Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Now we are back in Britain, my thoughts turn to friends & family, the work I have been neglecting and what is going on in the world!

Here is a round up of other interesting happenings over the last few weeks.

Many years ago my good friend Cheryl Frost persuaded me to buy a bike and cycle across the Pyrenees mountains with her from coast to coast (and back). It was a great adventure, and back then I could keep up with her! Since then she has led various trekking and bike trips all over the world and she’s recently started her own company, Rather be cycling! Cheryl and her partner offer inspirational bike trips all over the world. Check it out here!

In April, the friendly human dynamo Sarah Outen sets off on her 3 year journey around the globe by bike, rowing boat and kayak. I’m delighted to have been asked to join Sarah on the kayaking sections of her trip, kicking off with a paddle from London to France. We’ll leave Tower Bridge on 1st April. On this trip, Sarah will be rowing solo across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. She has already rowed solo across the Indian ocean, picking up 3 Guinness world records in the process. Sarah has just released her book about this amazing journey, called “A dip in the Ocean”. I’ve heard about a few of the more exciting moments and I can’t wait to read it. You can order it here at a reduced price, or check out Sarah’s website for more info about her big London2London trip.

On the subject of crossings, in case you misssed it, a 64 year old Polish man recently successfully kayaked across the Atlantic ocean. Read about it here.

Australian paddler Stu Trueman is more than half way around Australia at the moment, in a bid to be only the 3rd person to complete the amazing trip.You can follow his journey here.

Another Australian kayaker Sandy Robson is also embarking on an ambitious journey this year. Over a number of years, she is tracing the footsteps of Oskar Speck, who kayaked from Germany to Australia in 1932. She starts in May 2011 with a 6 month paddle from Germany to Cyprus. More info here.

Freya Hoffmeister has announced her next trip which will be to kayak around most of South America over 22 months.

Simon Osborne & Marin Medak are currently kayaking around South Korea.

Harry Wheelan, Jeff Allen & Chris Millington will attempt a speed record around Ireland this Spring in their Rockpool Tarans.

The latest issue of “Adventure Kayak” magazine contains an article about Marcus Demuth’s record breaking paddle around Britain last year, including a photo that Barry took of me filming Marcus. I like the caption they used: “This is Marcus”. There is also a technique article by my good friend Shawna Franklin of Body Boat Blade, with endorsement from other experienced coaches.

Last week, I spotted a recent review of one of my first DVDs, ‘This is the Sea 2’ by the popular and topical blog KayakYak. If you haven’t seen it… maybe it’s time you did!?

For anyone interested in other people’s take on our Tierra del Fuego trip, a few websites reported on the journey. The website Explorers Web interviewed me prior to our trip to Tierra del Fuego. You can read the article here.

They published an update when we came home!

Adventure Kayak magazine was following the trip with updates on their website, including this final one.

KANU magazine followed the trip with some reports in German. The start. Later on.

Gianfranco Liotta from Sicily translated all of our TDF blog posts into Italian and posted them as ‘notes’ in facebook. Here is the link, although maybe you have to be a friend of Gianfranco’s to read them?

About a month ago, we met Monica and Marcelo for the first time. They drove for over 2 hours to see us when we first landed our kayaks in Argentina. Barry’s wrist was hurting a lot and we asked them if we could come and stay with them for in Rio Grande for 2 or 3 days.  30 days on, we laugh about our initial request… what would they have said if we had asked to stay for 3 weeks, and then keep reappearing?

In reality, we have all become good friends  & we have learnt how kind and generous our hosts both are (although I am still amazed that they seemed happy to have us staying with them for so long). Yesterday they drove us for 3 hours to Porvenir in Chile, where we took the ferry to Punta Arenas.  We could have taken the bus but it was great to spend the last few hours on Isla Grande with Moni & Marcelo.  We also got to see a different part of the island as we cut west to the coast, driving alongside the huge bay that leads to the ferry town. The tyres crunched over the dirt road as we cruised over the flat barren landscape, dotted with occasional estancias and even more occasional trees. Every few miles, a few lonely fishermens shacks and boats littered the shore.

