Justine’s Blog

So it was like this…. a sunny California morning, clean glassy 4foot waves on a reef break, no battling to get out back, just a paddle out on flat water; turn, wait and surf back in towards the shore at Sunset Cliffs. Alun and Jake were ripping it up on either side of me and pelicans were crusing by in convoy just above the waves. I found myself thinking I could every easily move to California!!! And after 3 days in the Spyder surf boat I’m finally getting to grips with it. Instead of catching an edge and flipping on almost every wave, I’m feeling comfortable turning it on the wave and really enjoying it. We had the pleasure of meeting the man known only as Spike (!), who designed the boat and I can aspire to be able to do some of the things that he can in it!

We had a good time filming in Baja with Jen & Jake from Aqua Adventures, and the Johnson Outdoor Crew. It’s a beautiful stretch of coastline about 2.5 hours drive south of San Diego and we enjoyed rock hopping and touring in the sun. We have some great shots which will be fun to edit. It was all topped off with delicious food cooked by Jock Bradley. Some work is better than other work !! The photo is of Jeff from Canoe & Kayak magazine by the largest blow hole in the world.

We’re off to Canoecopia tomorrow with a bright and early flight to Chicago…. I better go and get organised!

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.