The book has arrived! It was ‘delivered’ this weekend, with the kind help of Mitch and all the staff at AS Watersports in Exeter. In the photo above, Franco (editor) has just snipped a bow and unveiled the finished product.
Paddlers demo-ed boats from various manufacturers out on the quayside.
In the evening we headed to Devon’s southernmost village, East Prawle. The Pig’s Nose pub threw its doors open to us and let us use an adjoining hall for a get-together. What a place! The pub and hall are cluttered with 1001 items of random bric-a-brac, a fantastic place.
However, disaster struck when I tried to set the talk equipment up – it emerged that my computer had picked this precise moment in its extended life to utterly die. I wasn’t much relishing standing infront of c60 people and telling them all that the evening was ‘off’. However my friend Ian and the landlord’s son worked some technical magic and managed to retrieve my presentation off the dying hard-drive to use on a laptop.
Given that I’d spent the previous two hours crying with despair instead of doing any preparation at all, the following talk was doomed to be utterly ad libbed. The audience politely endured my stream of consciousness however, and all still seemed to be there in the hall when I eventually finished.
Palm Equipment generously donated a big box of sea kayaking goodies for a raffle in aid of the RNLI. Ocean Paddler Magazine and Seacornwall.com also added prizes, thanks guys! We raised about £200 for the RNLI.
Today we went for a sheltered paddle on the Dart, of which more later.
Special thanks to Mitch and his staff at AS Watersports, and to all came along and took part.
Sad to have missed it, Mark – but pleased it went well
Graham