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On Saturday, Barry and I paddled to Bardsey island at the end of the Llyn Peninsula in North Wales. It’s one of our favourite places to paddle and we’ve got to know the only family who live there all year round. Steve, Joanna, Rachel and Ben Porter have spent just over a year as the resident farmers – during the summer the other few houses are occupied by local lobster fishermen, RPSB bird wardens, National Trust representatives, a resident artist and many visitors. In the winter, it’s just them, cattle, sheep, turkeys, ducks, seals and birds. The local lobster fisherman is employed by the post office to deliver their mail by boat once a week, but in the Winter there are often 3 week stretches when it’s too stormy to get out to the island. It’s only a couple of kilometres from the mainland but the tide flies through the sound at up to 6 knots and it can be really rough. That’s why the Welsh name for the island is Ynys Enlli – island in the currents.

We try to visit Bardsey at least every couple of months and we are always given a warm welcome, a cup of tea and often a piece of home made cake! In return we take out some fresh fruit, a weekend newspaper and some other treats. We’ve been talking about staying overnight for months and finally we spend a lovely evening with the Porters, eating local beef, chatting and going for a star-lit evening walk. Slightly strangely, we also watched the X-factor on telly!!! The next morning we watched the Porters catch some of their turkeys for Christmas gifts. If we get a chance to go back to Bardsey before Christmas then I’m going to bring one of the poor turkeys back in my kayak and have a Bardsey free range turkey for Christmas dinner. At least it will have had a happy life!

The New Zealand premiere of “This is the Sea 4” was a great success last week. Thanks a lot to Sarah Wilson from Adventure Coaching for organizing the event at the Spectrum Theatre in Wellington. I couldn’t be there ( in case I was tempted to keep kayaking around the North island!) but Sarah tells me that 100 eager kayakers and adventurers turned up. They “broke the rules” and watched the first part of the premiere disk but instead of watching the 25minute version of the NZ film that’s on that disc, they watched the whole 48 minute film! Sarah’s verdict, “It is winna mate!” The premiere also raised around $500 for a project that supports teenagers learning through adventure – called Project K.

There’s one more premiere planned in Toronto this Saturday on 6th December, organised by the Complete Paddler and Gerald Croney. If anyone else is interested in organising a premiere event then please get in touch – I can provide an hour long version of the DVD.

With over 2 and a half hours of award-winning films, “This is the Sea 4” makes a great Christmas gift!. If you’ve already got it then there are 3 previous DVDs in stock for anyone who has any ‘gaps in their collection’ that need filling!

Remember that if you buy from our on-line store then SHIPPING IS FREE TO ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD!
Orders are usually posted within 24 hours, and often go the same day.

(in the UK/ Europe/Australia/Asia store, there is a small postage charge for buying multiple DVDs, but postage is free for single DVDs. In the USA/ Canada store all shipping is free)

UNITED WITH THE TROPHY FOR ‘BEST ADVENTURE FILM’ AT KENDAL MOUNTAIN FILM FESTIVAL!

The mist shrouded Barry, Jim Krawiecki and I as we paddled out to Hilbre island at the mouth of the Dee Estuary this morning. We could only see about 30 metres away so I was glad when a black smudge appeared ahead of us. Jim brought along the trophy that he collected for me at Kendal Mountain Film Festival, and a bottle of booze that came with the prize. The trophy was made by Andy Parkin, sculptor and climber.

HILBRE EMERGES FROM THE MIST

I’m really excited that the 50 minute film of my and Barry’s circumnavigation of the South island has won a major prize!

Kendal Mountain Film Festival is the UK’s largest adventure film festival and one of the big 4 mountain film festivals, alongside Banff in Canada ( which I was too late to enter). Today it was announced that the film won the ‘best Mountain Adventure Film’ award which is a great honor. The sharp ones amongst you may have noticed that the NZ film is not strictly a MOUNTAIN adventure – however most ‘Mountain Film Festivals’ are broad enough to show other outdoor adventure films aswell, and there isn’t a ‘best adventure film’ category. I’m very grateful to the judges for being broad-minded enough to chose a seakayaking film as the winner and I personally think it says a lot for the film to win here!

Unfortunately I can’t be there to collect the prize as I’m still in New York, but Jim Krawiecki is collecting it on my behalf.

I should remind you that the NZ film is just one part of the “This is the Sea 4” DVD double disc set ……. so it’s a real bargain!

There is another review of the “This is the Sea 4” on the Solent Seakayaking blog.

The last US premiere of “This is the Sea 4” was last night in New York City organised by Marcus DeMuth and the Manhattan Kayak Company The tour has been a great success with well over 1,000 people seeing the premiere version of the film in 10 different locations. It wasn’t all ‘work’ and we got to go seakayaking 9 times, in 6 different US states. Tonight we go home, and we’re looking forward to that aswell!