•≈ Sgian Dubh

Restoration

2010-06-09T19:29:00.017+01:00

Another waif has been donated to me. I haven't got a scooby what make of kayak it is, except to say it is a wooden strip bathtub & very bespoke. Not something I would normally take on, but hey, its a quirky freebee. It has laid in Jason's garden in Gardenstown over on the East coast for a few years since a pal capsized it without a spraydeck & put himself off the ocean for life. If anyone has an idea as to its possible origins or manufacture, let me know. Photos & more details soon. I will crack on with sanding & Interthane Plus & varnish coats.

It's been a while blogging & plenty of kayaking photos/adventures will follow as a backtrack, but dealing with lower back trauma & severe Subacromial Impingement from the climbing years has caught up, momentarily. Only the other month the G-Meds were out sticking large needles in my arse at 2am because I couldn't get off the floor... There is interest in joining my rolling classes in far flung wild & exotic places such as Aberdeenshire, the treasurer of the Banff kayaking club & a booking for the Portsoy Boat Festival, let alone the client base of Western Isles home so fond. Another restoration is pending...I need to be present :o)

Helen Wilson is the newest link @ Greenland or Bust on the right hand side of this page. Some good stuff there. No you can't have her mobile Alec :o)

Retro fitted hatches on the forward & aft decks. The coaming, although in good condition I will rebuild in carbon fiber.

An overview shot from top to tail. 4.7 meters long - 68cm wide at the seating position, it is as I have said, a bit of a bathtub but without a doubt, rollable in a straight jacket. We'll test that later this year :o)

Despite the state of its hull, this kayak has some very appealing & well engineered lines. It should restore to a very high finish.

7 Hunters

2009-12-21T03:16:00.007Z

Three further Hunters needed for a crossing to the Seven Hunters, taking in Brona Cleit, Eilean a' Ghobha agus Roareim - details soon. I will be guiding a 2 day crossing January, leaving from North Harris, returning South Lewis. An open crossing with a camp on the rocks [ there is soft grass], returning the next day, LRF permitting. Rolling for beginners & intermediate in open seas & many other aspects of open navigation/survival will be undertaken on course. The ability to prove a roll that is practical will advance your space. That said, non rollers are more than welcome. 3 spaces left.

Further detailed details on application.

Faroes Crossing

2009-06-28T23:19:00.083+01:00

Since I was up the way, rolling around - at 8 o'clock this evening I took a scoot up to where Patrick Winterton & Mick Berwick had camped in a wee carpark just shy of Rubha Robhanais, & took in a wee blether as they prepared for a 5am start. Mike was running around with white war paint under his eyes like a thin drawn out Adam Ant - Patrick, poking at a bowl of noodles. They seemed quite jovial & psyched. Even Simon Willis had made the journey over in his luxury camper van. Some sheep were trying to gate crash.

As Simon wondered around looking for an O2 signal, we talked Norwegian highs, circulatory currents, hydration, exertional heatstroke, orientation without horizon & the psychology in soloing to North Rona, the Hunters or St.Kilda, while the collie sprinkled holy water on each tent, van wheel & kayak. Blessings come in many forms :o)

Once you've done the boring open water bit [& thats the thing about open crossings] are you gonnea put in a speedy Faeroes circ nav? I asked expectantly - It's excellent, but I don't know of anyone else who has done it.

Patrick scratched his chin. Try to get home again I think...but the ferry only goes to Denmark now. He looked out warily at the rip forming strongly 100 mtrs offshore.

Having caught his glance, & for the sake of boosting confidence, I mischievously added: Aye, that rip is 24/7, I've seen prawners going sideways in it & back throttling. A kayak goes through like a greased egg.

Generalizing, I still think some approaches to, & reasoning behind open crossings, need more examination, maybe questioning that addresses individual motivation; especially nowadays where kayaking/climbing & the great outdoors is marketed to anyone & everyone & equipment is sold without recourse to those without apprenticeship. As access to the oceans is marketed en-vogue without commercial responsibility so the commercial causalities rise. You can walk into a store & buy the best kayak & best equipment - but you can't walk into a store & buy several bombproof rolls & a level survivalist psychology - the most important tools you can have at hand. I have in the past, had serious words with a few people who have been about to cross the Minch with little more experience in a kayak than a few days in sheltered water...one unbelievably, without a spraydeck. It's a game of commitment, not Russian roulette..

Well, there is training for an extended crossing but then there is the crossing itself - they are not the same animals. It goes without saying that I wish them luck & a safe return, but this crossing is one I'd only go at with someone like Murty maybe, as shotgun. I wonder how much input he's had in bringing to bare the realities of this journey against a schoolboy enthusiasm... I hope they roll well in a squall, fully loaded, at night after no sleep & maintain spacial direction/oppo awareness?...I hope sustainably well. I hope they won't need to also. The combining seas into South Iceland can throw a tantrum anytime & account for a lot of the mad waters that encircle the Faroes. I'd imagine any problems they hit, to be creeping down into that vicinity. I shelved the 2002 Reykjavik to Nuuk solo because of those very reasons.

Still, wee itches aside, at 5am, in morning rain most likely, they will leave for the North Rona [fine soft bivi ground in contrast to the hellish Sula Bothy alternative] & Sula Sgeir stacs, & that's a day realistically, then hit the 3 day/2 night march or die session. It still seems reverse to my mind, North to South would be my preference...Anyway, the seas have been like glass all week here & the sun barely sets at the moment.
Mainly easterly or southeasterly 3 or 4, increasing 5 at times, slight or moderate, haar, moderate or good, occasionally very poor....
Only an exhausted Amadan could fail - it's a very good time to go on the skin of it, maybe a day or two earlier would have been optimal, but it's still good. They may make it. I left them locked in preparation on the wee slipway, happy to know that when I first arrived, I wasnae the local ghillie about to shout GET ORF MOI LAAAND!:

Out the gap turn left a bit, keep going straight on - Patrick & Mick gear up for the Faroes

Their progress can be followed live on SPOT here

UPDATE: I have since learned that there has been no organized support waiting for them at the Faroes. Trawling through the www. the main concern seemed to be getting live film of their, what seems to be, imminent landing at the Faroes south island of Suduroy. There seems to have been no concern at having a launch ready as a shadow escort in the Faroes zone, or finalized medical or hospitality support [should it had been needed], by whoever is officially looking after or covering the trip. The onus seemed to be purely on wether they would have film.... Shame on the sponsors, whoever you are. How did you not have this base covered if you knew they were gearing up 18 months ago? I find it utterly abhorrent, that they have been left to the wind inside an exhausting an epic open crossing.

I have rectified this successfully, through various Faroe/Greenland kayaking contacts in the further Northern hemisphere. Amongst other bits & pieces now in place, I have managed to get Jon Næs on board. He is a local Suduroy sea kayaker, & also a member in the volunteer rescue company SNB on the Faroes & they have planned to meet Patrick & Mick in their small rescue boat ROYNDIN offshore & shadow them in -two-step & secondarily to their safety- he has arranged for a pal who has good camera equipment, stills & live to join him, who also writes for the local Sudurras website. Things like this have a life of their own & the news is spreading, a wee bit of coercion aside. :o)
They are now in full radio-phone contact with the local SNB launch & crew & within a proper web, of support.

15:24 03/7/09: Low & behold, they are meandering in fog, in shipping channels & increased head winds.

UPDATE 17:30: They have arrived safe & sound. Three days & nights in the Northern Atlantic, in kayaks 54cm wide & 17ft long, alone, motivated & tiny inside a totally committing crossing. A huge achievement & well done to both of you. The moment of landfall can be seen here. Now, maybe a rowing ferry service? :o)

SOF Course - Isle of Skye

2009-03-22T21:02:00.020Z

Qajaq Building with Skyak Adventures

•≈ Turner Wilson -& I imagine Cheri also- will be visiting Gordon Brown & the Isle of Skye from the 6th to the 17th of May. He will be here to guide anyone interested in participating, in the building & design of their own skin-on-frame qajaq. Duncan Winning will also be there as will Mark Partridge, bringing to the table a vast knowledge base in wood selection, boatbuilding & paddling expertise.

The cost will be £1250.00 per head & this will include all materials use of the workshop & tools. Not bad when you wiegh it all up. Your own skin-on-frame & a gain in knowledge & build techniques for just over a thousand notes. There are no many SoFs on the islands & it would be good to see a few more trucking around. Gordon & Morag say that this does not include accomodation but they can easily guide individuals to their preferred option. Personally I'd go for camping at the end of their garden with a banjo. :o)
I would have been there to help people fine tune their rolling, advanced or basic & get to grips with their new low volume delights for free as a side show, but unfortunately I will be engaged elsewhere with a prior Igdlorssuit client commitment...

Anyone still interested in a place on the course should drop an email in on Gordi & Morag at info@skayakadventures.com or maybe ring that bell on 01471 833428 - Places are going like hot cakes! I'm sure it will be a great gig & a success to be repeated.

Once upon a time...
There was a qajaq-rolling junkie, who met a qajaq-rolling fool...

Aird Feinis

2009-03-13T16:17:00.011Z

A day [or three] at Aird Feinis, Na Hearadh - following reeks of strong wind & heavy breaking swell - rolling with the punches. It's an almost constant feature of this part of the coastline throughout winter. It is also, some of the best, unsung sea kayaking ground in the Hebrides. The Jurassic DNA of this area is rampant, its wild thrown skylines, cut by great volcanic incisors dominating each turned corner & geo.
The surf landing site in the photo is for SoFs only - composites need not apply. Well ok, they can apply, but they will lose a good 8 inches of nose trying to fill out the form. :o)

The Storm

2009-03-05T12:01:00.008Z

Sometimes if you put the kayak in the sea - you may not be around for very long. Needless to say I was still tempted to get into a knife fight with the elements. :o)

Ama whale on a beach without these pelagic fireworks, without this ocean. The Anas & my soul are primed. Today was a day of huge Atlantic storm waves trying to climb 150ft cliffs....& nearly making it!
I was perched on a 4ft skiddily wet ledge, having downclimbed a 30 or so foot section of damp cliff when this came thundering in. I got a wee bit wet & nearly torn off, but it was worth grimacing for the shot. I should dig out those mouldy old climbing ropes next time. For a bit of perspective, the small white ledge left in the black mass could easily accomodate two adults.

Zack

2009-02-25T18:24:00.016Z

I found this astonishing, inspirational, emotional, honest & replete... In my qajaq I have felt this way, inside the frame, shooting off the hip & going home through creaking glens, performing the next great roll & feeling nothing when there is everything to feel...Zacks short film is an instant classic.

•≈ Zack

With that in mind I took the kayak out & through the wild arches, mad surf & stacs, ending up at Cladach Sgiogarstaigh where low slung rocks create a viewing amphitheatre below the waterline I took a slingshot into a small but natural haven, the drummed skin protesting at being forced onto rounded boulders. Ahead of me - small houses & crofts scattered out like cornflakes on a tabletop. Behind me, subsonic rumbles, great soaring arches & sea stacks. Dragging the sea kayak ashore, I watched a storm build out in the Atlantic & prepared to take this shot..

I ended up at the deserted 19th century harbour, deserted but for a few small craft rotting at the top of its slipway, it's walls gently clanking with loose chains & creel lines like an impatient old man tapping his pipe, waiting for the to'ing & fro'ing of purpose, or youth, to return...
I slipped back into the qajaq & pulled the Tuiliq over the coaming, setting a mind course in the darklight, for broth, a fire & sleep.

The next day, I was on that road back to Skye, weaving through dramatic clouds & swirling horizons. All of this punctuated by light & independant rain storms. Seconds after I took this shot I had thousands of tiny white balls in my hair :o)
Today is a day of 360° grey, rain & wind. The coliies nose is pressed against the window, as is mine...

Dail Beag Beach & others...

