The ninth severe storm of the season barrelled into the cliffs of Cornwall yesterday. It was the most savage so far in what has been a very stormy winter. Our winters are becoming noticeably more stormy, no doubt a consequence of climate change, but also hoping that the relentless stormy weather this year is also partly attributable to the current El Niño. There have been precious few days this winter with sunshine and light winds. Two in fact …
Tag: ocean
Saltwater Snaps
A few recent (yesterday in fact) snaps of a kayaking flavour… I’ve been spending a lot of time recently trying to decide what my optimum on-water camera set-up should be. At the moment all I have is an old Lumix GF2 + 14mm lens inside a housing that lives on my deck… The camera was a cheap secondhand deal albeit with an excellent lens, important on the expectation that sooner or later the housing will …
Epic Skies Afloat
I really hammered myself riding in Morocco, promptly picked up a cold on my return and have been feeling rather run down ever since, it always takes time to recover from a particularly hard expedition/ride so paddling with a couple of friends today was deliberately limited to around 16km in easy conditions by way of starting to get some paddling condition back into my upper body without inhibiting my recovery. It turned out to be a proper …
Thursday, Lizard o’clock..
Met up with a couple of friends for a paddle out of Kennack Sands, approaching Lizard Point from the eastern side for a change, and continuing on round to Kynance Cove, very much a favoured lunch stop, for, err.. lunch before heading back… It was a fabulous early winter day on the water.. mellow with a bit of sun, some dramatic skies, enough wave action for some fun and very quiet. Perfect.
Scilly paddling..
Here we are…further to my last post I’m back from guiding for/with Sea Kayaking Cornwall in the Isles of Scilly , a tailor-made sea kayaking destination if ever there was one. I lucked out with a terrific group which made the week so much more fun… including a bureau chief for Janes Defence (we had lots to talk about given my background..), a Doctor of Geology and even a certain Steve Backshall.. which just goes …
Bag Lady..
.. not what you might expect, and you’d be unlikely to find one as shapely as this.. the lady in question being a sea kayak, more specifically an NDK Romany called Rosie, named as such by her owner who has left her in my care… I tend not to name kayaks but thinking about it a sea kayak is probably not a bloke.. whoever heard of a kayak called “Dave” for example.. which no doubt …
back on the water..
back on the water after an enforced layoff of 5 weeks… I felt very out of tune with my boat and I’m still not fully recovered but it was so good to be afloat again. Some pictures follow from the last couple of days. Very little swell running but with the perigee moon we have at the moment the tides were flowing very strongly around Lands End and out around the brooding Longships Reef.. so …
April sky
fantastic sky over Godrevy Lighthouse this morning as heavy April showers sweep in from the northwest… I was down at the Sunset Café for a meeting on my bike but happened to have a compact in my pocket.
winter ocean
While the rest of the nation apparently froze it’s collective nuts off yesterday, west Cornwall was, at +4C merely a bit nippy. With light winds and just a lazy groundswell running paddling conditions out along the west coast of the Lizard between Poldhu and Kynance were particularly mellow… although later in the day the tide, in spots, was running at between 2 and 3 knots and kicking up some impressive overfalls, adding a frisson of …