I’ve just been sorting through old files and have found a large pile of old magazine articles that have never been posted here. I’ll put some up in the weeks to come; this one was published (2004?) in the now-defunct ‘Paddles’ magazine. Hope it’s useful/ interesting. ————————————————————————————— Mingulay and the Bishop’s Isles What care we [...]
Archive for the ‘Birds’ Category
Mingulay and the Bishop’s Isles Leave a comment
Ailsa Craig Leave a comment
Photos from an Easter day trip to Ailsa Craig, in the Firth of Clyde. Heather and I launched from Lendalfoot and crossed nine miles of open water to get there. As pre-arranged, Kate D arrived to meet us with a crossing through the heat haze from c20 miles south; improbably, we managed to co-ordinate our arrivals to [...]
Will and Kate 2 comments
We had hoped to celebrate the Royal wedding on the island of Lundy with friends; a 4.30 am launch from North Devon would have seen us on Lundy and propped up in the Marisco Tavern nicely in time for Kate to walk down the aisle. The windy weather killed this plan (in the event, H [...]
The cliffs of Ailsa Craig 2 comments
This photo shows the island of Ailsa Craig, 9 miles offshore in the Firth of Clyde, up in Scotland. I usually hate piddling around with Photoshop – the vast majority of pics here on the blog are simply posted up direct from the camera without any editing at all. I have nothing against Photoshop, it’s just [...]
Easter Tour Leave a comment
Just returned from a splendid two weeks of sea paddling that has been diverse, to put it mildly. First we visited Pembrokeshire in west Wales. Then, we headed to London and the Thames estuary. After a quick call in back home, we had planned to head up to NE England or maybe Anglesey in north [...]
Easter Tour Leave a comment
The Easter hols have arrived and instead of getting stuck in Asia by ash clouds, this year we’ve decided to stay in the UK for a ‘working’ holiday and tour around lugging sea kayaks, cameras, textbooks and laptops. First stop: Pembrokeshire. Splendid.
RNLI Thames Leave a comment
I was nowhere near the coast, this last weekend. However, I did find myself wandering over salt water, past Britain’s busiest lifeboat station. It’s years since I paddled these waters; looking forward to paddling them again in a few weeks.
Durlston Head, above and below 2 comments
We headed out of Swanage this morning, hoping to pay a visit to Purbeck’s puffin population. As we rounded Durlston Head, we hit a stiff headwind and soon changed our plans; it would have been a grim bash into the wind to see the puffins (in their cave near Dancing Ledge) and the choppy water [...]
Reasons Why…Shetland is the best Sea Kayaking destination in the UK 2 comments
The following article is written by Heather and was previously published in Canoe Kayak UK magazine… —————————————————————————– Reasons Why… …Shetland is the best Sea Kayaking destination in the UK There! I’ve said it. I’ll even repeat it: Shetland is the best Sea Kayaking destination in the UK. Now, before you spit in horror and say [...]
Out Skerries 1 comment
The most easterly point of Shetland is a group of rocky islands known as the ‘Out Skerries’ – ‘Out’ being derived from ‘East’. The crossing from the island of Whalsay is only a few miles, but traverses one of the UK’s cetacean hotspots; paddling through the swelly tide race on the way out, we saw several [...]
Muckle Flugga Leave a comment
Right at the very top of the Shetland Isles is the island of Unst, the most far northerly bit of the UK. Just north of that is the lighthouse of Muckle Flugga and just north of that is Out Stack, a rather unimpressive rock. Nothing else to be found, north of there. That’s it.
Cliffs Leave a comment
I have cynically used the word ‘cliffs’ in the title here, as this Google search engine keyword brings more people here than any other, by some distance. So, if you came here looking for your GCSE Geography homework, bad luck, you’ve been conned - but you can at least copy and paste the two pictures into your [...]
Foula – The Edge of the World 3 comments
The westernmost point of the Shetland Isles is the Isle of Foula, about 20 miles offshore. You can see the jagged outline on the horizon in the above photo, and indeed you can see this tall island from spots all over Shetland. We had to go there. Our first attempt (in dense fog and heavy [...]
Fair Isle Leave a comment
The picture above is borrowed from a splendid blog about life on Fair Isle. I’ve just been enjoying some photos on the blog of this remote island in winter. But, given that one of my pet hates is blogs simply reporting what other blogs say (or websites about other websites, etc) I’d better offer something original… [...]
Avocets 2 comments
A cold raw grey day in Purbeck today, with some fresh snowfall. We headed out to try and locate the 800+ avocets who are currently putting in a guest appearance in a quiet corner of Poole Harbour…
Oops 2 comments
This is by far and away the most expensive photo I’ve ever taken. Whilst I was photographing my friend Steve on the River Dart yesterday, my waterproof camera bag (which was unsealed) rolled off a rock and into the river. Inside was my lovely Nikon 80-200 f2.8 lens (if you don’t understand the nerdy nomenclature, [...]
Shetland Images 1 comment
The December issue of Canoe Kayak UK magazine has a photo-feature about our fantastic trip to Shetland, last summer. Hope it’s of interest. There are also some pics of our trip here…
Channel Hopping 1 comment
The following article was originally published in Canoe Kayak UK magazine. It describes our splendid Whitsun trip to the Channel Islands. Enjoy… ——————————————————- Channel Hopping Exploring the Channel Islands of Guernsey, Harm, Sark and Alderney by sea kayak Gannets! Thousands of ‘em! The sky is crowded full by our largest seabirds. Tidal rapids drag us [...]
Don’t try this at home… 6 comments
…namely, camping on a cliff ledge in an unstable and crumbling limestone quarry, accessible only via a slightly dubious scramble. It made for a pleasant and undisturbed night’s sleep however, and it also enabled me to wave my newest eBay acquisition at some bemused seagulls in the morning. Our love affair with the Isle of Purbeck [...]
Bloody Orkney 7 comments
Below is an article that I wrote about last summer’s trip to the Orkney Isles, located off the far north of the Scottish mainland. It was previously published in Canoe Kayak UK magazine. Hope it’s of interest… ———————————————————————— BLOODY ORKNEY ‘There’s nothing greets your bloody eye But bloody sea and bloody sky … In bloody [...]