2009-02-14T22:10:00.019Z

There's always time for a swift right hand turn in the kayak for Dhail Beag when travelling the Western Edge. Ergo, there is always time for a quiet photo oppurtunity.
The surf will ferry you swiftly in, between proud soaring cliffs arches & stacs to a perfect beach landing every time, & as soon as you set foot on sand, it rains. So I laid down in the river for a while, nose to nose with a stone, to feel drier.

The secretive Fhorsa - on the way to Dail Beag

Rubha Robhanais again - note the scratch of light toward the NW corner.
This was a trawler spotlight & shows the exposure drift on a 60 second shutter opening.

Some dedicated qajaq posts are drafted & waiting for the near future while I get over the addiction of a new camera. These will cover a series of technical Greenlandic rolls, some on film, survival techniques covering making substantial use of the ocean environment [natures supermarket], night kayaking & various restorations & builds. I hope you can all forgive my brief excursion into obsessive photography posts. We will be back to kayaks & rolling shortly. Now, where did I put that ND filter... :o)

Benign Complicity?

2009-02-09T21:07:00.026Z

Today At The Shoreline...

2009-02-08T19:50:00.028Z

...& with a companion moon over my shoulder, & feeling far to lazy to roll the Igdlorssuit Anas in bitter seas cut with an ice wind, I walked silent as a Buddhist monk amongst snowed in boulders & took some shots of that playground we love most of all, the ocean...I stayed until well after dark, down climbing wee cliffs patchworked in ice & frozen kelp, snot dangling from my nose like a shoelace & fingers so numb the camera turned into an intiutive brail machine.

Peace can be found in the oddest places, the slightest immersion. I think the additional colour shots, taken without a filter & using only available light, may cause Douglas to have a funny turn.
I'm going to try some long exposure shots while rolling & exercising on the Qajaasaarneq ropes soon, & we shall see what occurs...

Available Light

Remnants of Simple Prosperity

A Flow of Light

2009-02-02T18:44:00.016Z

A couple more random test shots, the first hand held using the ND filter stacked on the UV...Ideally, a tripod is a must when the shutter is open for an extended time to achieve a crisp result of movement against the immovable. Remote shutter release is better than self timer. A top tip for any LX3 owners who prefer remote shutter cable release is this fella: •≈ Richard Franiec who will hand build a hot shoe adapter.

Anyway, being a lazy ass, I refused to carry the tripod out into the wild this time, since yomping 17ft kayaks over cliff tops to water, one on each shoulder, is inherently part of the day job...Nooo! A cannae even carry ma own CAKE today man...Am no carrying yers!!
I should get the collie a rucksack or a wee wheelie sled so he can carry cake... & tripods. There's an idea!

Exposure: 0.3 [1/400]

Aperture: f/6.3

Focal Length: 5.1 mm
ISO Speed: 80

Abandoned & derelict church teetering on the edge of a Western abyss in the Hebrides. A great place to kayak through below under weaving sea arches.
Exposed for the feel of the day rather than for documentary detail.

Lumix DMC LX3

2009-01-30T20:54:00.034Z

Arrived it has...

Talk like Yoda I must...
Stop it I can't.

•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•

Initial tests with the LX3 have been gobsmacking in short. Well it is essentially a Leica in disguise as a Lumix so it should come as no surprise... Noiseless low light RAW shooting is a delight, as is having not yet had the need to take it above ISO 100 in any situation. I have had to bend it's parameters or purposefully badly expose a subject to produce any noise worth mentioning.

The intuitive exposure, aperture, EV & multi-bracketing control also doesn't argue that it knows best all the time. This is totally refreshing. Having used a G9 to take the shot above, it barely managed to perform given the available light. When the thing eventually locked the target, it threw a tantrum & decided to argue about every setting...Shame on Canon.
The LX3 on the other hand, knows that the photographer knows best, even if the photographer is very wrong, & thus, it let's the photographer decide. Such wisdom is an asset to learning curves & an aid for anyone aiming to develop genuine eye-to-subject skills. Being allowed to fail in manual exposure & photography is not a bad thing, but being coerced out of any learning by an over zealous electronic intelligence, is.

The LX3 user manual is about as thick as a copy Grays Anatomy & having swiftly bypassed reading everything I opted for dynamic black & white shooting with full manual control the moment I took the LX3 out of the box. And that's another thing, when it arrived I initially thought I'd paid £350 for an empty box. The LX3 is light, but comfortable & has a positive weight in the hand due to great ergonomics & its metal framework. It umm... feels real.
A wee bit of familiarization & a few mental notes & it was on with the 46mm lens ring, UV filter, ND filter in my pocket, cloddy hoofs on & out the door.

I'm sure it has a wealth of preset party tricks for days of listless experimentation, but a good selection of Biermann & Webber filters will do me more favours than fireworks mode, dancing camel or pinhole mode. Such software in cameras these days is a standard trend, & excess baggage in the LX3 - a box so capable, that it is more than able to get in the boxing ring with a DSLR & come out victorious. Some evidence of this will follow shortly.

Hard to fault this camera it is, maybe to the dark side I must turn? Leave the lens cap on hmm?

•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•

Random test shot full manual...

Exposure: 0.003 sec [1/400]
Aperture: f/2.2
Focal Length: 6.3mm
ISO Speed: 80
Exposure Bias: 0 EV

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Observing the Observer

Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/640)
Aperture: f/2.0
Focal Length: 5.1 mm
ISO Speed: 80
Exposure Bias: 0 EV

Norsk Symposium

2009-01-22T13:47:00.037Z

This morning I heard from my pal Harald over in Øyfjell, a beautiful wee Telemark mountain village halfway between Oslo & Bergen. A while back, he invited me over to help with & instruct G-style, survival techniques, &, do a talk [god help me!] at the new Norwegian Symposium he is helping to organize with Anders Thygesen, Pål Gustad, & Asle-Håvard Miklegard, so I thought I'd post up his flier for anyone interested on this side of the water, as the time is nearing gradually. Ok, it's in August but if you're like me, you blink & it's Spring, blink again & it's Summer...
The Symposium is a new venture & as with many new born ideas, it certainly relies on people's good will to become a great & consistent annual adventure. Harald, who will own his first Anas Acuta this February, has been kayaking for 36 years & likes a good Scottish malt. This is dangerous & I fear I may have to limit the amount of whisky I take to Norway this year or we may be rolling on the ground instead of in the sea. Black Lagavulin has that effect. :o)
By August I will hopefully have built a new bespoke Black Pearl under Björn Thomasson's original blueprints & take it over along with the Anas SoF.
A further link to the •≈ Norge Padleforbund forum is on the right hand bar of this blog where it's always been.

Seinn mæ en karsk, kjære kelner, til Valhöll vi drar.

•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•

© Harald Rishovd
Inuit style sea kayak symposium in Norway

Are you fascinated by the history of Greenland & the paddling & rolling techniques of the Inuit? Are you interested in building you own skin-on-frame kayak? Would you like to paddle some trips, both long & short, with like-minded people? Do you have children that you would like to introduce to the world of Greenland paddling?

Where: The week-end of August 7-9 the Project Inuit is arranging a meeting of kayak enthusiasts at the beautiful Stokkøya Sjøsenter. The Center lies about 120 kilometres north of Trondheim, Norway, & offers varied possibilities for quartering, meals, & a fantastic area for paddling.

Who: The meeting is for anyone with an interest in the history of Greenland kayaking, related paddling and rolling techniques, and the building of Greenland-style kayaks & Baidarkas. You are still very much invited even if you have a plastic or fibreglass kayak; the only thing we ask is that you either paddle now with a Greenland paddle, or have an interest in learning to paddle with one.

Program: Several of Norway's leading Greenland enthusiasts have signed up for the meeting, but don't expect a fixed program where a few instruct & everybody else looks on. We want for everybody to be actively engaged, & are planning trips, & informal workshops with themes such as rolling, ropes, paddling technique, & building skin boats. [NOTE: Kayaks will not be built, but we will discuss how they are built & participants will have a chance to try out skin on frame kayaks & work with Greenland paddles]. There will be interesting talks &, of course, other enthusiasts to chat with. Of special interest to children & youth are ropes, rolling, & harpoon throwing.

Mentors: So far we have Anders Thygesen, Pål Gustad, & Asle-Håvard Miklegard, & a skilled madman from the Hebrides :0) More information will follow.

Food and lodging: There will be a common meal on Saturday evening, otherwise people will choose for themselves. Rooms are available for rent, & camping on the premises is permitted.

Price: The price for the symposium is 500.- Norwegian kroner per person. There will be no charge for children under 16 years of age. The price includes all activities & a t-shirt. The common meal on Saturday evening, lodging, & any meals bought at the Center will be paid for directly to Stokkøya Sjøsenter.

•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•

Registration:

Registration for the meet should be sent to

Torleif Holm at: tolleboy@cembalaro.com

There is more info at: •≈ www.kajakkspesialisten.no

For more information on Stokkøya Sjøsenter:
•≈ www.stokkoy.no

•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•

& Then The Shipping Forecast Voice Said...

2009-01-18T21:35:00.007Z

...& here is the shipping forecast issued by the Meteorological Office at 0015 GMT Sun 18 Jan - Rockall, Malin, Hebrides, Bailey, Faeroe & Fair Isle - Cyclonic storm 10 to hurricane force 12 - becoming Southwest gale 9 later, decreasing more slowly...

Disintegration

2009-01-15T19:39:00.020Z

Tha torran a’ chuain, s' an deanntagach ruadh. Fàs suas sa chagailt bha blàth...

I've made it back inside where the fires burn warm & the dog rests sloe eyed & growling, & tried to montage the latest winter trip by combining 2 photographs overlaid, removing & ghosting the kayak back into its exact position within the frame to give an overall more empowered feeling of how it felt to be out there, on the edge of the Hebrides, in a sword fight at every turn. It's an attempt to try & explain or capture the week without a succession of pointless frames. A summary, a visual epilogue if you like. Maybe montage is the wrong word. It's more like using the old film Rolleiflex & doubling the frame exposure while post processing in the digital darkroom.

Ghosting & slightly rescaling the kayak, for me somehow adds to the feeling that in many ways, we are not permanent fixtures in the panorama, more, fleeting entities racing for cover or passage through a relentless charging surf. We remain tiny under the cover of storm, willingly seeking out remote violence & reprise, & become vanished in a moment. We are become a state of organic flux, permanent disintegration & evolution.
The seas, surrounding bastions & cyclonic fronts carry much more permanence, stomping up & down outside our shelters, issuing challenges when we have long since retired to warmth & sleep.

Back at Bills bar I summarized further to the question - Good trip?:
Aye, no bad like...Acquired 3lbs of seal meat.
Ate it.
Snared some wee beasties.
Ate them.
Paddled 50 miles...
Anyone got any chocolate?

The Edge, & the Midwinter Soul

2008-12-25T06:00:00.074Z

f2, 1/16 sec, ISO 100, -1.3 EV

Bolt & bar the shutter,
For the foul winds blow:
Our minds are at their best this night,
...& I seem to know,
That everything outside us is
Mad as the mist & snow.

Sometimes, Mas Sgier is only for standing on. It was running a force 10 through the wires, rolling boulders along the seabed with one hand & clawing the wool from the backs of sheep with the other when I took this shot...The wind nearly stripped me from the edge as well, such are her nails. But we are somehow kin. We call it the washing machine, that local abyss, when it finds it's mind, for good reason.

Eventually numbed, you get told to leave by the teeth of the storm, & push sideways like a drunk on the Glasgie offramp tracking back, -the collie ahead with his ears behind- to those soulless four walls & ponder the coins & coral on the window ledge & think fondly of Tromsø. No long now, until another magnificent qajaq territory draws you back again.
Nothing really prepares an individual for -12°C midnight kayak navigation underneath a dancing symphony of Aurora Borealis & the warm current drift. Who needs christmas lights & warm care anyway huh? Tromsø - the training ground of the hardy...or maybe the foolhardy says a pal with a familiar lopsided grin.
Either way, I have somehow become a repeat offender for well over a decade, sometimes in anger, sometimes in peace. I'd forgotten the turn of the years...Lars & his exploding pie recipe, iceberg bouldering in Speedos, snowaking, the wee girl who owns the coins....she must be a young woman by now...
She was 5 when she asked if I was a bad eskimo & we swapped coins...
I've always kept them - exactly where I said I would.

