Winter is a really bad time for a summer paddler to try to maintain a paddling blog. I swore back in January that after missing all of December and most of November, I’d get back into it and keep it up until I got back out on the water and had new stuff to blog … More My journey into sea kayaking
At last, at last, new blog material! Last weekend I went out on the water for the first time since September and that means I have a story to tell! There’s a company in London – most sensibly named the London Kayak Company – who do kayak trips in London and I decided to go … More I kayaked all the way across London!
It’s very early but we’ve now had our first boathouse meeting of the year! We do this in January – get a tide timetable, go through our calendars and our requests and put all our boat club and unit sessions in so everyone’s ready for the summer term. Unfortunately, it does mean that anyone who … More Getting the boathouse back together for 2025
Since it’s Halloween today, I wish I had something spooooky for this blog but I don’t. I’ve hung up my wetsuit by October and I can’t even think of anything relevant from Guiding, other than that we did apple bobbing and cooking smores over candles at Rangers last week – not exactly spooky but reasonably … More How to get kids into kayaking
The disaster that was the Great Big Paddle Parade gave my confidence a bit of a dent – or perhaps I should say that it happening right at the end of my paddling season might have. To spend the entire winter knowing that was what happened last time I went out on the water, that … More Getting my paddling mojo back (again)
One thing that we – and by “we”, I mean, the instructor, three assistants, manager & treasurer of our boathouse – have noticed over the last few years is a lack of resilence in the girls we take out to sea. It’s very easy to talk about “kids these days!” but a lot of the … More Kayaking, Guides and resilience
And at last we come to the end of my paddling story! I don’t know what date this will end up being published because I’m writing it before we reopen the boat club for the season, so there might be stuff about boat club and my 2024 paddling and this might not end up where … More I did my Paddlesport Safety & Rescue training
With the knowledge that I’m now on my way towards some kind of leadership or coaching qualification, I became acutely aware that I can’t roll a kayak. Wouldn’t know where to start. But actually, this came about because I was looking at doing my PRS training, which was still called FSRT when I started looking … More A roll-practice pool session
I spent nine or so days driving around Iceland’s Ring Road last summer. I’ve spent a lot of time in Iceland and covered most of it but I’ve never done a circuit of the Ring Road before. I didn’t plan to do it that time either. I planned to drive up to Akureyri and the … More Kayaking on Jökulsárlón
Last summer I had a paddling overnight adventure. I’d not forgotten the beautiful night nav by sea kayak in October 2021 but the company hadn’t run that again. They did, however, have a slightly bigger adventure available and I thought I might do that. We’d have a night paddle by kayak, bivvy in the woods … More An overnight paddle adventure
Bumblebee Paddles 