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 …
Photography Archive
A joint training exercise with the Penlee Lifeboat
The sea kayak community down here in the far west of Cornwall, and in particular my friends from Coastal Adventure Training, have some close ties with the local RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution). Last night we all got together for a joint training exercise as with the growth in sea kayaking as a sport the Penlee lifeboat crews were keen to gain some specific experience with incidents of a specifically sea-kayaking flavour – for example how to …
more Lands End sea kayak
Yesterday I joined a couple of friends, Mark, visiting from Dorset, and regular paddling buddy Sam, for a day out padding the seas around Lands End.. again.. but it never gets boring there. This time conditions were a perfect balance of light winds but with some wave action to make rock-hopping and ‘caving’ fun, some swells to surf and big spring tides so the tidal races off Gwennap Head and the Longships reefs were going …
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 …
West Cornwall
Earlier this year the Cornwall Tourist Board released a series of short videos, this one below is west Cornwall.. my home. Lucky enough to be born and brought up here studies, work, travel took me away for many years before I found my way back. The weather can be miserable, sometimes it feels like the arse end of nowhere and economically things are pretty tough down here but this movie pretty much sums why I’ll …
lichen
Beautifully rich colours in the lichen growing on the rocks out at Lizard Point today. The greenish rock it’s growing on is Serpentine, the geology of the area really is quite special..
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.
another post of a Holga flavour…
It’s been a couple of years since my original medium format film Holga died but last year I spent the princely sum of around £10 on a plastic holga lens with a micro-4/3 mount. A genius bit of kit. It’s not quite the same as using an original film Holga as it lacks the light leaks and wind-on errors that made original Holga images so much fun in a lucky dip kind of way.. but …
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 …
Orange wellington
have been feeling somewhat under the weather the last couple of days, I suspect something to do with being unable to remember the last time I saw proper sunlight rather than just a rare glimpse of a watery disc through veils of cloud and rain… but the forecast is better for next week so looking forward to some time on the water. I did however find a really cool old welly washed up on the beach …
at last, winter light
after what feels like weeks of endless storms… rain, high winds and days that never seemed to get properly light that left me feeling utterly uninspired at last today the sun broke through on a cold northwesterly gale, bringing with it a wonderful winter late afternoon light down on the cliffs at Gwithian…
a little more Barra & Vatersay
Just a few more images of Barra & Vatersay as seen through a plastic Holga lens. It has a focal length equivalent of 50mm & aperture is fixed at f8. Ideal snapshot lens if you can work with the low contrast, vignetted, unsharp look… especially at the moment as the weather remains very unsettled with terrific lighting :-)
Sixty Degrees of Latitude – a reminder
It’s time I gave my book another plug I think. It has been receiving some lovely feedback from buyers, so thank you if you have a copy… and if you haven’t it is a beautiful book printed on a very heavyweight lustre paper that would make a very nice addition to your book shelf if you enjoy travel.. or photography or cycling… or even if you don’t. One chap with a copy said this about …
Sixty Degrees of Latitude – a preview
A few weeks ago when I first wrote about A Boatbuilder’s Story I also mentioned I was working on another project.. as that other project now nears completion I can present a preview I think. It is not a travelog about cycle touring in South America, neither is it a diary. It is simply a photo essay. The draft introduction, still subject to change, says it all.. A journey by bicycle following the Andes from …