Justine’s Blog

I had an unusual phone call on Thursday asking if I’d help film a crazy young man who wanted to cycle off the end of Bangor Pier!

I decided that anyone who would consider doing that in February in Wales, with snow on the mountains behind him should be supported!

Plus it gave me the chance to work with local climbing film makers, Bamboo Chicken. Dave & Lynwen Brown recently made a DVD called ‘Welsh Connections’ and Dave formerly made films for ‘Hot Aches’. Matt Barlow is a professional mountainbike trials stunt and display rider, coach and guide. All of us live within about 10 miles of each other in the Welsh hills, although I’d never met Matt before, or worked with Lynwen and Dave.

So on Friday morning, we met for breakfast and headed to the pier. I was in my kayak on the sea to film ‘the money shot’ of Matt plumetting about 10 metres into the void on his bike! While I sat in my Kokatat drysuit and 2 layers of thermals, rubbing my hands in the chilly February air, Matt was performing stunts on his bike sporting jeans and  a green t-shirt advertising one of his sponsors, Tarty Bikes. I hope they gave him lots of t-shirts for this! I’ll even give them a link in the hope that they can stretch to a fleece next time!

It was fun to help out. Even though I only had to get one shot, it was a bit of a struggle to be in the right position at the right time as the tide and wind were pushing me away from the pier at about 2 knots and there were just enough salty corrosive waves to splash an expensive camera if I paddled back into position a bit too eagerly. Once Matt was in the water, I helped get him back to the steps at the end of the pier so he could get out and get that green t-shirt and jeans off.

The film will be shown at Llanff – my local film festival – in March. I hope some of my films will also be showing but I haven’t heard yet.

Thanks to Matt for the photos.

Wow, things certainly hit all at once sometimes. Today I found out that “This is Canoeing” has won best canoeing film at TWO film festivals! Already!

The Reel Paddling Film Festival in Canada had it’s premiere showing last night in Toronto and the winning films were announced. “This is Canoeing” was amongst them and took the single blade title. 

I also had an email this afternoon from Anne Baxter from the Waterwalker Film Festival, a Canadian paddling festival set up in memory of Bill Mason. She said,

“Hello Justine,

This is to inform you that your film This is Canoeing is the winner of the Best Canoeing Film of the 2010 Waterwalker Film Festival.

This is Canoeing is an excellent canoeing film with an excellent representation from some of the best-known paddlers from around the globe”.
 

I rushed to get preview copies of the DVD to both festivals and I’m glad I did!

See the other winners at Waterwalker here.  The other winners at the Reel Film Festival will be on their website very soon. Both festivals are taking the best films on tour of Canada & America so look out for a showing near you.

Congratulations to Simon Willis and Gordon Brown – their DVD won best instructional film at both festivals. And congratulations to all the other winners.

If this news has persuaded you to pre-order the DVD then you can do so at our webstore, or you can make sure your local paddling shop will be stocking it. The DVDs should be ready in time so that I can get the DVDs to your local store by the release date of 12th March – but they have to order them!!

Last weekend ALMOST felt like Spring. On Saturday the wind was low, the sun was out and Barry and I headed to the Skerries, one of our favourite islands off the coast of Anglesey. Strong tides sweep along the coast here, making the red and white stripey lighthouse a satisfying target to reach. It’s also a special place, giving you that feeling of exploring a wild and far-off land, more frequently visited by birds than humans. We decided to ferry glide across the tide from Carmel Head adding to the challenge of reaching the island. We both got a bit of a sweat on in our wintery thermals, but the cold nip on our hands reminded us why we chose fleece instead of thin baselayers. Once we reached the eddy besides the island, we had it to ourselves (except for the curious seals & a few birds) and enjoyed a bit of sunbathing over lunch.

On Sunday, WINTER was back. The windscreen wipers never defrosted on our hour journey to the put in and I wore my entire wardrobe as I waited for a shuttle to be completed in the early hours. I was back in my canoe for the first time since pinning it on the Upper Tummel in Scotland during a crossing of Rannoch Moor. Barry had replaced the bent gunnels and it was as good as new! But for some reason Barry decided to take his kayak down the river instead of accompanying me in my canoe…. I’m not quite sure why?

11 of us decided to take a long river trip meandering through the countryside, mostly on fairly gentle water, with a few rapids thrown in for good measure. It was a fun, sociable day, and I enjoyed soloing the canoe through the rapids – I have learnt something over the last year with a single blade! Alas, the days aren’t that long yet and we finished the adventure on the most exciting rapids in near darkness! Everyone was upright and, I think, smiling. Fish and chips rounded off the day nicely!

    

We almost didn’t go paddling today because it was snowing hard at home and we were worried we wouldn’t be able to drive back up the fairly steep hill to where we live. But the snow eased of so we headed out about 1pm for a couple of hours surfing at Point Lynas tidal race. It’s a 10.2 meter tide today, which means loads of water moving past the point at about 4 knots. With a brisk wind against the ebb tide, we knew we’d have some exciting waves to play on. We weren’t disappointed and had a fantastic hour or 2 catching some fun rides.

I dropped almost vertically down one wave and popped back out vertically. For a heart stopping moment I thought I was going to end up capsizing and would have to roll, but I landed the right way up side on to the waves. I wasn’t so lucky a bit later on got looped and capsized, but it honestly wasn’t as cold as I thought it would be. My lovely Kokatat drysuit and my warm hat helped a lot!!