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I’ve surfed, swum, filmed, fished, eaten, drunk and been merry in our first 2 days in San Diego. Thanks to Jen for looking after us so well and taking us surfing yesterday. There’s something about surfing in California which makes me smile! I tried out a Necky Spyder which was a lot of fun, although I wouldn’t say that I quite mastered the fins ( being more used to a Mega Cyclone) and I got flipped uncompromisingly a lot of times!! I had some good ‘moments’ on the waves though and should have stuck to it because when I swapped boats with Alun, I managed to get a wave in my deck, the deck popped ( yeah, that old story, but REALLY it did!). One minute I was surfing and the next minute my kayak cockpit was filling with water and the front of the boat sunk underneath me! It was a long swim to shore!!

Today we were up early to film Jim Sammons and friends kayak fishing at La Jolla. Alun was filming from a boat and I was filming from a kayak on the water. Except poor ALun got a bit queesy bobbing around on the swell and looking through a viewfinder and decided to feed the fish himself. Thanks to Jock Bradley for these photos!

I’ve been busy posting out hundreds of DVDs to the UK, Europe, Australia & New Zealand so that ‘This is the Sea 3’ will be at your nearest kayak shop for the release date of 10th March 2007. (US DVDs will be shipped this week from Colorado).

A few ‘review’ copies have got into the hands of their reviewers very quickly. Here is the first review that I know about, written by Harald Rishovd from Norway.

“I have now watched the whole DVD to my eyes got big and wet:-) You should
really look forward to the “this is the sea III”, it is at least as good as
the two first films, and really has something for everyone. My favourites so
far is the hardcore sea kayak playboating in Scottish Tidal Races, the
surfing from New Zealand, an incredibly cool sequence with rolling and
tricks from Freia Hoffmeister and Cheri Perry, and not to forget, the
incredible film from the Antarctica Kayak Expedition – really extreme stuff.
Total length of the DVD is 2 hours”.

Harlad will be writing a longer review for ‘Paddling’ magazine in Norway, but has written his first impressions on 2 Norwegian paddling forums. If you understand Norwegian then you can see the review here !
or here

It’s the same review on 2 different forums, but there may be different comments added to each one.

What do you do on a cold, drizzling, winters day?
The surf was big and all over the place at Hells mouth – not much fun in a surf boat – so we decided to go and mess about in our seakayaks in the smaller surf at Dinas Dinlle. It was great fun and good practise. Neither of us have spent much time trying to surf waves in our seakayaks. Usually on trips with heavily laden kayaks we’re trying to avoid big surf and come in on the back of waves, and if the surf is up at home we go out in our surf boats. So today was great for experimenting and having a laugh – well, as much as you can when you’re fingers are tingling with the cold!! An hour or so later, we emerged from the beach smiling, after 5 rolls between us, one of them when we collided with each other!!

On a separate note, the PAL ‘This is the Sea 3’ DVDs have landed in Wales and have taken over the house ( much to Alun’s annoyance!). I wish I could post them to everyone right now, but I have to wait a while so that they arrive on the release date of 10th March. The pre-orders are all packaged up and labelled in separate boxes – one for Europe, one for the UK and one for Australia and far away places like that!! I’ve already posted a few out to magazines and websites who want to review the DVD, so we might start to see trickles of feedback very soon!! I’ve also sent them to UK and Europe shops so they’ll have them on the shelves on 10th March.

The US DVDs are still being made – they should be finished this week and then a similar process will happen there.

I know “This is the Sea 3” isn’t quite out yet, but plans are already underway to get some footage for dare I say it, ‘This is the Sea 4’ !? ( The title is to be confirmed, but there WILL be another Cackle TV seakayaking DVD in the next 12 – 24 months!)

In fact, Alun & I fly to San Diego next week to do some filming with some very good kayak fishing guys, including Jim Sammons.
I’m excited about that as I know very little about ‘proper’ kayak fishing and I’ve wanted to film it for ages. (I have caught the odd fish with my hand line trailed behind my kayak but I think it’s more luck that judgement!) If you live near San Diego then I’m giving a presentation ( with Jim Sammons & Jock Bradey) on Saturday 3rd March and showing a sneak preview chapter from ‘This is the Sea 3’. If that’s not enough to whet your appetite then there’s wine & Cheese aswell. Contact Aqua Adventures if you’re interested.

We then drive to Baja with Jen Kleck from Aqua Adventures, and some of the Johnson Outdoor pro paddlers to camp & do some rock hopping & rough water paddling. I’m told that Jock Bradley will be putting down his camera and taking up his wooden spoon to produce some fine foods!

Next is Canoecopia & the launch of “This is the Sea 3”. Lendal are hiring a bar and a band on 10th March in Madison and we’re showing the world premiere of ‘This is the Sea 3’. DVDs will be on sale at Canoecopia from Friday 9th March, and at other shops around the world from Saturday 10th March. I’ll be around all weekend to sign copies ( and giving some presentations).

In late March, Alun and I head to Australia for the New South Wales Canoe Club’s annual “Rock N Roll” event. After that we plan to paddle in the Nadge Wildernes Area of NSW with Laurie Geoghegan and others, followed by an attempted crossing of the Bass Strait to Tasmania. We’ll cross to the East side of Tassie via a chain of islands. The total distance is about 370km and the longest hop is 67km, which I think will be my longest open crossing so far.

We’ll be home in May & June, then in July we fly back to the West coast of the States. This time we are delighted to be attempting to circumnavigate Haida Gwaii ( The Queen Charlotte Islands ) with our good friends and very talented paddlers Shawna Franklin & Leon Sommes. We hope to paddle back to mainland Canada afterwards making the total journey around this remote, wild and beaufiul island chain around 1000km. I’ll write more about all of these trips as they approach and I hope to have regular blog updates of all of them as they progress. And I’ll have my cameras with me, of course!

(The photo is obviously nothing to do with any of this! It’s Alun Biking in Scotland last weekend as we enjoyed 3 days of biking and hiking)