San Diego

So in search of more Winter sunshine I headed out to San Diego for Aqua Adventures Symposium - imagine my surprise to find it was raining hard in Southern California! This is outside Jen's house the first morning!Needless to say that was short lived and the sunshine came back - this is my office in La Jolla - I love SoCal!

All the locals are friendly - this little chap popped up to say Hi at Fiesta Island - which is an off leash dog beach - that's one brave (or stupid) gopher!Even the traffic cops are friendly - you can quite happily park like this and no-one minds!

Silver River

So having escaped the Swamp Monsters of the Suwanee in North Florida we headed a little way south to the Silver River.

The silver is different to the Suwanee - the latter being a 'Blackwater' river, the water appears very dark due to the amount of vegetation it runs through in the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia. The Silver is a crystal clear spring fed river, which is great to spot fish and turtles and even 'gators cruising under your boat!
There are even monkeys here - these are rumoured to have been left from when they filmed Tarzan movies here in the Johnny Weismuller days, but apparantly they simply swam off the zoo island at the head of the spring!

You can read all about the trip by buying this mag - http://www.canoekayak.co.uk/

Suwannee River

Somewhere Down the Suwannee River!

After the Sweetwater Symposium the coaches headed North to the river made famous by the song. The first night was spent in a fantastic cabin, where the guys swung in chairs on the porch, drunk beer and told lies!
The Suwannee River is absolutely stunningAmerican Sea kayak coaches, no longer burdened with bulkheads and hatches took the opportunity to take BIG coolers! Very relaxing couple of days on a beautiful river. Occassionally we stopped to do some playing and coaching, everyone was very attentive!

Although this was supposed to be a relaxing trip after a hectic symposium - I think some of the coaches were taking it a little too easy!

What a great river - we managed to stop at a number of features to play with ferry's, breaking in and out, and even some traditional skills

Level 1 in Tampa

Congratulations to Jay, Ed, Bret, Rachel, Lisa and Rich on becoming BCU L1 coaches. Jen and myself had a great time teaching this course! What great people!

Florida!

Now at last it was time for some Winter sunshine.

First stop was the Sweetwater Kayak Symposium in St. Pete's, Tampa Bay.

This was the third time I'd attended this event, and as always it was awesome!

We went paddling in stunning sunshine is the Gulf of Mexico.

There's some big boats out there!

I ran a Level 1, a Level 2 assessment and a three star canoe.

How cool - you can buy a huge bottle of Tequila, shaped like a carbine!

Many thanks to my 'brother from another mother' Russell Farrow, for inviting me again, and organising such a cool symposium!

Check it out next year!

4 Star Canoe Down South!

OK, January 2011. after seeing in New Year at Butlins Minehead (much better than it sounds, and better than I expected!) it was back to work.

First off was a 4 star assessment on the Dart, open water day done on the estuary, and the river day on the Lower, because of very high levels we had to have a week off inbetween the two days!

The open water day was a little bleak! Cold, wet and windy! Good challenge!The day was brightened somewhat by a seal, who followed us for quite a while popping up between us.He then sat and watched as we ate lunch and set up sailing rigsThe open water day the following week, by comparison was absolutely gorgous! Devon is a truly beautiful place when bathed in Winter sunshineOoops - time for a rescue!Working up a sweat poling!Oh this could go badly!Guessed it might!

Catch up

Oh Dear, I'm afraid I've been a bit lax keeping up to date with this in the last few months, so here goes for a whistle stop catch up!

December started with a drive down to PGL Liddington in freezing conditions to work at the Canoe England Annual Coaching Conference, I ran some Foundation Modules and did some work with some L2 Mentors - good fun!

Then I was running a number of Level 2 and a Level 1 courses -they were all cold!

Sammi - demonstrating her L2 walking on water skills!

Cold, but stunningly beautiful!I'm getting so good at these L2s now I can do them standing on my head!