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Strong Easterly gusts last weekend didn’t prevent 60 participants from having a great time at Kari-tek’s first Midwest seakayaking symposium. The normally sheltered Tayvallich (close to the Sound of Jura) was subject to the full force of the Easerlies, but nooks and crannies were found, instruction was given and scenic paddles were enjoyed!

Barry & I joined other coaches to help out in this beautiful area – and I even saw an osprey! It was a great event aimed at beginners to intermediate paddlers.

Cheri Perry & Turner Wilson are staying with us now which is great! They have a couple of places left this weekend for a day of instruction with these world-class Greenland style paddlers and rollers! See here for details.

I’ve been making the most of the good weather recently with evening paddles or bike rides. The Swellies wave was working earlier in the week and Barry and I enjoyed an evening surf – joined by some local playboaters and even a C1 slalom paddler! Barry took the new Valley Etain to see how it performed. It’s a long boat so he wasn’t expecting it to be great on the wave but he was very pleasantly surprised and found it very maneuverable.

In the UK, people are already out on paddling trips. Roger Chandler from Coastal Spirit is leading a group of 3 people on a circumnavigation of Wales at the moment. They are doing brilliantly and have just a few more days paddle left to complete the circle. You can read their blog here. Barry and I will join them for a day tomorrow, paddling from Rhoscolyn round to the North coast of Anglesey and hopefully camp overnight with them too. I’m excited to spend a night in our tent!

Harry Whelan & Jeff Allen started their speed attempt at paddling around Ireland today with a 40-mile+ paddle. I think they have to average over 30 miles a day to beat the current ‘record’ of 33 days.

Remember you can still take advantage of our big April savings in our on-line store.

What great weather we’ve been having in Wales. So many warm, sunny days to entice us outdoors. Last week, Carol & Ross were down from Scotland staying with us. While Carol did her 5 star training, Barry and I took Ross around the Stacks on a lovely calm day… although we did take him against the tide both ways! Most of the time we were near to the cliffs and out of the strong tide, but going around South Stack against the flow was a fun challenge!

On the weekend, we scampered up Tryfan, one of my favourite Welsh mountains, before driving down the Llyn Peninsula for another treat; an overnight stay o

n Bardsey island. The sun shone on the car on the drive, until a few hundred metres from our destina

tion of Abadaron when we drove down into a thick layer of sea mist! It was a shame that Carol & Ross couldn’t see the island (or anything at all if it was more than 50 metres away!) but it was quite fun to do my first crossing to Bardsey in the mist. We chose our bearing but used a GPS for back-up. When we were about 200 metres away, we got a brief tantalising glimpse of the top of Bardsey briefly poking through the mist. We closed in on the north end of the island ferry gliding across a strong band of current off the headland. We could see the island now as we paddled against the flow (to keep a theme with Ross) to reach the harbour where we landed for the night.

As always we had a great time staying with the Porter family and enjoying farm life for a few hours. They have been busy lambing for the last month or so, and are now gearing up for the arrival of some more calves.

On Sunday, we climbed Bardsey mountain and were treated to a clear view of the mainland. By the time we crossed back the mist had crept in over the west side of the island and half way across Bardsey sound. We paddled on a bearing again, until we emerged into clear blue sky! Despite the poor visibility, we saw a porpoise & lots of seabirds including puffins. What a wonderful weekend!

I was recently sent 2 Dutch magazines with reviews of “This is Canoeing”.  This is the shorter one for those of you who understand Dutch. I’m told it’s a very positive review, for an award winning DVD which continues to bring smiles to the faces of paddlers around the world.

Now is a great time to buy “This is Canoeing” and one of our other DVDs as we have some great offers in our webstore during April.

Take advantage of our best ever offer – save £25, or US $35 when you buy any 4 DVDs. You can buy the DVDs using any other currency. If you are spending Euros you will save approx. 28 Euros.

Or buy any 2 DVDs for £30, US $45 ( approx. 34 Euros ). Shipping is always free worldwide.

Thanks to Rob Van Dijk for writing and sending me the reviews.