WWS bRRRRRRRR

So, my cold week just gets better!!!

This time its extreme White Water Safety and Rescue course for the Hardcore Leam Boat Centre Massive!!!

Todays office -

The temperature readout on the truck says it all!

Alex testing the water!!Nicks in next! Rolling over the eddy line.Cold but happy!Everyones safe - Duncan's on the line!

Well done guys, I was all for cancelling the course, and would have done if it were for lesser mortals!!!

More cold level 2

This time it was the second weekend of a L2 training at Leamington. The ice was a little thick!!!

Off go our intrepid kayakers on an ice breaking mission.

Don't try this at home kids!

Pretty though huh?

Level two in the Cold

Just run a L2 assessment in North Derbyshire, it was a little cold to say the least!

Good job the Edale crew are hardcore.

Everyone passed, so that's awesome. Thanks to all the 'guinea pig' students - they were pretty hardcore too.

Jenny was really excited - they don't have snow on the Isle of Man!!!

Bugsworth Basin -what a cool place, well more than just cool today!

Old Jersey!

As opposed to New Jersey!

I got invited by Derek Hairon from http://www.jerseykayakadventures.co.uk/ to help him run a 4 star sea on Jersey.

I hadn't been to Jersey since I was twelve so I was dead excited.

We had a training and an assessment going on, so I was switching between the two courses, I met some great people, and had some awesome paddling.

We launched at Boulay Bay on the North Wesy coast, what a great venue, shelter from the wind, but as soon as we got round the headland we were into classic four star territory!It was very pleasant when we launched - this is November don't forget!Bit rougher when we landed though! Time and tide wait for no man, especially on Jersey with 12m TIDES!!!I fell out of my kayak - on purpose! and demonstrated cowboy re-entry - yee ha!

4 Star sea in San Diego

Busy, Busy, Busy!
Here's a few photos from a four star that Jen, Ginni and myself ran in San Diego.
This is a rough ground landing on the breakwater that seperates the San Diego River from Mission Bay Matt on the same breakwater sticking plasters on make believe holes in his kayak!

We did some surf landings on Dog Beach, I tried to take some photos of the guys in the surf, but inconsiderate dog owners kept getting in the shots, ya gotta hate it when that happens!

Here's a man happy in his work!!!
Next day we headed North to La Jolla (it's pronounced la hoya!), this is a really cool place, sandy beach and sea caves - here's Ginni and Mike getting kitted up (Mike took some of the photos in this blog entry)

CNTP in SD

BCU love their TLAs (three letter acronyms)

But this is a four letter one - Coastal Navigation and Tidal Planning. This is a pre-requisite of four star sea, so I took over Jen's Aqua Adventures shop in San Diego over a couple of evenings to deliver this course to local paddlers.

I did have to get my head around the US differences in navigation, their bouyage is backwards and they have negative tides and no cardinal marks, phew! Luckily Ginni was around to help out when it all got a little to complicated for the simple English boy!

Students seemed to enjoy it though, look how studious they are!

Level 1 in Loreto

Jen and myself running Level 1 on Rattlesnake beach, don't let the pictures fool ya - it was really tough work!For one of us at least!BCU sylabbi at the ready!I did get a litte rest occassionally Girl Power! Yuri, Jen, Leah and Ivette - looks like a bit of product placement for Werner!This was home for the week - the Tripui Hotel - what an awesome place!Food was excellent too, this is 'mole' which is actually chicken in chocolate sauce - how cool is that!Unclaimed piece of meat turned up in Baja - turned out to be Foxy!

Baja!

OK so thanks to Ginni and Ivette from Sea Kayak Baja Mexico http://www.seakayakbajamexico.com/ Jen and myself find ourself delivering BCU courses in Loreto at the first Loreto kayak symposium. Ginni lives here - this is her camp on Rattlesnake Beach - this is the coaches getting breakfast, day 1.When she aint living at Rattlesnake Beach or in Washington, she lives out of this truck - Ol' Blue! The Mexican students were very happy to meet their English, American, Dutch and Canadian Coaches!The vultures seemed very pleased to see us arrive too!I've coached at some pretty amazing venues, but this rates right up there with the best of them! I love Baja Baby!Not a bad view from todays office - Axel and Jen taking a well earned rest from the rigors of BCU coaching!Jen found this Mexican stray mutt on Rattlesnake Beach, it's a cross eyed cactus hound, I called it One-Eater because it only had one tooth!So Jen fell in love with the cactus hound, we took it to the vets in Loreto for rabies jabs and worming pills. Apparantly it's spelled Juanita, she has perfect teeth, and is now a 'bone' fide passport carrying US citizen, residing in San Diego - the American Dream is alive! How come I never get to keep my pets??????