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I’m sitting in Damon & Sarah’s car full of fish and chips from the ‘all you can eat’ Shipwreck Bar in Tobermory, feeling pleasantly tired after an overnight trip in Georgian Bay, Canada.

We launched from Dunks Bay on Monday morning, armed with our permits and 2 pretty inadequate schematic maps. Under glorious sunshine the lake looked a beautiful turquoisey-green and we glanced down at the white and grey limestone rocks under the surface.

We had hoped to camp at Flowerpot island but a hungry bear had recently showed up there so there was no overnight camping. We paddled across to the island and around it instead, stopping to take pictures of the 2 rocky ‘flowerpots’ around the coast. After lunch on a slabby rocky beach we headed over to Bears Rump island which – if you used your imagination – sort of looked like a big bears bottom sticking out of the lake.

After paddling round the island, a 5 mile crossing took us back to the north coast of the Bruce Peninsula. Loons, goosanders with chicks and other birds kept us company and a quartering sea made it a bit more interesting.

We continued east along the coast, weaving in and out of rocks and finding the odd small cave. After another hour or so we made camp at High Drop (which we think might have been named after the long drop which was very very long?). It was a gorgeous evening, with loons providing the soundtrack and Sarah cooking up a lovely meal. The cooler hadn’t really kept the beer very cold but it was welcome all the same!

This morning we woke up to rain – the beautiful sunny weather of the last week had finally come to an end. We stayed in our tents for an extra hour hoping in vain for the rain to stop but eventually had to brave it.

After eggs & bagels for brekkie, we headed back along the coast to Dunks Bay. What alovely place to paddle and a great taster of what the area has to offer.

On my recent trip to the Channel islands I got the chance to try out some new drybags from Ortlieb & Exped. I particularly liked this waterproof rucksack from Exped gear –the Exped Drypack Pro 25. It’s very lightweight & packs down very small in your kayak It’s a very convenient way of carrying your lunch and spare clothes once you arrive at your destination and can also be used as for waterproof storage in the boat.

I also got some of the lightestweight range of Ortlieb drybags which i’ve been really impressed with so far. They pack really easily and so far seem to stand up to the rigours of being crammed in and out of hatches just aswell as the heavier drybags.

Another cool product is a dry bag which is also a compression stuff sack for your sleeping bag. I love things like that which ultimately save space.

I’ve recently been sent a few more reviews of “This is Canoeing” – from French and Czech magazines. This is from the Czech magazine, Hydro.

This review is from the French magazine, Carnets d’Aventures.

There is also a review on the Paddling E-zine, Paddling Life – in English, or should that be in American? From what I understand, it’s all good!

I had a fantastic 2 weeks back in Jersey, where I grew up and where I first started kayaking. The island is only 9 miles long and 5 miles wide so you are never far from a beautiful sea view or interesting coastline. It was great to catch up with friends from the Jersey canoe club and further afield, and meet new people. Plus Barry and I stayed with my mum who spoilt us rotten!

This was the tenth bi-annual Jersey seakayaking symposium where 100 or so kayakers home in on the island for 3 days of classes and paddles followed by 4 days of paddles on Jersey and to the surrounding reefs or other Channel islands. I first came to the symposium 12 years ago, a bit reluctantly. I was living on Jersey and had joined the canoe club 6 months before. A ‘symposium’ sounded really boring and I wasn’t sure I wanted to pay to go paddling for 3 days when I usually went for free with the club! However, I’m really glad I did join in as it opened my eyes to what was possible in a seakayak. A 12 mile crossing to the island of Sark, followed by paddling round the island, and eventually bivvying on the harbour wall really whetted my appetite for journeying in seakayaks. Although I would consider myself a professional kayaker, I found this great website how to store a kayak in the garage. It had some great tips on storing my kayak. on 

This year was my 4th visit to the Jersey symposium and I always really enjoy it. I’d like to say a big thanks to Kevin Mansell for organising the symosium for the last 20 years and opening up new horizons to so many smiling people over that period. And thanks to everyone else who helped Kevin. This year I helped with a few

coaching sessions including surfing on the 5 mile St Ouens’ sandybeach. I enjoyed some paddles around the beautiful granite coastline & 2 paddles out to the really spacial Ecrehou reef. The tidal range in the Channel islands is 10 metres so the Ecrehou metamorphoses twice a day from a few rocks with tiny huts clinging precariously on top to several square kilometres of reefs and shingle beaches.

We also paddled to Sark again with a group of 11, braving a mean swell over the L’Etacq reef to reach the calmer waters of the open ocean for our 3 hour crossing. A lovely paddle around the beautiful rocky coastline and a meal in a local restaurant finished off the day nicely.

After the symposium, Barry and I  joined German paddler Martin Rabung for a paddle to the sandy beaches of Herm island, where we planned to ‘get away from it all’ but found ourselves at the local pub on a Saturday night in amongst a wedding party, a 25th birthday party, a hen do and a stag do! Not quite what we’d expected but interesting all the same! the next day we made a visit to Guernsey before paddling back to Sark with the wind behind us, and finally back to Jersey on the 3rd day, via the Paternosters reef for lunch.

Kevin said he isn’t going to organise any more symposiums so this might be the last one but fortunately some other local paddlers have now expressed an interest in taking over so hopefully there might be another gathering in 2 years time. I hope so and I definitely won’t wait so long before coming back to the Channel islands again. Thanks a lot to Martin & Thomas for some of the photos.