Immediate forward plan? Twin black knives, some deep water line, free running loops, Qajaasaarneq rope for a dawn workout, two big lobster over a bivouac fire & watch the Hogmanay fireworks from a shoreline out in the remote blackness. Somewhere where the shoreline is steeped in oxygen & even an inkling of a dram, a lit cigarette or faint sound in the clear air alerts the senses like a downwind perimeter alarm. Empty peace - has more appeal than a heaving cattle market a thousand strong, & choosing it, empowers against sitting amongst quiet walls twiddling my thumbs. Sometimes being a prisoner of freedom has a few advantages I guess. Living by consistent & recognizable markers of sleep & waking, transitory weather systems & dark & light; extradition gazes in on a bizarre circus of learned & expected ritual. There is more life alone out on the vast ocean around this time than there is on dry land. Better to cut your teeth on cold stone & roll the night surf mad, possessed, than blunt your soul waiting.

Have a good one whatever you may be doing. Really.

A Half-life of Absolution

2008-12-19T15:47:00.055Z

Dusk flight & December landfall at the outer reaches - we all head for shore, airborne or sea bound inside a scarfs caress of gathering night storm. And what an evolution of storm. Ripples of thunder bounding across black open seas like lost cannonballs & light shows silhouetting the latest naked supermodels drenched in vast swathes of Torridon monoliths, squalls of hail running mad tempo on the bivvy skin & dousing fires. Sometimes, you are morally obliged, having made it through Lith Sgeir yet again, to bound out of your shelter & dance like a madman in the middle of it all.
Todays shipping forecast for the 19th is now reading: Wind, Southwesterly, cyclonic gale 8 to storm 10, increasing storm force 11 imminent, veering westerly 7 or 8 later. Sea State high or very high. Squalls. Visibility moderate to poor. Everything is tied down & everything that isn't, is flying. The vibrating tent fabric, the bothy cornerstones, running reeks & high desolate ridges should be entertaining over Christmas...

Anyhoos, in a week or three I should be able to scrape enough sheckles together & find a Ricoh GX100 & GRD replacement. I may have to sell the dug, my soul & a carbon paddle to do so, but working with the wee stand-in Ixus has swiftly become like having to eat a dry cracker when you really need a full meal. There are now print demands coming in from as far away as Norway & Spain. Well, although Ricoh recently replaced the GRD & the GX100 with the release of the GRD II & GX200, increasing RAW writing capabilities & adding some mega-pixies, it seems a pointless exercise of purchase & replacement, in light of the GX300 rumoured to be arriving in November 2009. They should have gone for a superior sensor in the 200, but Ricoh are almost constricted by giants, market flooding the consumer compact arena.

Lumix DMC-LX3

What is the point of these endless numerous mid range boxes & their strange boasts? There is no point in having an obscene amount of mega-pixies if the CCD & optical range are both out of balance with the cameras ability to process the information it receives - it's a total myth that more mega-pixies create better shots in that respect. Why manufacturers add unusable 3200 ISO ability in attempt to market consumer units is also laughable. The Ricoh GRD & GX series avoid such whimsical glitter & are, to my mind, superior niche items, especially in the field of black & white production, & especially within the low ISO range. I've opted for the Lumix DMC-LX3 this time round, which still retains full manual creative control over post-processing, f-stops, aperture etc & sports a 1/1.63-inch CCD shotgun to 60mm optics at f/2.0 & f/2.8 respectively. It should give the GX200 a serious run for its money. My dreams of maybe one day even holding a Leica M8 will have to remain in the realm of dreams.

Woodland light by Wouter Brandsma - © 2008.
One of my favourite examples of low ISO light & contrast play with the Ricoh.

So often, compacts below the high end semi-pro range build lazy photographers, where everything is pre arranged, analysed & evaluated for them. The flip-side is that the more adventurous, are left fighting an automated & infuriating array of presets. I much prefer a box that can be fully manually overridden, putting the camera back in the hands of individual perception, rather than the box continually arguing with you about how it knows best. Just as using a G-style paddle will introduce you to it's intricacies & characteristics, free technique allows each shot to become a honed process of relationship communicated between the individual, the equipment & the panorama/subject ahead. If you shoot like you're using film in an old Rollieflex, you develop technique & an intuitive response to lighting conditions. Underexpose to retain white light, overexpose to retain shadow information. Lay down in the street, climb a lampost. Roll with a traffic cone on yer heid.
Most of all play. Become a subset force majeure.
Couple such explorative results with some minor adjustment & editing in applications such as Lightroom, SP Developer Studio or S.Efex Pro in the Digital Darkroom as I call it, & you can realize some wonderful results.
Seriously, with your technique down, who needs to shoot outside of the ISO 64 -180 range?

Riding the crazy train through Lith Sgeir & Más Sgeir - f3.8, 1/133 sec, ISO 64, +0.3 EV

Above is a cropped pan of the kayaking channel through Lith Sgeir & Mas Sgeir toward leeward shelter. 4m-6m breaking swell & a wee bit stormy. It was another obligatory, skin-of-the-teeth moment in the slim black knife all told. Black gloved, sealed into a tuiliq with a lanolin greased face, continual immersion is not an issue. Getting dumped into downhill racer troughs where submerged boulders groan & having enough power to outrun the insane rip & backwash in a gathering force 9, is.

I had the advantage of a helper on the cliff to set the camera running multiple shots per second on a tripod bolted to the floor with pitons. Before attempting the crazy train I had set the camera ISO, aperture & target frame etc, & all that was left was for my button pusher to set it rolling as I rounded the channel, & stand back. The rest was a case of processing, balancing & knitting the image pan at home once I had thawed out. Normally I would leave the camera on repeat shots myself & play in the pelagic fireworks alone; but there's no short way into Lith Sgeir in such seas.

≈•Cast yourself against this black thing. Thrown raving at the sky•≈

Some Games...

2008-12-09T14:20:00.072Z

...Are better than other games.

A discarded empty plastic bottle on the wind blown beach is collie heaven. Every Sunday windy walk we take across the deserted sands, Seobhag fìorghlan na h-ealtainn will chase down & herd as many as he can. His now, almost instinctive air scenting search skills, his need for puzzle solving & occupation, often make for a bizarre spectical of acrobatics & circus antics when the plastic bottles start flying. A game he came up with himself after I refused to walk through the village with him carrying his crazy pink football. :o)

I've come to the conclusion that the dug deserves his own post, without the mention of a kayak.

When he was the size of my hand, I would carry him into the high Cuillin, & bivvying for the night he would sleep in a woolly sock under my chin. Of course now he is all grown up, its his mountain. A low growl will alert me to another presence on the white out ridges in the dead of night long before they appear. Should I release him, he will coral them toward the howff & a fidgety warmth. He will also see this as a food bolstering opportunity. Payment where payment is due - is how I deal with it.
When I set off along remote parts & partial circ-navs of Skye in the k*y*k, he will run the cliff tops & shores alongside until we camp, grabbing crab snacks at will. I will occasionally see a big pair of pointy ears peering over the edge, checking our progress. Should I spend the day rolling in the surf, he will leap the breakers & join me. Bampot & unfailing companion that he is. There was a near unfortunate incident of this at Rubha Hunish,. We have since had words & it's best forgotten - but lesson learned.

When he had a rear 4 point split & infected incisor removed & was unable to stand being blootered on opiates, I spent 27hrs in the downy with him, to make sure he knew he was safe. Even then he tried to go to work. He has returned the gesture ten fold. I have since weaned him off a diet of stones, hence the plastic bottle fetish.

The roof of his mouth is black, his markings impeccable, which basically means he gets laid more than I do. Something is very wrong here...

His search success rate recently hit 94% & he barks in Gaelic. Both his eyes are the colour of a peat burn after autumn rain. They were blue. He has a soft scar on his nose, about an inch long, which he got by running head first into a rock. He got this by looking at me instead of where he was going. We got round that.
He has an unhealthy obsession with slugs, but likes helicopters. He has carried a raw egg from Glen Brittle across the Cuillin to Sligachan without breaking it.. He lost the top of his right ear, by continually taunting a Wookie, in his formative years. He has stolen many pies. I once lost him as a pup, searched the house & eventually found him, covered in ash & asleep in the fire grate, which was as warm as an Aga after the night fire. He often practises Kungfu in his sleep. Maybe because his main adversaries are the bad crows, who hang out at the shinty pitch.
He's only ever shown his teeth to one guy with serious intent - but then you should never get into a bar fight with a pelagic ghillie you can't handle. Especially one who has a Skye collie asleep at his feet. The fella ended up outside on Doni's taxi roof with the collie circling. He was arrested for damage to the taxi & affray, the collie got a sausage off the Sergeant. I could go on, but I'll keep it short - Hippo, Birdy, Two Ewes.

All that said, If he goes out playing wi Molly Mac all day & comes home wearing blue eyeshadow & tinsel again, I'll nail the basta.

Minch Hunter

2008-12-05T15:45:00.156Z

Midway between Skye & Harris, 7am

Now we are free, you & me - Lisa Gerrard

It's that silent time, every tiny sound seemingly amplified & as you head out of the shadowed & claustrophobic waters of Loch Dunvegan, the Uists appear in distant mist as if a reincarnation of Tír na nÓg. Saying goodbye to dark kelp saturated waters & clanking listless ships of spinnaker & rigging you break ahead of the Galtrigill headland & arc over for Grimsay & Lochmaddy, rhythmic strokes on a millpond sea enjoying the slingshot of open expanse. Like a child out of the school gates, your pace picks up, your ability for play, remembers what it is to be unfettered - your enthusiasm overflows.

Midway you stop for a blether with Lachy, pot-hauling, working dawn creels under fading red & green navigation lights & look back at the tabletops & climb onto the wheelhouse roof for a panorama shot of heaven on earth. Waving an arm in the air, as a gesture of goodbye you continue, & indeed, Lachy in his fashion, gestures back. You look back to see him silhouetted & drifting & gain a porpoise escort; & slipping silver bug eyes down over the tuiliq you roll face to face with your graceful escort, inside a dance of mutual marine ballet. The moon is ghost like over your shoulder, the cold seas releasing steam each time you surface, the sun vying for it's place in the morning breath. Leviathan above leviathan & leviathan below.

You're the skipper of your own destiny. You cut & weave through Cannish, & now it's up to Bernaray, an outside drag the long way round. Some entertaining swell & a hard cut for Taransay... A clan of Skuas take low level flying into new boundaries across your bow & you count each landmark ...Scolpaig ...Spuir... Copaigh... Braigh Mor... West Loch Roag... all scattered with remote reeks of white unpopulated sands & soaring high black edges. You feel as though you command legions, your mount, a slim black knife as loyal as any collie that looked to you for the next instruction. The clear dawn skies are filling with storm as you reach the haven inland stretches of sea loch & the seas are starting to awaken, the winds stir from slumber, but you do not fear, or doubt, moreover you wish you were caught midway in the raw fight, but by now your woolly feet are pointed at a fire hearth & your hands are wrapped around a bucket of hot sustenance, your knife buried point down in a log.
There is a drip on your nose & steam in your breath as you close your eyes & drift into the sound of squalling rain beating down on the window like thrown rice grains. You're huddled in for the night with lined & creased faces of heros you trust. Faces that never make the news, nor care for it.. Somebody puts on Davy Spillane & the Atlantic Bridge & the night becomes a foregone jolly. A single jumping light in the dark & the wild.