We took the ferry west across the Straits of Magellan to Punta Arenas and I couldn’t help notice that it was a perfect following sea if we were heading east. Kiko met us on the other side, and despite the fact he is going on holiday first thing in the morning today, he made us feel very welcome, fed us pizza & got up at 3.30am to take us to the airport. I am still gutted about not being able to continue our trip – when I stood on the beach for the last time, listening to the waves pounding on the pebbles, feeling the wind blowing through my hair and yearning for the adventures waiting further down the coast, it was hard to walk away from that…… but as we keep saying, and many of our friends have pointed out, the kayaking adventure is still there for another day, and by not kayaking, we have build strong friendships and shared great experiences.

The kayaks are still in Rio Grande. One of them now belongs to Marcelo but he has promised to let us use it when we return. We are now in Santiago airport on the way home, and looking forward to catching up with friends. I have a feeling that a part of my brain will keep on thinking about that view south until I come back! After all, no-one said goodbye, only “hasta luego”! 

Now that our kayaking adventure in Tierra del Fuego has been  over for a day or two I have had a bit of time to reflect on things. Things were tough right from the start but the challenges that we faced were not the ones that either of us were expecting. Even before we arrived in South America things had been difficult for Justine as she was the one sorting out all the emails, paperwork and permisions. We had plenty of time to prepare ourselves mentally for the challenges that lay ahead with the increadibly strong almost relentless winds, the long distances that we would have to cover on some days for things to work and the possibility of surf landings which neither of us were particularly looking forward to. We had our trip plan all sorted and eventually after a lot of waiting for the kayaks to arrive off we went full of excitement. Unfortunately as soon as I started with tendonitis in my wrist the real challenges began which neither of us were prepared for. 

We knew that both the Chilean and the Argentine authorities would be following our trip very closely and I think at first both of us were a bit nervous of this. It soon became apparent that they were looking out for us and looking after us. We had to rest for 4 days close to a navy post to let my wrist settle and every day I was fortunate enough to be given bag after bag of ice for the inflamation. One very kind guy from the navy gave us bread and sweets and before they changed their shift invited us in for tea and toast. After what seemed like a very long 40 miles of paddling in a lot of pain we arrived at the border where Chile and Argentina both have a lookout about 20 metres appart. We spent all day being looked after by the Chilean navy and the Argentinian marines as if we were family. I spent the next three weeks worrying about how long I should wait knowing how difficult it was for Justine. I listened to all the advice and rested as long as possible. The first day back on the water was exhausting as I did very little but think about my wrist and try to concentrate on how I paddled. We made good progress but by the time we reached Rio Grande it was not 100% and the next day became the test paddle for the isolated and exposed stretch of coast ahead. After about an hour of discomfort I broke the news to Justine and reluctantly looked for a place to land.

It was a very dissappointing time and I felt that I had let Justine down and everybody who has helped us along the way. A few things have occured to me in the last couple of days. One thing that strikes me is how unbelievably friendly, kind and generous people who I have never met before can be. Another thing is that I have had a great adventure, just a differnt adventure to the one I was expecting. I can go kayaking anytime but I can’t always meet such fantastic people and develop new friendships like the ones we have on this trip. As a few people have pointed out, Tierra del Fuego will be here for a long time yet. I would like to thank everybody who we have met along the way for making things so much easier and pleasant for us. Especially Monica and Marcelo and Kiko. Thanks to everyone who has followed the progress or lack of it and sent messages and emails of support. It really is important to us when we see them. Thank you very much to Justine for being patient with me while I was being a bit soft about a little injury. Also a big thank you to our sponsors. We had quite a few and we really appreciate the help. I hope they dont feel too let down by us not completing what we had planned to do but it isn’t over yet. 

