I’ve been alone for the last few days, as I’m ‘between friends’. Lots of photos of the front of my boat don’t make for great book illustrations, but it’s not a problem as I’ve actually already covered and written up this part of Exmoor’s coast earlier in the year. A bigger concern has been me, [...]
Archive for July 2007
Match Fit 3 comments
Palmerston Follies Leave a comment
Brean Down is a headland in Somerset which extends out towards the island of Steep Holm. It’s the last gasp of the Mendip Hills. A fort at the tip of Brean Down contains numerous hefty gun emplacements, overlooking the Bristol Channel. There are similar fortifications on Steep Holm and Flat Holm, forming a defensive chain across [...]
Rough Passage 3 comments
Well, since Saturday the paddling has been somewhat mixed. Several of us had a wonderful trip to the islands of Flat Holm and Steep Holm, but afterwards the weather went downhill. All paddling since has been characterised by headwinds and often enough, torrential rain. A number of friends joined me for a few days [...]
Go West 1 comment
One more day at school tomorrow, then off paddling! * First week, paddle west from Somerset to the border with Cornwall with several friends, mostly sea kayak virgins. * Second week, paddle west as far as Land’s End with another friend (or two). * Then … meet up with Heather (returned from Canada by then) and [...]
Loaded Magazine 2 comments
For some time now, two South West paddlers whom I know fairly well have been working on setting up the UK’s first proper sea kayaking magazine. I held back on commenting about their project up to now, because I thought it’d be best to actually see the finished product for myself, before commending it to the [...]
To Do List Leave a comment
Monday: sort out Cornwall’s lighthouses and south Devon’s shipwrecks.
Misanthropy 5 comments
Compiling a guidebook isn’t all glamour, fast cars and parties. I’ve spent this entire weekend working my way through information on campsites. For each of 50 chapters, I have researched and checked dozens and dozens of telephone numbers, grid references, accessibility from the sea etc. If this sounds even slightly interesting, take my word for it, [...]
Eddystone Challenge 4 comments
The Eddystone rocks are around a dozen miles offshore from Plymouth, and saw the completion of the first ever offshore ’rock’ lighthouse in 1699. Henry Winstanley’s eccentric wooden design was mocked by ‘experts’ as too flimsy and decorative. To prove its mettle, he declared that he would inhabit his creation during, “The greatest storm there ever [...]
Catharsis 1 comment
A Friday night paddle, after work. Enough said.
Take Me to Your Leader! 6 comments
In recent years, there has been an explosion in the popularity of kayak fishing in the UK, making it possibly the largest growth area of paddlesport. Most kayak anglers use specially designed sit-on-tops, as depicted. Beyond those facts, the sport of fishing is frankly a mystery to me, a situation I’d like to rectify. I [...]
Jetstream 1 comment
The last couple of evenings have been spent jotting down notes on Cornwall’s maritime history, which is both boring (tin exports! pilchard trawling!) and interesting (smugglers! storms!) at the same time. This generally lousy and unsettled weather that we’ve been enjoying in the past month is being determined by forces far above our heads. These calm [...]
Raise the Titanic! 2 comments
… was possibly the worst book I’ve ever read. Read the plot synopsis to get some idea of why. In a totally unrelated turn of events, today comes the surprising news that the MSC Napoli has been refloated, after six months on the seabed off Branscombe beach. The news was surprising to me, anyway, as I’d [...]
No More Working for a Week or Two … 1 comment
One of the advantages of being a school teacher is that they don’t actually expect you to turn up at work for 13 weeks a year. By my maths, that is a whole quarter of the year spent on holiday. My six week summer holiday begins in two weeks, and I have a plan … [...]
Reward 4 comments
Saturday, five hours straight spent tapping tidal data, ISBN numbers, map references and Coastguard details into the keyboard. Sunday, a breezy cruise on local waters.
Retail Therapy 3 comments
I have need of a boat with bigger storage capacity for this summer, so for some time I have had a new toy on order. This morning, it finally arrived! With childlike glee, I retrieved it from the local shop. All good. It is very long and very orange. It has the number ’34′ written [...]
Information Superhighway 2 comments
Researching a book in the 21st Century is a doddle. To gather information, you don’t need to go paddling, you don’t need to read books (Heaven forbid) and you don’t actually even need to leave your armchair. All you need to put together your literary masterwork is a laptop with wireless internet. Enter the name [...]
SWCP Leave a comment
Paddling isn’t the only way to see the coast of the South West. What begins here at Minehead in Somerset, ends 630 miles later at Poole in Dorset.
Epitaph Leave a comment
Here lieth the Body of Mr John Hurley, Custom House Officer of this Parish. As He was endeavouring to extinguish some Fire made between Beer and Seaton as a Signal to a Smuggling Boat then off at Sea He fell by some means or other from the Top of the Cliff to the Bottom [...]
Normal Service Will Resume … Leave a comment
I am actually mainly a whitewater paddler, as opposed to a sea paddler. I may be working on a guide to sea kayaking in the south west now, but several years ago I actually wrote the south west section of a white water guidebook to England! In order to take on working on the sea [...]