The great non-event of Christmas will be here soon & I'll be in a bothy somewhere, or on a high ridge away from the chimneys & lights, solitary & in extradition from the gifted huddled & warm. Rolling into a fold, skin leaking dram, kayak flung across an empty reek of shore. Being surplus to requirement carries a stench decades old, but that's the world, the familiar odour & without adieu, you keep on keeping on, dragging your tail in the sea, because if you stopped, you'd be pointless, expended.

We reluctant Gladiators, we forward Minch Hunters - is there a better solo journey on earth, than when half the world is asleep, fidgeting in its angst?

What a year we have seen, the deaths of loved ones & friends, new births, storms & peace & war afar. One of my highlights was not to do with kayaking in any land that wraps the sea around its edges like a blanket, but to fill an ordinary shoe box with gold, red & coloured leaves of all sizes, dry them & tie it all with rough string, for my wee Dundonian pal MayLee. She left these shores long ago to train, successfully, as a rescue diver in Turkey. She swam through a sea of shit get there, & I'm so very proud of her. I put a simple note on the box saying Throw Me - xx. I did this simply because I didn't want her to miss out on Autumn & from my heart, wanted her to have one of her own.
One scented with the Highland woodlands.

Not all gifts are gold, but born of understanding your companions. In such a house, geography is an aside & should we forget such trust, we are become dust - emptied out & wretched vessels. Should we forget to write as bards & warriors, we are mere recital. For now, I will remain a lone Minch hunter. These satellites of friends in constant orbit, can never deter the search for everything that has already found me.
One day, I will be gone from this living world & miss it in its entirety, but like the man said ...not yet.

Not yet.

The landfall sands between Cnip & Bhaltos

•≈Anol shalom Miss Mulholland...anol shalom≈•

"A Day..." re posted

2008-11-28T04:52:00.036Z

...at Beinn Breac, chasing waterfalls, wild wind grasses, snow flurries & collies. There were kayaks leaving for Canna, a million miles below, pin-dots in the silver slipstream of open seas. It was odd...upsetting. To be up in these reeks & no longer be able to climb as my soul dictates, I looked back down toward the seas & followed kayaks heading out West - E9, E8, V this & that....I started giggling - suddenly I was to far away from the twin important reasons for being, floundering in no mans land. With no kayak to hand below & no face to scale above, I had in an odd moment of clarity - & became that most loathsome beast, a reluctant hillwalker yomping with sangwies, yet without purpose. A twitcher without an anorak.

A Black Mesa of sorts, yet not a bad back garden to have, & go to hell in...overall...
Sometimes, it dawns on you creeping.

Weakness can be a great thing, & strength is nothing when you see through into your true self. The creature you always were. When a man is just born, he is weak & flexible, when he dies, he is hard & insensitive. When a tree is growing, it's tender & pliant, but when it's dry & hard, it dies. Ergo, hardness & strength are death's companions. Pliancy & weakness are expressions of the freshness of being & what has hardened never wins in the journey of discovering its true nature... Weakness embraces the new era - Hardness just causes you to throw lumps of iron at your own head & drag the old era around, like a stone in a net...
Inside the dust ridden sunlit halls of finality & conclusion, the mystic waits & says, you are what you love, not what loves you...

An ataireachd bhuan -A’ sluaisreadh gaineamh na tràgh’d.

Thus, these mountains & unscalable walls that claimed my youth, are no longer an encircling prison of black toothed bastion, more a shelter, a shawl around my shoulders, a mother to run to out of the school gates, a random ghillie kill, a sermon, or a well executed frost proof .338 Lapua acquisition. But that also brings depth of shelter, away from the inane flood of human interference, a tower of fierce insanity providing this silent creature with new perspectives of the road ahead...& peace, for the sea is all around & oil paintings come in many forms, just as they say there are two moons. Sorley, the baying hound screamed, Coin is madaidhean-allaidh from the abyss...& all my empty beer cans are staring at me like little puppies waiting for treats...

Climb well young Jedi. Kayak further. Who can truly number the wild stones & the free seas? What foolish beautiful architecture we pin to the world...

Seobhag fìorghlan na h-ealtainn

Now Reading...

2008-11-14T18:48:00.015Z

Whale Nation by Heathcote Williams. Maybe re-reading for the 10th time would be more accurate. For those of you who have never read it, I would humbly recommend obtaining a copy. My dusty well thumbed version has travelled almost everywhere I have. Obviously not at my feet in the black knife, but I did once photocopy the pages, staple them together with a rivet gun & leave them in a seaward bothy. The pages remained intact & thumbed for a good few years, although they gradually diminished, taking on a creeping role as fire tinder for wet wood. The book itself is beautifully illustrated with wild gardens of photography, Heathcote brings us toward a steady accumulation of grandeur & dreadfulness. Whale Nation is a symphony of written word that cannot, or at least should not, be ignored.

Whale Nation is a hymn to the beauty, intelligence and majesty of the largest mammal on earth. A ‘green classic’ read with natural resonance by its author, it rarely fails to strike a chord in the hearts of those concerned with the abuse of our planet.

To that, I would add the words, epic, beautiful, replete & intelligent, sometimes...deeply angering & upsetting but often inspirational beyond the sublime - from his opening words to his final closure:

In the water, whales have become the dominant species,
Without killing their own kind.

In the water, whales have become the dominant species,
Though they allow the resources they use to renew themselves.

In the water, whales have become the dominant species,
Though they use language to communicate, rather than to eliminate rivals.

In the water, whales have become the dominant species,
Though they do not broodily guard their patch with bristling security.

In the water, whales have become the dominant species,
Without trading innocence for the pretension of possessions.

In the water, whales have become the dominant species,
Without allowing their population to reach plague proportions.

In the water, whales have become the dominant species,
An extra-terrestrial, who has already landed . . .
A marine intelligentsia, with a knowledge of the deep.

From space, the planet is blue.
From space, the planet is the territory
Not of humans, but of the whale.

The Gods Are Angry With Skye...

2008-10-24T18:12:00.026+01:00

...& the Met Office issued this on top of some excellent lightning storms at 1300 Sat 25 Oct - Ardnamurchan Point to Cape Wrath including the Outer Hebrides.
Wind: Southwesterly gale 8 to storm 10, occasionally violent storm 11, Westerly veering 6 to gale 8, occasionally severe gale 9.
Sea state: Very rough or high, occasionally very high.
Weather: Rain then squally showers.
Visibility: Moderate or poor, occasionally good.
Activity: Windy walks above wild empty seas, cloddy hoofs & some cliff edge ballet.

... Breathe up to me...
Breathe in through me...Why don't you...
Breathe out through me...

T.C.O

All the Heros on Hold

2008-10-19T11:52:00.020+01:00

The winter & autumnal winds are here, circling the house, throwing up leaves & rainstorms. I have taken to hiding under the downy, in fact I have rediscovered hiding under the downy all over again. Only the collies nose is visible at the other end of the bed & my woolly socks are half hanging off giving the cosy impression of Rumplestiltskin feet. And get this, the torch works, under the covers with a good book. I have regressed somehow. I had forgotten I'm allowed to do this. I rarely allow myself to enjoy times like this, for fear of missing out on the next Greenlandic equivalent of wiggling my nose, the next kayaking mission where I will fling myself into the elements, a frail entity in a small craft engulfed by Goliath. All qajaq are storm tied for the duration.

But now it's downy time, Sunday, rattling windows & leaves finding their way in through the kitchen window. I am as ever, enjoying finding them in bizarre places. I did stand upright briefly, to open the door for the collie, who dutifully looked out, looked back at me & said, Naw, yer ok man, I'll cross mallaigs. We're going nowhere & we're both proud of it. I have started to re-read Paul Carters excellent book entitled Don't Tell Mum I work on The Rigs - She Thinks I'm a Piano Player in a Whorehouse, only coming out for more crackers & hot chocolate. There is a dusting of snow on the higher Cuillin & the eviscerating wind on patrol serves only to bolster my resolve to get a vast amount of crumbs in the bed by this evening & some Cullen Skink in my belly by night fall. Bar cold sprints across the boards to restock & a Fugloy solo circ nav invading my thoughts at each turned book leaf, all the heros are on hold.

We Are Relocating

2008-10-08T18:29:00.005+01:00

To here:

•≈ SgianDubhQajaq

All comments on the new site are as ever welcome. The blog will also mutate over & appear in Flash form as soon as i can figure that bit out as well, so nothing will be lost. The Digital Darkroom galleries will also become a lot more extensive, allowing up-the-ways slides as well as full stretch limo type sidey-ways panoramas. Much more to do, & the collie has mistaken the word relocating, for reclining; but winter is warming up & the diminishing daylight corridors allow me more time in the realm of Flash swf & Macromedia xmhl file tinkering...I know & you know it, I'd rather be dancing on an iceflow North of Tromso or chewing taqqat for my new qajaq project, or rolling in the cold ocean..

The White Hot Needle & The Sky

2008-09-30T20:20:00.027+01:00

Within this familiar ellipse we fondly refer to as, the islands, this pinnacle, & that within the detail of the bronze plaque, a worn rock hammer is clearly visible. Through days over nights of solo tracking inside the clasp of hump-backed rolling swell, counting drops & surfing each rise, dwarfed in the cold darklight of insanely flung black cliffs I barely looked up & back into my wake, such is youths agenda. I had noticed this adding an E8 to the crevassed & soaring gawp of toothless cave below many years back, but, relishing the confined struggle of cold still air & stone more than the folly of memorial, it had swiftly vanished into the mental & physical desolation of each crux sequence. More recently, the Westward lowered sun, struck this pinnacle bright like a white hot needle against a chasm of stuttered reprise & pelagic retaliation - I pulled in on a set of rollers that were going my way, pushed the paddle into the taqqat & weaved up steeply through deep oxygenated grass, gelatinous organic seepage & tiny machair flowers. I realized anew, that no civilized dwelling shadow its stance, no visible Cornflake box scattering of croft in either cardinal direction, aft or forrard, for miles...
You cannot, not, climb up to enquire of its origin.

It transpires, that the Meall Geal monument is to John Wilson Dougal, the founder of a chemical company in Edinburgh, & an amateur geologist. For many years he explored the geology of the Outer Hebrides, & was the first to describe the flint crush rock formations. Dougal wrote up many of his island adventures, & after his death they were published in Island Memories, a jewel of a book for anyone interested in the Hebrides. His name in bronze relief is underlined by that very geologists rock hammer.

William: ...Long spears, twice as long as a man.
 Hamish: That long?
William: Aye.
Hamish: Some men are longer than others.
 Campbell: Your mother's been telling stories about me again, eh?

Its a Dogs Life

2008-09-15T21:51:00.014+01:00

Lets clear something up once & for all. Many will tell you of working collies & the hardships they endure - the chains that bind them to the mountainside - the scavenged food they harbour - the daily beatings - those beds in the rain under leaky roofs...
Of course, when we are stormbound in the bothy or banjaxed by blizzards; when he's not learning his log-rolling trick on my kayak, swimming in clears seas or chasing buoys, I neither, am soft on the black & white shadow that shares this path. I am a tough tough tough, heartless stone of a master, in keeping with tradition, & I can prove it with photographic evidence:

Seobhag fìorghlan na h-ealtainn

Bugger...well I tried aye..

•≈ Wenley, Ignatius Pistachio as I call him, from On Kayaks, is also on his way over from Spain & is due to drop in on Gordi Broon & then myself in a few days. Hopefully it will be an opportunity to see how his rolling has improved & maybe show him some crazy variations of Greenlandic rolls I've given a hybrid edge to. Stunt rolling with a bowling ball, in its own benign fashion can do more than have your eye out. It can steal breath from your lungs due to extended bouts of laughter. Yikes!...I hope he won't want to use the bathtub - it's full of whale bones gestating in readiness for Taqqat use. It's a dogs life aye. That reminds me...time to kick that lazy collie off his bed of nails...

Nosce Te Ipsum...