I had an email from a friend this morning which put everything in to context and made me realise that although completing this trip would have been nice, it really doesn’t matter. If anyone reading this could have a look at www.croydesurflifesavingclub.co.uk/?page=alfiereed then that would be great.

On our paddle from Rio Grande to Punta Maria yesterday, Barry´s wrist started to hurt again so he has made the painful decision not to continue kayaking around Tierra Del Fuego. Although he can still paddle, it is the only sensible choice. It would be irresponsible of us to kayak into a remote and inaccessible area without 100% fitness, and Barry wants to make sure he has many more years of happy kayaking ahead of him.

Both of us are very disapointed, for ourselves and for each other. We tried to be sensible about Barry´s injury and rested it for 3 weeks but it wasn´t enough.

In our 6 weeks in Tierra del Fuego, we have kayaked  for 8 days, crossed from Chile to Argentina and covered about 215 nautical miles. We have camped in some lovely spots & seen lots of wildlife including dolphins, penguins, sea lions and thousands of birds. We´ve experienced the famous Patagonian winds and some unusually calm days. We´ve met some wonderful people and learnt a lot about the way of life down here. We´ve spent more time that we would have chosen in offices, both to get our kayaks and to get permission to paddle, but you never know how an “adventure” will unfold.

I considered continuing solo, at least to Ushuaia but the Argentinian Prefectura will not allow anyone to paddle alone on the SE coast, so I can´t do that.

I personally have had my interest in Tierra del Fuego fed by being here and I would like to return next Southern Summer to continue to Ushuaia. I am fascinated to see what the isolated SE coast looks like and to experience paddling in notorious La Maire Strait ( on the East coast).  I´d also love to kayak in the beautiful Chilean fjords – although right now completing a ¨clockwise circumnavigation of Isla Grande¨ doesn´t feel like a priority. I would consider kayaking from Punta Arenas to Ushuaia with the winds behind us, or some other journey in the fjords with the focus on experiencing the beauty of the place.

Thanks to our sponsors who provided us with great kit for the trip. Kit which we will continue to use. Thanks to Valley for the nordkapps which are the quickest kayaks we have paddled on a trip. Thanks to Hilleberg for the fantastic Tarra tent, the tarp and the windbreaker. Thanks to Kokatat for my drysuit and other paddling gear, and thanks to Reed for Barrys paddling clothing, our spraydecks and some emergency replacement hatch covers. Icebreaker provided us with great warm and relatively unsmelly merino wool thermals. Berghaus gave me a lightweight waterproof jacket and a goretex hat. Natural Balance Foods gave us lots of delicious Nakd and Trek bars to eat on the water. They contain 100% natural ingredients and they were fantastic snacks, really tasty & healthy & packed with energy. Mitchell blades provided us with 2 paddles each, which we both really like. We can adjust the feather and length via a simple joint in the middle. Casio gave us 2 new waterproof, solar powered watches. They make a great series of watches with an inbuilt barometer, which gives you a graph showing how the pressure has changed over the last 24 hours. This feature is great for weather forecasting when on a trip, and I have seen the pressure go up and down so rapidly as it does here. Lyon Equipment in the UK gave us lots of fantastic ortlieb drybags which are the best drybags I have ever used. They also gave me an Exped down sleeping mat, petzl torches & Julbo floating sunglasses. Aleks Gusev from Avantura lent us a SPOT device so you could follow us live as we kayaked and Track leaders created the great map on my blog. Oregon Scientific provided me with 2 ACT 9K waterproof action cameras to film the adventure. Karel Visel sent us really valuable daily weather forecasts. Our local kayak shop, Surflines provided us with some last minute bits of kit, and Kari-tek gave us some paddle bags. A big thanks to my mum for doing the blog updates & to Dr Bob Mark for being on the end of the phone when we needed him. Thanks to Freya Hoffmeister for lending us her sat. phone, and to Adam from Buffalo for giving Barry a reduction on the Special 6 top.

Thanks to everyone who followed along with us, we enjoyed reading all the comments that were left. I hope the trip will be continued at some point in the future.