering was a great success and everyone seemed to have fun braving the weather in a stunning location. Barry and I went off twice on overnight trips, travelling up the west coast, finding beautiful campspots and always being pushed northwards by a force 4 or stronger wind. We had a fun evening on Taransay with Mick Berwick ( the location of the BBC Castaway programme), and enjoyed a 29 nautical mile day which ended with us being pushed by the wind and the tide around Galen Head as darkness fell. I am already planning to come back next Summer and I hope to make it out to St Kilda and the Flannans aswell as see the summer birds. Tomorrow ( Saturday ) we are off to the Scottish Canoe Show in Perth where we’re both giving talks – Barry about his trip around Britain and me about the Queen Charlotte Islands. Then tomorrow night, it’s another ceilidh!! My sore back survived the Storm Gathering ceilidh so should be OK for another one!!