2008-09-05T02:45:00.008+01:00

≈• ...As Autumn stretches her wings, as these wild driven seas drum in rhetoric motion, shifting stones & sands white streaked, tattooed in ancient cipher...Nosce te ipsum...As the playground jaws of this Western abyss grind gently, half aware of whispers leaking from the world, a murmur of rhythm deafening to the eighth hunter. Yes you children in kayaks - war is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things...not by far. The decayed & degraded state of moral & patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made & kept so by the exertions of better men than himself...
Nosce te ipsum, promove, vetustas occaecabis solum puer aeternus
& scything swiftly through & turning high I reach a crest of distilled motion & ready myself & everything hangs momentarily, silent, as if the tongue had already been cut from the dragon by my audacity alone - & the beast looks back at me & rears up & I hear myself say...
Now, let us dance...you & I •≈

Trivia & further trivia: After each knife party, I'll invariably return to the outskirts of my village, harboured into its shoulder of basalt, avoid the crowds & stare back at the loch following its lead edge to those Western shores of Atlantic kayaking poetry. Out there is where we each converge to recite & eviscerate & rampage, hand in hand with great breakers & night patrols of whales as we spit back smiles full of blood & teeth. In here I nod at familiar faces & retrieve supplies. In here, is for sleep, & sometimes inbetween that sleep & the doing of life, I wonder why I write here, if anyone ever really visits this...But, I have this ability I guess, of clicking my heels 3 times & relieving myself of this awkward & floundering affiliation with dry land, the preservation of uselessness it tattoos me with...
I grab a bag of chips, vinegar leaking from the paper, & climb the creaking pathway through the storm pines, my head still swaying with wave motion, my nose still leaking saline enigma, the collie zig zagging for large eared vermin & idly take this photo from what we call, The Lump. Here, on the 18th of June 1742, the last hanging & public execution on Skye took place. Angus Buchanan, for the murder of a peddler. A peddler being a trader of illicit or legal goods rather than a random cyclist...

Saving the Anas - Number 15

2008-08-22T20:35:00.038+01:00

Yet another scruffy waif has found it's way into my collection. This orphan had no name. It had merely been branded Number 15 & as I towered over its cowering & bedraggled frame in the August sunlight; I felt a heartbeat sense of it's former self, a residual soul under the dirt & I heard myself proclaim: We can rebuild you, we have the technology. Today you are number 15, a refugee from The Village, tomorrow you will cut surf & turquoise seas & shout, I am not a number - I am a free Anas.

You have wonky teeth I know, & your retro-fit hatch & deck lines are both equally amusing. You have your wires crossed, literally. Your pure Igdlorssuit progeny is askew.

The ancient emblem tattooed onto your ass Number 15, as always, reads: British Canoe Manufacturers Association - The Reflection of Excellence.
Some work will be needed to restore you, there is no debate, & some may hurt a little, or seem unnecessarily brutal. Your footplate is an original alloy bar wingnut affair, drill jammed in like an amalgam filling without anaesthetic. Your forward ballast is an onion bag full of polystyrene chips & a birds nest, & your open wounds are creeping. Your split stock seating bucket is lined with finest executive karrimat & your gelcoat is a near non existent collection of scars that could have only been acquired whilst fighting lions...in a very small room. Your glasswork is atrocious, inside a fashion of magnificence, & you're coming apart at the seams, but fear not Number 15, 1972 & 2008 will both be good years & the times, oh the times...they are a changin'.

£75.00 all in for the official adoption papers, but remember Number 15 - beautiful flowers grow out of the wreckage & the dirt, & the girl who sells them in rags, is prettier than all those dancing, high-falutin' lights.
One final aside, the Skye-vine has recently reported Murty & Gordon giggling openly in his Ornsay kitchen about this Anas possibly being re-rendered in fantasy brown. Gordon Beige apparently laughed loudest. ;o)

In the near future I'll finish putting together a pdf.file of Anas restorations if it's handy to anyone. As well as being applicable to nearly all modern glass/carbon kayaks, it will include Anas Acuta specific detail, including everything from retro seat fitting, gel coating, minimalist but practical refitting to rear deck surgery & reshaping - the works in fact. If it's useful to anyone, all good, if not, it'll kick around until it is.

Anemos

2008-08-19T18:19:00.033+01:00

The leaves of an urban morning

The cloth anemometer says: If yer pants are flying on the line, it'll arguably be fun offshore.

Hebrides - NNE 30°, 5 or 6 decreasing 4 or 5. Moderate or rough, rain, moderate or good. Seas are rising & the swell is making giant boulders creak against a bed of slow moving humpbacked raw force. There is wind in the wires, & a premature, fleeting autumnal feel threading through our village streets. I saw a person leaning into their scarf today until the sun glared between swift cloud shadows, & the sea has opened this years bidding for brave souls.

P L A Y T I M E
& lone distant pelagic activities invariably beckon. I may be some time.

Confidence Class

2008-08-14T21:30:00.032+01:00

What a day - It had been so warm I had barely noticed I'd jumped into the Anas in my jeans, day boots & socks, wallet & phone in pocket, flung the Akullisaq on & readied my throat with a formal yet light instructive tone. I spent the day drifting up & down against chop & slight wind on Loch Mór Bharabhais, voicing do's & dont's, holding the occasional coaming, & demonstrating the shere amount of dynamic rotation, deep edge & passive sculling action a kayaker can pull from the drag & flick of a Norsaq. It's interesting to see how each individual, independently of another, deals with the grey area so often found & left untaught in the Euro approach to capsizing, rolling & straight paddling technique.
Today became a confidence class, exploring the Greenlandic artistry of kayaking halfway between being upright & capsized, finding the balance, feeling out the physical positions & without becoming rigid when it deserts, bending to neither panic or coercive action. It's great to see people progress, on any level, see them feel their natural technique & buoyancy discovery grow without p.f.d's or those ridiculous paddle float devices. To sit back & see a class group up & gauge it's own advantages & limitations of progressive scenarios, bare boned & alive, to see that Oh My God!! of self discovery spark in their eyes & Rolling is fun written in their faces..or as in today's case - Not rolling but floating half way over on my own without drowning is fun...

The collie of course was totally uninterested in the days proceedings apart from an instance of trying to swim the width of the entire loch in an attempt to keep me in visual contact. We took a break & dug out some whale bones. He soon returned to the r.v & continued his furious Great Escape dig in the sandy banking of the loch eventually widening its entire surface area by an unprecedented foot & a half...

Dem Bones

Loch Mór Bharabhais* in itself is an accessible & excellent venue for teaching confidence classes, practicing rolls you can't do, as well as doubling as a paddling haven for beginners when giant offshore surf unsettles their minds. Situated 10 minutes North of Stornoway & separated from the wild ocean by a gentle shingle levee, it has clean water, sandy launches & open camping machair. A future venue for a Hebridean rolling meet? I need another loch of this caliber on Skye other than Gedintailor & Camastianavaig...Still, there's always throwing them in directly at Rubha Hunish :o) The loch also makes a great tactical base camp, with Dail Beag & the Bearnaraigh peninsula directly South & the exposed Western edges of Rubha Robhanais to the North.
Anyways, tomorrow it's a wee trip to the vet, for they collie no me, then face down Norsaq sculling & Norsaq rolls & maybe set up the Qajaasaarneq ropes if I can get two cows to stand still.

The Barvas levee

* The small loch S.W of here at Brú, Loch Eirearaigh, is currently carrying a Cyanobacteria hepatotoxins bloom warning & should be avoided.

Roll Geometry

2008-08-12T13:21:00.022+01:00

Wether inside the turbulence of a full kayak roll, or free soloing inside the aerial boundaries above black crevassed talus, confidence in the axiom, the center, allowing the hips to dictate momentum, intuitive position, approach & speed of execution, will bring you into the light above the surface - effortless. Allowing physical transferral expands it. Trying to think it into existence stifles it. It - that circling whip of acceleration effortlessly enhancing the roll, the dynamic move, from its core into the outside edges - From here on, failing to stay upright is a joy & a reason to kayak, as is freefalling from the high reaches of a climb. Because you have confidence in the outcome of an event, because you have engramming in place, you are free to enjoy the space between losing & regaining what the teachers crassly term as control of an expected outcome. You are able to play in the gaps between knowledge.

I'd thought those words in my sleep last night & woke this morning scrabbling around for a scrap of paper, stumbling half asleep toes into the dogs water bowl. Positive visualization of technique is a valid tool, but attending your own talks in your sleep?... And that's another thing! Will the neurons at the back of my skulled auditorium, who insist on chattering through each unconscious lecture, please see me afterward!

A virtually effortless & self perpetuating circular motion exercise. A kayaker, climber or Aikidoka who understands flexibility & centered body movement will out muscle the muscle everytime. It's like...how do I put it... command or coercion with a passive voice aye, a secretive collusion of asymmetric symmetry resulting in a perfect roll...
My biggest challenge will soon be learning to stay upright, as I realize I spend most of my time teaching people to fall over...

Nice Boat Mate...

2008-07-30T19:48:00.039+01:00

Nice boat mate.: Initially I had thought the tourist walking by had been commenting to me on a one of the many fishing vessels moored inside the harbour walls. His comment seemed a little random, but I dutifully stopped removing my kayak from the wagon roof & turned in that very direction.
Ah, the prawner? No no, that's not mine, but yes I concur, it is rather nice as fishing vessels go...: When I glanced back toward the random tourist & continued off-loading the kayak he had acquired the look of a person whos brain had just stalled.
No mate, that thing there...: I fixed him with my gaze, as I lowered the qajaq onto the slipway.
Ah, this? This is a kayak, not a boat. It's a sea kayak to be exact, following on from a Greenlandic ancestry & tradition, yet cunningly, it has been fashioned from modern materials. This one includes much kevlar.: I paused momentarily, like a boxer lowering his guard to taunt an opponent, allow him a free swing, yet, in the absence of a suitably swift & regaling response I added.
Oh, & you sit in the middle bit, where the hole is...Of course, I don't expect you to know it's not called a hole either, but, & here's the upside, it's a word you will understand since you appear to now be standing in one. Would you like a tour of the skin-on-frame?

I think I've finally flipped out, had enough, become crapulent, a little agitated, skipped into bampot world & subsequently become somewhat vexed with this whole boat situation. From now on when somebody asks me What Boat I Paddle I fear I may eviscerate them inside cascades of word-masonry so epically profound they will think they've been run down by a 100 year Tsunami.
Look godamnit, it's a kayak, a qajaq, a qajariaq, a canoe with a full skin on & therefore not a boat. If people insist on calling kayaks boats, I will in turn, & at every opportunity point out that they are boaters & they are boating, & therefore not kayakers kayaking. If that appears pedantic, even ostentatious, then why was there a twinge of annoyance in the face of my Raasay pal when I mischievously asked if he was going boating as he unloaded his kayak into the straits one stormy day? The word boating for him, conjured pastoral wonders, straw hats, cucumber sandwiches, pompous Englishmen with insane overbites, riverbanks, punt poles, Ratty, Mole & Mr.Toad - all through the swirling waters of the Kyle, all through that black gale & swell, & all through that day like a bad song, a mouse on prozac scratching around in his brain, it followed him to his bed - that dirty boater got everything he deserved. Needless to say kayaking, as a generalization is accepted to conjour & precede far more adventure & demand on the participant than that fine & slightly limp-wristed pastime, we have come to know as boating.
If the term boating is unacceptable to a kayaker in it's implied reference & descriptive ability to encompass sea kayaking, it's wild & varying degrees of ferocity, calm & conditions, then the word boat to explain a sea kayak capable of taking on such terms & conditions of adventure should also be unacceptable. Indeed, if such a rant appears pedantic, even ostentatious, then how is it that I also know an old Inuit man from Nuuk who will throw anyone out of the Greenlandic rolling championships for using the word boat when they are referring to a kayak.
I am not alone in my quest, our numbers are swelling, we will see these boaters banished along with their long pointy boats to inland paddling pools & lochs where they will be pursued into submission by the relentless swarming antics of 10 year olds in pedaloes...sorry, by pedaloes I obviously meant wide kayaks...
I'm teetering like a madman on the edge, my laughter derisory, my fingernails screeching lines into a cartoon blackboard as I slide out of my balanced state into a maniacal pursuit of every post in the •≈ UKRGB kayak forum that starts with or incorporates the word boat in its subject matter, ie:
Which boat should I buy I'm 6ft 5 & 18 stone?
Any ya basta, most yachts & boats will carry several people of that stature in one go.

