Tag: sea kayaking

Dodman Point and Other Places

A local riding and paddling diary from the post-full-lockdown days of June. As the spring wildflowers fade and the dust turns to the mud of the summer, a period of relative peace and quiet prior to the full opening of the tourist industry.

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Dolphins etc

It has been a while since I posted anything of a sea kayaking flavour; when I have been out I haven’t been taking a camera. Sometimes I just can’t be bothered with a camera, it’s nice just to go paddling with mates without thinking about photos. After all there is no particular imperative beyond just having a few snaps by way of a record of a good day out with friends.  My camera isn’t really …

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January Kayak Sheep…

It is seldom that sea kayaks and sheep appear all wrapped up in the same story but that’s what happens I suppose when one ventures north of the border into Devon, which, if you’re from West Cornwall, really is like visiting a foreign country.. they talk funny and do cream teas all wrong.. It’s not a difficult story to tell however as I have pictures. Before I start however I should introduce our protagonists, my friends …

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Misty Trip East

I’ve been utterly uninspired to take pictures from my kayak since returning from Mingulay. Summer light on the ocean is rarely that interesting, I much prefer the drama of winter days afloat. Yesterday however I thought I could be bothered – but just my old GF2 + 28mm in its housing because it makes a very small package and I don’t mind too much having it on my deck. As it happened conditions were OK for pictures..

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Winter Skies West

if you’re a regular reader you’ll have noticed that I spend quite a lot of time amongst the granite of west Penwith. I feel very at home with the cliffs there. It is a magnificent place and even better to arrive amongst the towering spires by making a journey, even a small one, there by bicycle.. or kayak, as in this case. I won’t bore you with lots of words, my ideal blog post takes about …

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Sunny metal-flake day

Time for a quick post of a sea kayak flavour while I ease myself into the new week with a large mug of coffee… After what feels like weeks of gale force winds and rain yesterday turned into a perfect winters day.. barely a breath of wind, cold, crisp and sunny. I went east of here to catch up with a friend and his spangly ‘disco boat’…

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Whetman Equipment Contact Line

After an awful lot of cycling-heavy content… time to get back to that other fun thing to do.. sea kayaking… Now, I’ve learned over the years that there are particular topics in sea kayaking that are almost guaranteed to spark off a lively debate.. one is rudders (yawn).. the other is towing.. methods and equipment. This is not going to be another long winded treatise on what is considered to be right and wrong, you can find …

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Saltwater Snaps

A few recent (yesterday in fact) snaps of a kayaking flavour… I’ve been spending a lot of time recently trying to decide what my optimum on-water camera set-up should be. At the moment all I have is an old Lumix GF2 + 14mm lens inside a housing that lives on my deck… The camera was a cheap secondhand deal albeit with an excellent lens, important on the expectation that sooner or later the housing will …

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For a change…

Now, I rarely paddle estuaries because, you know, they’re not exactly exciting places to paddle a sea kayak.. however from time to time it does carry some novelty value and Cornwall does have a really rather good estuary in form of the Fal Estuary. Structurally it’s a ria, a flooded river valley with an extensive system of tidal creeks feeding into the main Carrick Roads. So, for a change and wanting to put in a few …

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West Cornwall Sea Kayak Meet

This past weekend was the West Cornwall Sea Kayak meet.. an informal gathering of sea kayakers from all over the country. It was excellent. Something like 80 paddlers from  far flung corners of the UK showed up which was especially brilliant as we are out on a bit of a limb down here in darkest Cornwall so it does take a bit of effort to make the journey.. the reward however is some really world-class sea …

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a spot of Penwith

It is a magical bit of coastline that has inspired writers, artists and film makers for centuries but conditions yesterday from a photographic point of view were uninteresting – the north coast of the Penwith Peninsula is one of the most rugged, wild stretches of coastline in England.. but facing northwest as it does with clear blue skies and just a lazy, small groundswell running yesterday it was very much a case of simply enjoying the …

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