Christmas in the Gower

Morning All,

Well its the middle of the silly season so i thought that i'd give you a quick update on progress so far and where things are looking to head in the new year.

The first thing that i should do is give mention to both Nigel Dennis (seller of kayaks to eskimos, also coals to Newcastles) and Simon Osborne for their help and advice. On a recent trip across to Holyhead to see Nigel i ran into several of his sponsored paddlers and the hints and tips i got from them have been invaluble!!! Nigel has agreed to supply a boat for the expedition and is also letting me display some infomation from his stand at the NEC Outdoors show later in 2007.

I should also mention Simon Willis who has been kind enough to mention me on his blog and has given me a great deal of advice on media handling and the like!

So what have been up to recently? Well a large part of my time has been spent working on my Dayskipper Navigation Course (Donated courtesy of these guys http://www.tiller.co.uk) in order to get my 5 Star. Also been working hard on organizing a Charity Dinner, Training and a Media launch at the London Boat Show on January the 5th.

Thats not to say that i haven't been playing as well, taking advantage of the good weather over christmas i managed to escape and take the boats down to the Gower in Wales. First time i've visited that stretch of coast and i was suprised how lovely it was seeing as its that close to Swansea!! Think the pictures tell it all.

Well its time for me to go, lots of letters to type today! Hopefully i'll see some of you at the London Boat Show and if you are going come along to the Oceaning Training stand and say hello!

Cheers

Noel

3/11/06 – Plas Menai, Kayaks and Hot Chocolate!

Well here we are then the first blog on a new site, how exciting!! Hopefully you’ve had a look around and got a feel for what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. As it says at the top this section gives you an update with where I’m up to in my preparations so I’ll just have to wait and see how it develops.

First bit of news is that I’ve just come back from a fantastic week long course of Sea Kayaking at the Plas Menai centre in North West Wales near Bangor. Lots of fun had by all with the useful addition of gaining my 4* Sea Kayak qualification, definitely recommend the centre to anybody looking to get into or develop the sport. Even better was the fantastic scenery and sea, especially the tide races off Anglesey’s North and South stacks – lots of fun.

Best say thank you to all the staff and instructors at the centre especially Dave T and Wayne for their useful advice and coaching. Also all those on the Improvers Kayak course deserve a mention for their friendly dinner time chats although if anybody has any ideas on how to quiet down the ever friendly Carol in the morning then I think it would be appreciated.

Looking forwards, I have a couple of displays to do about the exped at various locations with the first being on Wednesday 8th in Worcester. Hopefully these can get the ball rolling on support and raise the profile a bit. Also need to talk to a couple of companies about how they can be of help but until I’ve got that sorted I’ll keep that quiet for the mo!

Till the next time, enjoy
Noel