If the said tourist's passing comment had been: Nice ocean going vessel mate... I could have lived with that, yet equally, I have never had cause to say: Let us lift these ocean going vessels onto the upper surface of this land vehicle & perambulate forth until we find waters more fitting of our needs.
Kayak, Roof, Car, Walk, Sea: they are specifics in language & exist for a reason, & after some intense flash flood education, I realized I had in the fullness of description, caused the tourist to also perambulated forth.

≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈

Main Entry:
kay·ak
Pronunciation:
\ˈkī-ˌak\
Function:noun
Etymology: Inuit qayaq or qajaq
Date: 1757

1 : an Eskimo canoe made of a frame covered with skins except for a small opening in the center and propelled by a double-bladed paddle
2 : a portable canoe styled like an Eskimo kayak.

≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈

Main Entry:¹ca·noe
Pronunciation:
\kə-ˈnü\
Function:noun
Etymology:French, from New Latin canoa, from Spanish, from Arawakan, of Cariban origin; akin to Carib kana:wa canoe

Date:1555

1: a light narrow vessel with both ends sharp that is usually propelled by paddling.

≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈

Main Entry:
¹boat
Pronunciation:
\ˈbōt\
Function:noun
Etymology:Middle English boot, from Old English bāt; akin to Old Norse beit boat/ship from Old English scip; akin to Old High German skif ship.
Date: pre12th century

1 a: a small vessel for travel on water - ie: a ship
2: a boat-shaped container, utensil, or device
3: a large sea going vessel.
4: a sailing vessel having a bowsprit & usually 3 masts each composed of a lower mast, a topmast, & a topgallant mast.
5: boat; especially : one propelled by power or sail.

≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈

Above: Some very small lorries - parked yesterday
Below: Some kayaks ashore at a secret Hebridean venue

Driftwood Norsaq

2008-07-19T20:15:00.022+01:00

Let the hand carving begin!
Time to fashion a new Norsaq out of this scraggy bit of driftwood I bimbled across on the shoreline this afternoon wi the collie. Will post the results up on completion.

Update 22/07:
Almost finished, & had a good roll test of the said carving leaving wee Cnip pier & taking the slingshot into the Bhaltos & Pabaigh Mór peninsula today. Unfortunately I was plagued by endless deserted white sands, a brisk refreshing wind & a clear turquoise swell lit by shafts of warm sunlight piercing dark races of cloud...
The constant interference & distractive nature of such phenomena, makes it very hard to gain any suitably objective conclusion as to the overall quality of ones own workmanship...
Aye reet, awa wiya pish, ma heid's birlin :o)

The hand carved Norsaq is almost finished - the dunes of the Bhaltos peninsula reflected in black Anas gloss

Firestarter

2008-07-19T12:44:00.043+01:00

I'm a firestarter, twisted firestarter.
I'm the firestarter, Where's the firelighters??
You're the firestarter, twisted firestarter
-
The Projididy

Let's start by saying the obvious. Fire is one of the basic & single most important essential elements for individual survival in the wild. Whether it be for warmth, cooking, light, or a sense of security, the human need for fire is as old as our d.n.a memory.

There are myriad of ways to make fire. I'm currently able to use 30 or 40 independant combinations of material for fire starting from Gneiss to Rhodonite, from Tundra fungi to Guga shit on Sula Sgeir, to the use of oil Shale or concave ice - none of these methods involve matches, trips to the Co-op, lighters, conventional fuels or tapping electricity from batteries etc, although left-field thinking & alternative use of modern equipment should never be frowned upon. I'll freely admit to being partial to taking a wee supply of pre-gathered pine resin or Hex methenamine -Hexi- tablets with me on protracted forays. Hex methenamine tablets burn virtually smokeless, with a high energy density, & leave no ash. Pine resin has even more advantages.
With fire you do not just combat hypothermia & dry your clothes out. With an individual ability to make fire in any survival situation, you also open the door to, & off the top of my head, water purification & desalination, the ability to cauterize wounds, communicate at distance, create toothpaste, render food digestible, soften or harden materials for kayak or shaft repairs, preserve food, & often most importantly, provide yourself with psychological security.
You will never kayak with me & see a lighter in my pocket, but you will see this dangling around my neck wherever we go. My handmade stag horn handled strike.
Mischmetal 78% Iron Oxide 20% Magnesium Oxide 2% = Ferrocerium. The initial strike ignition temperature is around 200°C, the post-ignition burn temperature in combination with the other element ores, around 1/2100°C +
There are no moving parts, no springs & there is nothing to go wrong or run out. I can & often do, use this to make a fire in 100% of the conditions I encounter, in hurricane winds, at altitude, in torrential downpours & blizzards, on desolate & remote beaches, to equal snowfields. When £1.99 Coop lighters have long failed I have rescued people by means of fire who had otherwise given up hope & bedded down in freezing wet equipment, grimly hanging onto the thought of a better tomorrow, one of their kayaks already lost... Items such as a Ferrocerium strike & living skills such as percussion firestarting are again, like Greenlandic rolls when used as a kayakers principal defence & survival, invaluable skills that take patience to learn & develop, yet reward the practioner with confidence beyond that of the layman. Beyond modern misinformation, the illusion that everything you need to survive living can be bought with a piece of plastic, there is living to do, mud to get between the toes, & experience to be had. An individuals inability to think, calmly, simplistically outside the box in a wild environment, will often prove far more costly than the equipment they bought to take them there....

The ability to make a fire in extreme conditions can provide a physiological & psychological base for the rational to operate & ground in, increasing the survival advantage of an individual massively. Within true survival, there is no central authority or safety net, & your dictionary of repertoire is only as expansive as your investment in that very knowledge, that age & aeon of traditional skills upon which civilization is balanced.

Life is a cruel teacher. It punishes you first & then gives you the lesson. Like it or not, that is the process of true learning - Robert Kiyosaki

A wee bit...

2008-07-15T17:33:00.033+01:00

...breezy rolling on the loch today.

Force 6 onshore - toasty in the sun - tepid underwater - spray in the eyes & the rear deck barely ever surfacing. The Sgian Dubh & I were in casual yet perfect synchronicity, communicating through hand rolls & play. Tomorrow, mileage training, gale or no gale & another half kilometre of roll variation.

Also, another random spot - for it is summer. Yesterday I saw the words Scottish Surf Team, backed up by a giant vinyl Saltire, plastered down one side of a battered white panel van parked in Tarbert, Harris with two P &H sea kayaks on the roof with assorted bits & bobs. I think the owners were in the blow up rubber bar while my collie dampened down the rear wheel. Was that you?

Teaching the Way of The Anas - a path for Padawan & master Jedi alike - same loch 24 hrs later - less breezy it is.

U-Tide

2008-07-10T23:16:00.045+01:00

Now here's a handy wee tool, courtesy of Jorn Eichler, now on my mobile for tidal examination. If your mobile has a decent performance at floating-point mathematics you could do worse than have this application running in your pocket. Saves walking all the way down the garden to see if it's in or out, or bad timing your arrival at an impasse or landing zone at sea because of low, high or adverse tides. Helps as as a tech reference point to traditional ocean reading skills, night or day, as well as aiding protracted or specialist landing areas, especially if you are familiar with the tidal flows & accurately forecasting eta's. µTide is basically a slimmed down version of XTide, which itself, is a slimmed down version of the excellent WXTide32 for Windows. All are useful tools. That said, toys like this should never substitute genuine & intuitive oceanic forward reading skills & experience. There are far to many idiots on the oceans with EPIRBS, that cant even roll. Is this because you can buy an EPIRB in a shop but you can't buy a storm roll in a shop? If that's the case, an EPIRB without a roll is simply a beacon pinned to a potential floating corpse. Easier to find I guess... Similar mentalities have crept into the apprenticeships of the traditions of climbing. People now believe that because they have an gold Amex card they have a right to overrule the experience of a mountain guide on Qomolangma & throw tantrums when they don't get their own way, that because they have all the right names on their equipment, they are suddenly bombproof & qualified to climb E9 or solo ice in Scottish winter. Every year the numpty influx becomes more prevalent, as the advertising industries market the great outdoors for blatant profit, yet fall hideously short of educating the great swathe of consumer participants it attracts to the edge of something they are often ill prepared for. Soon we'll be giving children loaded guns...Oh!...we are...bad example.
Educate yourselves beyond technological reliance. Enjoy the short-cuts on offer, but first know the long way round - in the dark.

Hey! I have 10 EPIRBS, 2 SatNav systems, a foredeck satellite dish, 3 electric pumps, a blow up bed, a headrest, an arm rest, a back rest, splits, quads, a trolley, solar panel power, 4 VHF/HAM installations, 4th generation NVD, heat vision, every colour of flare, an infra red strobe, a blue strobe, a white strobe, a bluetooth laptop, a dongle, 3 dingles, a personal flotation device, an inflatable person device, a helicopter tracking me overhead & a RIB following on... Man, I just love the natural peace & freedom of the wild...

I always think: Good, but you're still a f*cking idiot - try not to sink.

Anyway, I'm ranting...µTide implements a subset of XTide's function. It calculates high & low tide times for a given station & day with impressive accuracy.
There are several different data sets available which implement as separate jar-files, ergo they are available as separate applications. µTide has an excellent tide graph for any given day calculated. You can also forward +1 day to calculate ahead & so on, +2, +3...
It also supports reference stations & derived stations for which data is available in XTide format. µTide does all its calculations by default in meters. It can however show the results in feet as well. This can be set on the main screen.
If you need any help installing this on your phone, let me know. Took me about 40 seconds start to finish to load & set it onto my SonyEricsson K810i through the apps folder & usb. Running µTide will also be dependant on your phones processor speed & J2ME device handling. I played with it all night under the downy like a kid with a torch, & with the collie curled in, we studied tides from Thurso to Tromsø. I even phoned Lars at 2:30am & told him to get µTide. He called me a f*cker & went back to bed. :o)
It looks like this when enabled:

Twas a 4am start today, shearing, dipping then out to the fish stocks plagued by Portree gulls trained into the laziest means of food acquisition by endless tourists throwing endless supplies of chips off the harbour wall..Later I'll pilot over to Harris in the pot hauler, & we'll drag up through the Western lochs, Loch Roag running drops & crawl back through the small hours, the 350hp diesel Cummins lump thumping out beat steady rhythms of 12 or 14 knots to an undefined candela of red & green, & the collie will sleep curled on the gillnets, & we'll shadow down through Kilt & Rona again & drift into harbour, idle as the dawn is quiet...
Shoulda' been at T-in-the-Park aye...not in the Wheelhouse-in-the-Dark.
Next week I will back rolling the qajaq.

The discussion in the wheelhouse doorway was going something like: Brrr, put a brew on wi ya, & then hand me that basta shotgun & two rocksalt cartridges John...

Cuan Canach

2008-07-03T16:42:00.031+01:00

07:30 am

With the flat tops of the Waternish headland to the right & the scattering Harrissian coastline to the left you find your self inside a silent dawn vista, adrift with the wind, the swell gently slapping the foredeck; a million miles of sky overhead. The rapid slingshot current will carry you swiftly over 30 kilometres or reek havoc & drag you like a dog on a lead. I never tire of this paddle - nor tire of her ever changing moods, the familiar saline molar markers of Shiant & Trodday, the blinding wind whip, the rogue swell, the endless feeling of forward momentum the Cuan Canach gives to the kayaker resting on her skin like a pond-skater...balanced & delicate - eyes set on the horizon...

