Category: Trip Reports Page 34 of 77

The Kayak Coast2Coast team have gathered up some of the footage and photographs from last years trip to make a short film to tell the story. I asked my friend Helen Lagoe if she would help and she kindly agreed. Helen has done and wonderful job with the video editing. She has whipped up a really watchable film out of a collection of photos and what must have seemed like an endless string of footage.

Another friend, Michael McGoldrick let us use some of the music from his albums: ‘Morning Rory’ and ‘Fused’.

The 12 minute film will be featured at the increasingly popular Sheffield Adventure Film Festival in one of the ‘On the Edge’ evenings. Kayak Coast 2 Coast can be viewed at ‘Cafe Euro’ 7.00pm Saturday 6th March.

I was asked to join the p&h sea kayaks paddlers team as representant of paddlers in Switzerland. I run the sea kayak center (www.seakayakcenter.ch) a paddling school and a test center for Touring and Sea Kayaks.

Touring paddling is growing here like crazy, mostly people paddling on the lakes in our country, but some really get bitten by the sea bug too! Of course many people grin when I say I am a Sea Kayaker from Switzerland. The sea is actually closer to us than for many Germans who have ther “own” coastline – the Italian Medeteranian is approx 350 km from where I live in Central Switzerland. Ok, you lot in England can just laugh at that … but Sardinia and Corsica are fantastic areas easy to get to for a few good days paddling. Apart from that, various lakes in Switzerland offer great scenery. I live within walking distance to lake Zug, on which you get good views of the Alps most days. I love being out there, just outside my front door so to speak, playing around in my kayak, getting turning strokes as efficient as possible, or powering along in a training session.

I’ve been paddling a P&H Sea Kayak since I first sat in one on Skye about 5 years ago. It was a rental kayak I used on a course with Gordon Brown. I went home and ordered myself a Quest! I began teaching kayaking at that time, and was fascinated by the handling of the Quest on edge, also how comfortable the seat was over long periods of sitting. The Quest is actually too big for me, so when the Cetus came on the scene, with a slightly lower cockpit and even finer responses to edging, that was my boat. We have various brands of sea kayaks in our testcenter, but I still find the P&H Sea Kayaks the best choice for myself.
Last Oktober I sat in the prototype of the Cetus MV, which fits me even better, still leaving enough boat volume around for bigger water.

More about that here soon!

Sarah in her new Carbon lightweight Cetus MV. Thanks to the P&H Team!

It keeps getting colder down here in, usually, sunny Florida. We left from the Isle of Capri today with dry suits on again. The air temperature reached a high of 43 degrees and the water was right around 55 degrees. I know you P&H Paddlers up North will laugh at us but it was actually fun getting suited up for “cold weather” for a change 🙂

Small craft advisory was posted today and will last the next two days. Seas were predicted to be 3-5 but were more in the 2-4 range. Long intervals lead to some good runs down the 4 footers but 20knt winds kept blowing us out of the sweet spot.

Did two rolls with my balaclava on and thank god for that because Chris was complaining about his head temperature most of the trip:) Spent 2 hours playing in the waves and decided to head in.

Stayed warm the entire trip until back at the beach where my hands started to freeze. Forecasted 25knt winds and 5-7 surf tomorrow. Hopefully it actually comes through for some more reports from the Gulf Coast of Florida.

Decided to test out our new drysuits from NRS since even Southwest Florida is feeling a little frosty lately. Air near 48 and water at 55 made for a brisk morning for us Southern paddlers.

Two weeks of lousy weather was limiting our paddling so we manned up for some much needed practice at our local Lake named Lake Avalon. Chris Boland (Owner of Saltwater Sports) and I practiced high braces emphasizing on our weaker sides along with multiple types of rolls.

I was pleased to see that even in a dry suit I was able to hand roll almost effortlessly in my Cetus LV. It is such a wonderful boat to roll, I am thrilled with it. After that we practiced some solo rescues and went for a brisk 1 mile sprint around the lake. Wonderful way to start a Florida morning. My Team Boat is being made as I type and I am stoked!

Amazing what a stable platform the Cetus line is….