Sweetwater Symposium

Wow, so much has happened in the past few weeks, I've kinda lost touch with it all.

So sorry there's a bit of a delay on this.

Thanks to Russell at Sweetwater Kayaks I was invited to the 2010 Symposium. I had the pleasure once again of working with the great Jen Kleck from Aqua Adventures on a Level 1 course. The weather was unseasonaly bad for the time of year - story of my life, but I had a great time anyhow.

Here's some of the coaches in the back of Russell's jeep on our way to the symposium. Steve Maynard, Suze Hutchinson and myself. You might just be able to make out Sedrick, Russells German Shepard, and Jen Kleck in the boot - that's the trunk for tha yanks!

Ha ha, here they are!

Cool thing about Florida is all the wildlife, Pelicans on the dock near the shop -

Dolphins in Snug Harbour, this was literaly a few yards from the shop.

...and although we did see manatees from the dock, to see them in the crystal clear waters of the Weeki Watchi takes some beating. I'd been here before, but this was Jen's first time - and there were plenty of manatees who were quite happy for us to stop and watch them up close and personal

Busy, busy, busy

After a welcome rest over the Christmas period it's all systems go again!

I've just spent the weekend at Canoe England's Coaching Conference - what a great event, superb facilities, 200 delegates, the place was buzzing!!!

I'm just heading off to the Isle of Wight with Leo from Getafix to join Owen at Isle of Wight Sea Kayaking to renew my First Aid ticket.

This weeeknd I am running a 4 star canoe training in North Wales for Inspire Outdoors - there is one space left apparently, drop Stu an email via his website if your interested.

I've been busy working on becoming a provider for some BCU courses.
I can now deliver 4 star sea - not bad for the boy from Dudley eh???
I can also deliver the Coastal Navigation and Tidal Planning course - this is a classroom based course that can be delivered in a day or a couple of evenings and is a pre-requisite of 4 star sea.
I have also just become a deliverer of the the long awaited 16 houir BCU Aquatic First Aid course - this is a hands on paddling specific two day course, and can be used as a pre-requistite of 5 star.

If anyone is interested in organising one of these courses let me know and we can sort out some arrangements

New Boat

Managed to get my new boat out to play yesterday on the Clywedog.

Pyranha Burn Medium. It's a bit different to my old Jefe, so just getting used to it, but what a great boat - I'm well chuffed......

...... and so are the girls -

Clywedog

Still wet and Windy yesterday!

I was running a four star kayak providers day with two of my good friends Jon and Matt

All the rivers in North Wales were in the fields and many roads were flooded. We met at Newtown, I'd paddled here two days ago and it ws ok - today it was just a big brown mess.

We decided to go check out the Clywedog, it's a trib of the Severn which confluences at Llandilloes about half hour from Newtown.

Here's Matt checking out the first drop on the Clywedog

Jon styling a flare 'n' boof

This is me about 5 years ago - the last time I ran the Clywedog

What a little gem!!

I had a great day, very pleasant paddling, good weather - in the gorge sections we even got out of the wind for most of the time.

Good paddling, Nice River. Good company!

Wind and Rain!!!

This week it has mostly been wet and windy.

Here's the cars loaded up ready to go, two vehicles. Six canoes

I ran a four star canoe for the Old Vicarage Centre, the lake day was at Bala - it was horrendous, almost gale force winds. Luckily we managed to launch at the top of the lake and paddle up into the Upper Dee - still pretty grim though.

We had a good one the next day on the Upper Severn, around Newtown, it was high but do-able. None of the photos came out very well.

Isle of Wight

Just before I went to Georgia I worked on some four star sea courses with Owen Burson at Isle of Wight Sea Kayaking.

Here's Owen -

Check out the blue skies and calm waters!

We had great weather and some great paddling

At one point we spotted an unidentified boat on the horizon -

We decided to paddle over to find out what it was, and found these two guys fishing from what looked like a bath tub!

Gators and Oysters

In October I had the good fortune to be invited by Marsha at Sea Kayak Georgia (www.seakayakgeorgia.com) to coach at their symposium. I ran a Level 2, or rather I watched as my good friend Jen Kleck ran the course. What a great symposium in a fantastic location.

I was a bit slack with photos I'm afraid.

We were always well fed, but one night we had an oyster dinner, they were different to any oysters I've had before, much smaller and they cooked them with pepper, but there were bucketloads of them!! Check out the boys cleaning them before cookin 'em

One of the highlights for me was when we found a 3 foot gator on the grass in front of the shop, they guys managed to grab it while I held onto one end of a paddle, while the gator held onto the other! We released him into the creek at the back of the shop - no-one was very keen to do rescues there again!!
I'm in the process of organising a trip to the 'Deliverance' river - the Chatooga with the guys from Sea Kayak Georgia for next September, let me know if you wanna come!