I then remembered I had stopped still in the open sea, & for no apparent reason MollyMac was in my heid. Molly is my pal Archies daughter. She's a stately 6 years old. She came sashaying through the door one afternoon not so long ago & put this question to Arch:

Da, if people are meant to be vegetarian...then why are animals made of meat?

:o)

I toured back & forth completing my 40th crossing..but i still giggled to myself constantly & pissed off the gulls & had still to explain it on dry land...to a bunch of Harris drunks, one ex SAS member the size of a rake who's never been out of MacLeods bar but swears he has, & 4 lost Germans. The old fellas will tell you he was never in the Sutherland Association of Sheep farmers but he could've been in the LDV - that's the Look Duck & Vanish brigade to you & me. Laughter often echoes out from here into the night, across the empty streets & out over the Cuan Canach when most sane people are sleeping soundly. I depart one island with a childs logic smiling in my head, only to arrive on the next to find a similar razor sharp wit & logic in the old fellas. Everyone is connected by an unseen thread. Why would you want to live out your days anywhere else...

Hurry up & take your time -as a wise old man once whispered

The Jubilee - SY 233

2008-06-29T13:39:00.004+01:00

The Jubilee is the last surviving Sgoth Niseach -Ness-type skiff- to have played an active part in the former line-fishing industry of the isles.The Jubilee was built in 1935 by John MacLeod. My pal Alec John, also one of the Guga crew that head to Sula Sgeir each year, now skippers people out in her for day trips & tends her mooring in all weathers.
Her renovation cost in excess of £10,000.

Twilight 10pm....

2008-06-26T16:57:00.037+01:00

•≈ Goodbye Mike..... you will be deeply missed ≈•

I have lost all the words...
All the words that I thought would be brilliant & lit up...
I could write for miles...but our friend is dead - long live our friend. I can only quote Doug here...

The world is a better place because of people like Mike Thomson and it is poorer with his passing.

I don't think a day will pass where somehow you will pop up in mine or someone elses heart & mind Mike. Ergo, a person only dies when nobody remembers them, & inside each new day, & inside each closing of that day.
- for me, & to phrase it simply -
You are not dead, not by a fucking long shot, you have merely peeled off a tired body.
Go well Mike, & occasionally drop by, & smile at our antics.
I will always miss you, mostly when it catches me by suprise...
Without your presence, one less harbour that meant anything - doesn't. I am also half the person I am on your passing - but twice the man I was for knowing you.
Thankyou for everything.

By the way - she always knew you wern't just ''nipping to the post office'' :o)

A Day of Stones & Rain

2008-06-19T21:37:00.021+01:00

The old sentry guard - Chàrlabhaigh

Tursachan Chalanais - the two Mourners at the Stone - the chieftains wife in white, smaller & linked to his arm, both cloaked.

Dùn Chàrlabhaigh

Later in the day, there were 6 NDKs in the carpark, all wearing red Welsh dragon decals...Thus, I commented to my stomping pal that the Buffalo wearing group clambering over the stanes with a spring in their step were probably the owners of the said sea kayaks.

How do you know that?
Durrr!...They have large shoulders & very skinny legs. :o)

De-logoing Reed

2008-06-18T15:03:00.014+01:00

I'm a little confused as to why Reed habitually cover their items in decals. I've just taken delivery of a new Akullisaq - a greenlandic style of spraydeck which benefits rolling & touring in summer conditions where a Tuiliq would otherwise cook the occupant. After a discussion with Chris in the cutting room we devized a cunning plan to make the Akullisaq fit the keyhole cockpit of one of my kayaks, since the Akullisaq is traditionally cut for ocean cockpits. Reed have never made one like this before. Lets just say its great, well thought out & well tailored. BUT WHY COVER IT LOGOS!
Gah...everytime I get a new peice of Reed, I end up sitting on the floor with a black waterproof dye marker subduing the white advertising. I KNOW WHO BLOODY WELL MADE IT! Why graffiti the thing & ruin a sleek black garment with crass advertisements?? If it didnt have Reed stamped all over it, I'D STILL KNOW WHO BLOODY MADE IT, since i don't have Alzheimers...yet. To my mind, if an item needs advertising it should be through the kayaking communities.
Who made that? Reed did. Oh I'll get one. l like it!.
How simple is that! I feel ike a floating f*cking billboard for manufacturers. I have tested that I would still know it is a Reed garment because the first day my Acuta arrived I stripped the decals from it. Same with my Lendal Wings. Not once have I wandered outside & shocked myself into confusion about the make & model...Oh I have a Nordkapp!! or is it the Feathercraft!?! Maybe that's my skin on frame qajaq? Help I'm lost!!..

Brrr brrr -brrr brrr: Hello reed Chillcheater..
Ah yes hi, can I have an aquatherm garment without logos please?
Oh we can't really do that...
Eh?...you can't not put them on? Are you being held at gunpoint by the logo police?
Hold on, so I'm paying YOU to become a floating advert with a Reed rubber stamp on my forehead? Maybe I should advertise Cillit Bang by shouting at seals & pursuing kayak groups in the dark since there is some in the bothy toilet?

Brookes can manage not to turn their tuiliqs into advertising oppurtunities...Unfortunately I can see no chemical way of removing these decals from the aquatherm material without damaging it so subduing them permanently is the best evasion of playing fiddle to advert world. What's more, & very apparent in the photo below, the method of welding these logos to the garment invariably leaves permanent round stamp marks inside a square outline also embedded within the aquatherm fabric which eventually weakens & occasionally fails at those points. So, apart from all that, bloody great kit.

Hand subdued advertising

Hybrid Akullisaq logo subdued

That'll be my Wednesday rant.

Midnight Sun

2008-06-13T23:05:00.019+01:00

Peat boards & midnight sun

Kayaking without lights, colours still vivid on the Harris machair, pinnacled by a brief darklight of ultraviolet at 2am & some tide of light returning at 3am - we oar it all the night, weavin' olden' dances - minglin' hands & minglin' glances - 'till the moon has taken flight.
It's just become apparent how swiftly we are creeping away from dark days & pale skin into warming seas & salt on the lips, bare hoofing the sands with postive strides, kayaking & rolling while half the planet sleeps. The flash on my camera is becoming reluctant to fire at 11pm, the street lights, reluctant to soak these quiet parades of stone wall in orange sodium. It's always a pleasing thing when the midnight sun starts tuning up across the Hebrides...
Returning shoreward, boosted by a 4mtr rolling swell, dragged like a compass point to climb this gate again & portage home...I fell over, all be it impromptu, & found myself laid down beside the winter bleached boards, the smell of coconut filling the air, the qajaq spine still tied to my legs...& took this shot...& slept.
78 miles solo...ending in a ditch awash with sleep, light rain tapping the bivi skin...it's a tough life :o)

Shifting Sands

2008-05-30T12:03:00.050+01:00

Having recently returned from the screaming wild archipelagos, I was teaching a friend one on one, the basic approaches to the art of hand rolling & sculling braces in the local harbour, once a thriving trawler port. As the tide receded we packed up for the day & wandered around in the basin. Relics of the past sometimes appear from the depths with delight.
I did remark on the thought of scraping the skin on frame or the composite along the tip of this anchor & the hazards of learning to roll in a post-industrial setting. You wouldn't want to clank your head off this either while inverted. Sometimes it seems we live as veneer to the past, stroked & admiring of our own shine & presence, we layer away from the wood, the bones, that support the skin of the creatures we become. It's great how artifacts occasionally pop their heads up, wink at today, then slink quietly back beneath the shifting sands for a year.

Tentative first steps - H & new Avocet.

A few hours later & we were going through assist hand rolls, working toward fingertip assists for confidence. The class is growing, & I'm enjoying the responsibility as much as the joy of passing on technique & confidence.
Before returning to Skye, I'll take them into Dublin - the Dubh Linn, where I zen-up with my own rolls peacefully & alone. An inland venue overlooking the seas, akin to a swimming pool on an ocean liner, which often further helps in refining their own work - as it does mine. It's the colour of dark tea, almost black, blinding to the eyes, simple... yet, wide as an ocean & as deep as it is. I've never swum to the bottom in one breath...
It's one of three lochan, on two islands, I'm in the process of petitioning the Crofters Commission over & for, setting up qajaq shelters & wooden jetties to aid in & support Greenlandic rolling classes. The lochans could also be viably stocked for community fish supplies. At the time of writing this, they are dormant pools, save for the presence of visiting geese & rolling classes...
The ghost of man whispered: We once quietly trained پښتو here on the Outer machair turf & gniessian edges, to attack our own interests, when needs were just that.... & leaving unwilling yawns & nul benefits to those who were....left standing, I laid down my knife & picked up a stick.
Sands shift ;)

The Dubh Linn

Dinner is Severed

2008-05-24T16:36:00.039+01:00

Today the collie -Seobhag fìorghlan na h-ealtainn- did his job & chased down a big spring rabbit. When his turbo kicks in, that dug can shift - he took it down fair & square in open ground. Primal grunt. Today, tea was an easy process of skinning & preparation. These are the quiet bonuses of distant island life. Food is out there in many forms, if you look & have the basic skills to utilize it. From knowing your seaweeds, walking up to a wild goose without it seeing you [easy] & crustacean surgery. These are the dying skills of a thousand generations & being able to matter-of-factly live like this on remote solo kayaking trips, can be a life saver, & ordinarily, a simple lunch stop. The Coop is merely for beer, when you eventually wander briefly back into village life. I've left out the gutting process to preserve the mental welfare of those with a more squeamish constitution. I'll likely dry some of this meat into jerky for long kayak crossings in a mixed bag of Guga, dried in the same fashion. Natures glucose in it's fashion. This life is about walking barefoot at every opportunity, about feeling each stone & root underfoot, getting in, getting dirty, & getting levelled - Inuit or Hebridean. They dug & me...we love it. We're a team of sorts - even if he does fart inside the bivvy way to often...

1]Remove the feet first - always at the knee joint. Rabbit bones splinter into sharp shards.
2]Make a surgical cut along the underbelly. Remove all internal organs.
3]Pull the skin outward toward the flanks & over the rear feet. A bit like pulling a sock off. You should end up with a handbag. Remove tail.
4]Strip skin backward to the head, leaving it on as a grip. Everything should come off in one piece, ergo, preserving the pelt. Severe head under the skin. Optional: Remove rear tendons to bind as fishing line, boot lace or Taqqat etc.
5] Wipe clean with damp cloth. De-bone.
6]Go forth & make pie.

•≈ Bunny Wabbit graphic warning≈•

Fred - cute little brown bunny was hopping around a sunny field an hour ago

Peeling the skin away from the meat - normally Fred would get paunched in the field. The handbag method.

Freds dead baby - Freds dead...
Being the nice one, you will notice I have arranged Fred in such a fashion that he can observe his own autopsy. I don't care what the hippies say - THIS, is a a true out of body experience.

The remainder of Freds furry side will make a groovy glove puppet :o)
Next week, how to sauté a seal.

Wild Empty Seas

2008-05-18T19:45:00.017+01:00

A solo circuit that should be on anyones list of open crossings, screaming archipelagos & minimalist unsupported survival kayaking. A knife & a firesteel as trusted companions. From the lighthouse doss & Taigh Beannaichte on Sula Sgeir to a storm bivvy overlooking the Stoer, you are never in a hurry to return to technology & the race spilling over with it's own brand of clattering insanity...
The more I am out in these wild places, where calm seas tattoo thier own skin with intricate patterns, where tens of thousands of stones metamorph into flight at the first crimson light of dawn, from summits of struck black pelagic bastions; any feeling of needing to return, lessens considerably. Maybe it's time to re-inhabit the Hunters, or St.Kilda...lest we become overly precious of our history, forget its dynamisism, its state of constant succession, & become scared of overwriting it anew, laying down purposeful archaeology for future generations. Would we leave them instead, a legacy of plastic bottles & pre-fabricated waste along a constricted ancestral path because we market, pre-package & sanitize the terms explore - adventure - forge...

