I’ve just come away from an interview at a school on the Devon/ Cornwall border, having withdrawn from the field whilst apparently leading. In other words, I’ve just turned down a chance of promotion, combined with working several miles from Widemouth Bay. The location was great but the job turned out to not be what I was [...]
Archive for May 2007
Decisions, decisions … Leave a comment
Listen carefully, here comes the science bit … Leave a comment
This might be my last post for a while, as I have a lot on in the next few days, and next week I’ll be off in the Isles of Scilly. How do you actually write a sea kayaking guide? Well, I have a system of sorts. 95% of the work is done on dry land [...]
Avalanche 3 comments
Yesterday, the Isle of Wight got smaller.
Man Down! 5 comments
Yesterday I fell and broke my foot. Above is India Juliet, the Coastguard search and rescue helicopter serving the Solent area. It’s the helicopter which would have come and rescued me, had my accident happened anywhere more interesting than the stairs in my house. So, this has not turned out to be the most productive [...]
Merchant Royal 4 comments
In 1641, the Merchant Royal reached the Western Approaches to the English Channel. Captain John Limbrey and his crew of 80 were nearing the end of a long voyage across the Atlantic from Mexico. Their cargo was reported as “£300,000 in silver, £100,000 in gold and as much again in jewel”, pirated from the Spanish [...]
Oh! I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside Leave a comment
Everyone delights to spend their summer’s holiday Down beside the side of the silvery sea I’m no exception to the rule In fact, if I’d my way I’d reside by the side of the silvery sea. But when you’re just the common or garden Smith or Jones or Brown At bus’ness up in town You’ve [...]
Fratercula Arctica 3 comments
This extraordinarily tame puffin came home with us after our first visit to Lundy Island, and has resided in our living room ever since. Lundy means Puffin in old Norse. There were 3000 pairs of Puffins on Lundy in the 1930′s. Due to foraging rats and also a decline in the sand eels upon which [...]
Golden Cap 2 comments
Rising to 191 metres above sea level, Golden Cap has the distinction of being the highest point on the south coast of England. The picture below explains the name. I’ll probably regret saying this, but I seem to have ‘done’ the Dorset chapter of the book. Likewise with the Isle of Wight chapter. I’ve also ‘done’ bits [...]
Meteorology 101 1 comment
The photo above shows my friend Chris paddling in North Devon, back on the 5th of May. Since that day, every single day has been cold, wet and – biggest problem of all – very windy, here in the South West. Worse still, my weather lodestone Metcheck is predicting that this unsettled weather will continue for [...]
Louisa of Lynmouth 1 comment
Wikipedia knows absolutely everything. So much does Wikipedia know and know well, that it is now entirely redundant to attempt to impart any knowledge at all in your own words. After all, Wikipedia will always know it better and explain it better… ‘At 7:52pm on 12 January 1899, a 1,900 ton three-masted ship Forrest Hall, [...]
Mayday 11 comments
Today did not go well. Although paddling on our local waters of Swanage Bay, Heather and I found ourselves in big trouble. We encountered a two metre swell, Force 6 winds and driving rain, with the conditions deteriorating. We became separated and before we could regroup, a failed roll saw me swimming alongside my kayak. [...]
Scillonian III 1 comment
There are two ways to get your kayak to the Isles of Scilly. I’ve tried them both. One way is to paddle there, a biggish but not extreme open crossing. The other way is to take the ferry. The Scillonian III makes the crossing from Penzance most days of the week. It’s popularly known as [...]
Sense of Perspective Leave a comment
Most of the photos I’ve taken for the book (some seen here in this blog) have been taken using a second hand Olympus digital SLR. This can produce some nice pics, but I treat it terribly and I am pretty sure that one of these days I am going to drop it into the sea. The three [...]
In Praise of Porlock Leave a comment
You can go there on a rainy day. Porlock Bay has been a tidal marsh for over a decade, since the sea was allowed to breach the old sea defences in a classic example of ‘managed retreat’. The harbour area is called Porlock Weir, but there isn’t a weir. Porlock has boats. Most of [...]
Pleasure-dome Leave a comment
But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover ! A savage place ! as holy and enchanted As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover ! Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan Whilst Coleridge was first writing down the words of [...]
Charlie Says… Leave a comment
Be careful out there.
Valley of Rocks Leave a comment
After our glorious day of paddling along Devon’s Exmoor coast, we woke up to strengthening winds and choppy seas. As the tide was against us, we spent the morning walking the cliffs and seeking out a rather pleasant Sunday roast at a nearby pub. When we did finally launch, it was just for the short [...]
Brobdingnag 3 comments
The high plateau of Exmoor National Park meets the Bristol Channel rather rudely and abruptly, with an average drop-off of around 300 metres down to sea level. Sometimes the height is lost in steeply wooded slopes, sometimes in England’s highest cliffs. The effect down at kayaker’s eye level, is that everything appears to be fairly big. We planned [...]
Lest We Forget 3 comments
I returned last night from overseas. Every year I take a group of my 14-15 year old students to Belgium and France in order to visit the battlefields and memorials of the Great War, 1914-18. The photos here show a trip made some years back; the students are now all over 18. Unlike the depicted [...]
