All thing Greenlandic Tuesday, December 19, 2006

So I've put the finishing touches to the first completed section of "This is the Sea 3" - it's about Greenland-style rolling featuring Cheri Perry and Freya Hoffmeister. I'm really excited about it because it's got some fantastic shots in it, including various angles of Cheri doing the straight jacket roll, and of course Freya doing her famous handstand in the kayak. Cheri starts it off by talking about how the different traditional rolls developed, which is through Greenlanders going out in their kayaks to hunt seals and being capsized while sorting out their hunting equipment or while they were entangled in their hunting line. Rolling up from a compromising position was often a matter of life or death. So I decided I'd like to use a few photographs of Greenlandic hunters to show what Cheri was talking about and a few people put me onto a fabulous resource. The Danish Polar centre has a wonderful collection of old photographs from Greenland including loads of kayaking images. I even found the one on the cover of Harvey Golden's new book!

You can browe the photos for free at www.arktiskebilleder.dk The database is in Danish only but Kirsten Klüver from the Polar Centre gave me some great tips. if you look for kajakker you will have all kayak-photos, starting with the oldest. You can limit the search by writing kajakker fangst (kayaks hunting), but you might miss some relevant photos. Or just search for kajak to bring up even more photos. I'm using 4 photos form here in the DVD and I struggled to chose which ones because there are so many fascinating shots. If you want to use the photos for anything then Kirsten can send you them at full resolution for a small fee ( depending on what you want to use if for). You can email Kirsten at
Needless to say these are 2 of the images she sent me ( although I didn't use either of these!)

So while I'm on the Greenland theme, in 2007 Cackle TV will be the first place in the UK where you can buy to Harvey Golden's new book, "Kayaks of Greenland" .

The book is a complete look at the history and development of the Greenlandic Kayak from 1600 - 2000. Harvey is shipping a limited number over to Wales so if anyone on this side of the pond wants one then send me an email. I'll put them on the website when they arrive but if you want to save on postage, I'll have the books with me at the Outdoor Show in Birmingham in March and the Anglesey Symopsium in May (the 580page book crammed with diagrams, photos and information is pretty heavy!!)

So this blog post is not about me for once!! If I carry on like this I'll turn into Derrick!?

Nearby discoveries Sunday, December 17, 2006

High pressure is finally here and this bright and clear weekend we did familiar things is slightly unfamiliar places.

On Saturday we paddled on the east coast of Anglesey from Moelfre to Point Lynas and back, amazed at the calm seas and warmth in the December air. I've paddled in that area before but don't really know it very well. It's not as dramatic as the 'Stacks' and a bit lower lying but quite a lot of wading birds, a few isolated pebbly beaches and not many houses. A late-ish start meant we arrived back just as the sky was turning black. On Sunday, we walked up Cwm Llan and over to Cwm Merch near Nant Gwynant - places I drive past quite often but have never explored. It's a really pretty area and it was great to get to know some of the nooks and crannies of my homeground a bit better. Again, we got back to the car as darkness fell - not too hard to achieve near to the shortest day of the year!

Double Trouble Saturday, December 09, 2006

How often do you see double seakayaks in rough conditions!? What about 5 of them together in a force 7 ?

Today Alun and I filmed 10 fine paddlers braving the December cold and taking doubles out off Rhoscolyn Head on Anglesey. The result will be seen in 'This is the Sea 3', in a section called 'Double Trouble'. I'm just loading in the first tape now and it looks good. I was impressed by how easy they made it look in pretty big waves, and how much faster the doubles are compared to singles. We also had some fun trying out rolling, some fancy strokes, a double balance brace and lots of good humour! There was just the one swim, and a double re-entry and roll!

Thanks to Jeff Allen & Simon Osborne, Barry Shaw & Phil Clegg, Keirron Tastagh & Harry Wheelan, Gemma Rawlings and Guto Wyn, Axel Schoevers and John ( from Plas Menai ). Thanks to Plas Menai, Nigel Dennis, Barry & Seakayaking Cornwall for providing the kayaks, and thanks to Alun and Ros for filming. Finally thanks to Axel for taking the photographs!

Wild and Windy Wales Sunday, December 03, 2006

We optimistically strapped the surf boats to the van roof, just in case all the webcams and forecasts were lying about the gale force winds and wild white seas. Plan A was really a walk in the elements to North and South Stack on Anglesey, but the boats were there on the slim chance that we'd find a surf bay protected from the Force 11 winds. Needless to say we didn't, and we parked the van as much out of the wind as possible and had fun trying to walk on the cliff path without being blown off it, peering through our hands at the stinging spray and the heavy waves pounding down on the sea and shooting 20 metres up the grey cliffs. Bits of gorse were being blown up gullies like tumbleweed, and at times I couldn't stay on the path while remaining upright. Definately a day to enjoy watching the water from the land!