Rolling With Dubside - dvd review

2008-05-03T18:04:00.028+01:00

Well I promised a mini review of the instructional Greenlandic dvd simply entitled - Rolling With Dubside, another black brother, so here it is.

To my mind, this dvd is a no frills edit & put together with a great clarity. In the opening moments, you realize Dubside carries an excellent philosphy on kayaking rolls & his relationship with the direct environment that facilitates the art.

Philosophy

Within each roll he explains with clear narrative & visual performance of each roll, the stroke positions & how they are relative to body position at all times. One thing you will notice is the ease with which each roll can be performed with grace & fluidity, no matter it's ranking in technicality. A philosophy I carry myself into every Greenlandic rolling class I teach. At the end of each segmented examination of the inner workings of individual sculls & rolls, he takes a moment with the viewer, to recap the key points. This serves to clarify the key components internal to a clean execution each roll, in an almost 1 to 1 relationship with the viewer & gives an excellent reference library in itself for those wishing to learn a new roll, however complex or simple. This becomes the theme without deviation.

One of the examples I've chosen & put into stills from the dvd, is the Elbow Crook Roll. Pakassummillugu, in Greenlandic. This is a 3 point roll in competition, so low mid-ranged & within the grasp of most novice-intermediate rollers. As with each roll Dubside covers, he gives the viewer some brief information on the history of the rolls reason for being, & then performans it fluidly. With a clear narrative following each increment, he will then go into a few tips, tricks, & ways to progress with the roll in question, should it feel unobtainable; often taking time to point out common mistakes that keep rolling below optimum, leading to failure. But not once is there negative focus.

Elbow Crook Roll breakdown footage

There are further treats dotted around as you journey through the dvd, & I shall leave you to discover those for yourself. Overall, Rolling With Dubside is inspirational without glamour & practical without complication. It should be on anyones shelf who is interested in developing Greenlandic rolling techniques, & should serve many levels of traditional kayakers with visually clear rolling reference points, easy to follow guidelines, tips & tricks, & the occasional smile when it's far to gnarly out there on winter nights. Possibly, my only gripe, is the lack of emphasis on off-water based stretching, centre-based body rolling movement exercises & Qajaasaarneq - rope work. Maybe it will be more extensively covered in Part II, along with the Norsaq & the Straight Jacket Roll. That aside, if a dvd makes you want to go out & try, which this does to many of the people I teach, then it is worth a purchase in it's own right.

Even if you are not purely into rolling & more inclined to sea kayak touring, there are lesser instructional films of this ilk. The ability to self rescue & roll is afterall, the most effective & traditional defense, in any global form of sea kayaking. When you learn to roll effectively, I concur with Dubside...it's more a dance with a friend, than a boxing match against an opponent.
Maligiaq also agrees :o)

Sub-sections to Rolling With Dubside

*** Definately recommended & available here: •≈Dubside.net

A Simple Solution..

2008-04-28T17:36:00.004+01:00

Somebody should tell George Bush there's a shit load of oil in Zimbabwe...

A day...

2008-04-14T21:25:00.035+01:00

...at Beinn Breac, chasing waterfalls, wild wind grasses, snow flurries & collies. There were kayaks leaving for Canna, a million miles below, pin-dots in the silver slipstream of open seas. It was odd...upsetting. To be up in these reeks & no longer be able to climb as my soul dictates, I looked back down toward the seas & followed kayaks heading out West - E9, E8, V this & that....I started giggling - suddenly I was to far away from the twin important reasons for being, floundering in no mans land. With no kayak to hand below & no face to scale above, I had in an odd moment of clarity - & became that most loathsome beast, a reluctant hillwalker yomping with sangwies, yet without purpose. A twitcher without an anorak.

A Black Mesa of sorts, yet not a bad back garden to have, & go to hell in...overall...
Sometimes, it dawns on you creeping.

Weakness can be a great thing, & strength is nothing when you see through into your true self. The creature you always were. When a man is just born, he is weak & flexible, when he dies, he is hard & insensitive. When a tree is growing, it's tender & pliant, but when it's dry & hard, it dies. Ergo, hardness & strength are death's companions. Pliancy & weakness are expressions of the freshness of being & what has hardened never wins in the journey of discovering its true nature... Weakness embraces the new era - Hardness just cuases you to throw lumps of iron at your own head & drag the old era around, like a stone in a net...
Inside the dust ridden sunlit halls of finality & conclusion, the mystic waits & says, you are what you love, not what loves you...

An ataireachd bhuan -A’ sluaisreadh gaineamh na tràgh’d

Thus, these mountains & unscalable walls that claimed my youth, are no longer an encircling prison of black toothed bastion, more a shelter, a shawl around my shoulders, a mother to run to out of the school gates, a random ghillie kill, a sermon, or a well executed frost proof L96A1 acquisition, a shelter from the inane flood of human interference, a tower of fierce insanity providing this silent creature with new perspectives of the road ahead...& peace, for the sea is all around. Oil paintings come in many forms, just as there are two moons. Sorley, the baying hound screamed, Coin is madaidhean-allaidh from the abyss...& all my empty beer cans are staring at me like little puppies waiting for treats...

Climb well young Jedi. Kayak further. Who can truly number the wild stones & the free seas? What foolish beautiful architecture we pin to the world...

Seobhag fìorghlan na h-ealtainn

Now Playing...

2008-04-10T22:26:00.079+01:00

R U S H
R o l l t h e B o n e s

Sometimes, Amnesia Lane is a total trip...When I last played this at volume, I was soloing in an aluminium Grumman open canoe, accidently liberated from a high court judge, on several occasions, heading from Scotland to the South coast of England... & following burns into streams, lochs into lakes & abhainn into rivers. There was occasion to shadow the coastline 2 miles out at sea through the darklight, build clay ovens in river banks, snare animals, eat stray dogs, gutt illegal salmon from protected waters & saw trees to negotiate impasses on long forgotten canals West, through MoD land, eventually navigating into Wales & the Black Mountains. A few thousand miles without one visit to a local Coop. It's a legend of a story inside the local island enviroment. It ignited those artifacts strewn at the feet of mankinds base core, & brought further recognition to those same simple elements that empower the soul, overwriting seas of endless modern day pish...forever. In the worst moments, it was fun, in the best...it changed & challenged me. In mediocre moments, I hated anything more technological than a Swedish strike & my side arm/knife. By the end of it all I could perform 10 Storm Rolls in 15 seconds & balance brace an 18ft metal canadian open hippo with great dexterity & solo E7. Wierder moments involved full on goose defence, the theft of a wheelbarrow, several random poultry murders, the taking of a sheep & hoofing it across a field at speed with 160 strawberries breakdancing in my jumper.
To cap it all, the SCU wanted to give me a few awards for what in reality, was a struggle, self-engineered to better know myself, my anger & irreverence...typical. I should of got an award for getting through those years, through death & empty shelled self-congratulating society. Like Forrest Gump, my answer was plain sighted: One day, & for no particular reason, I decided to go runniiiing...
Since then, I have covered at least 8,000 sea kayaking miles, often surviving off the land & shores, teaching in quiet form, big bad men with guns, since there is no need for shopping in society when you can shop in the wild & live healthier. It's not a great feat, unless you live in front of a TV, taxes, cars & societys conceptualization of the norm. Man the primate, is in danger of going asleep in front of all the toys he created to keep him awake...
If somebody ever writes an article on self sustainable kayaking I will probably die laughing since it's real title would arguably be, How I Didn't See a TV or Drive My Car For A Week...

Anyhoos...I was... intemperate in my youth....& my youth, is a long time leaving. I guess they call it spirit after a certain age...It's strange how an album can reel you back to an acute moment of otherwise invisible life tapestry. Bloody kayakers aye...Now, where did I put that air guitar...

Why are we here? becuase we're here... roll the bones
Why does it happen? becuase it happens...roll the bones
-Geddy Lee-

Tools of the Traditional Trade - They stand fast against the misguided belief of buying the latest technology to up your survival rate & skill in the wild. Personally, I've never been able to chop a log, or gut a fish with an EPIRB...directly.

Solitude

2008-03-23T23:20:00.024Z

En route & alone again, heading Cuddy Point through the open Minch waters, to Berneray & N.Uist catching a slingshot up along Mangersta.
I'm just going outside & I may be some time... seemed the most appropriate light-hearted quote of departure, given the encroaching weather conditions. I wasn't to be proved wrong either.
•≈

Escaping through Atlantic driven winter surf along the exposed outer Western edge of the Hebrides can often be in total contrast to the inner sounds... Add random hail squalls to taste...I was enjoying myself so much, I almost forgot I was supposed to be escaping.
Like a quiet moment in a classic symphony where you hang emotional on the skin of becalmed waters, marvelling silent at black horizons streaked with light, or like inside a crescendo of rolling thunder where you bang the drum to an increased pace of heartbeat & fury...Solitude, equally, comes in many forms.

This is in part, why we do what we do.

This Week...

2008-03-21T15:29:00.044Z

I will be mostly getting into mischief, here:

Swell running 30ft @ 9 seconds, wind NNE Force 8-9. Sea temperature, a Mediterranean & unprecedented 8°C. The Beaufort scale also suggests that whistling may be heard in telegraph wires & umbrellas will be used with difficulty - Just as I was going to get my parasol out as a hairstyle saver while rolling in the hail storms...typical. :o)

-Update-

•≈

Fig2: Escaping the confines of the harbour to cross swords with the midway surf, has today, proven itself to be a test of steel in it's own right...a beach launch, nigh on impossible. When you're waiting to bolt out of shelter here in these conditions, timing is everything. I was having a warm up roll just out of crop below the life ring, when this came thundering over the wall.

•≈

Fig3: Later this evening, cold & satisfied, I decided to hoof it along the cliff edges, & see how conditions were fairing at the far Northern tip, & found the lighthouse ghosting through wild reeks of spray. How to die suddenly in a sea kayak...kept crossing my mind...needless to say, I turned about face & headed back for some warm dry woolly feet & the cabin wood burner. I'm capable, no a bampot, the two should never be cross-referenced. Tomorrow it may be possible. •≈Cailean will know where this part of the world is & the ferocious contempt it can muster on a whim for kayaks & shipping vessels alike...

Over stopped monochrome variation...1...2...3 ...GO! What was it the man said? Sanity is the playground of the unimaginative.

Cuillin Storms

2008-03-13T18:01:00.027Z

Just spent some time back in amnesia lane amongst the black savagery of the Cuillin, subconsciously re-arranging my perspective... This is the place that gave my shoulders their current Subacromial Impingement, the place that led to cessation of climbing & the scraping of futuristic projects. Sleeping above the snowline photographing white lava streaks of snow against wild inscisored ridges as where it has come to... No sound save for the wind tearing its skin on the summits & grazing on wild grass, in the lower reaches. It's a different perspective in a sea kayak, grandious, yet impersonal. I know every rock, howff, escape & advance up here from my obsessive & hardcore climbing days, MRT rescue assists & bothy nights. Just as I do every rock, current, & anomaly in the outer island kayaking seas. 20 years have somehow passed. I realized long ago I'm not much good at anything else, so I made both my business, thoroughly & quietly. How is it a soul can have so much confidence out here, dancing through wild overhangs on the fingertips, meeting the Atlantic storm surges head on, yet not enough to go into the local bar? How did i become this shape i am today? How do any of us?

The other news is my Norwegian buddy •≈ Jan Egil Kristiansen who stays on & kayaks out of Føroyar, is getting things organized with kayaking groups & pulling people together in his islands, & I will be sitting in woolly socks by the fire with a dram both before & after a solo of the violent seas of Fugloy. At least, I hope they will live up to the fight they gave me a few years back. I had to abort after dancing with several 40 footers. He has also started up a Faroes section within the •≈Playak community. Things are looking positive for the trip, but how much single malt should I bring Jan? A fella can drown in so many ways. :o)

When you understand body mechanics, torque & fluidity, Greenlandic qajaq or qajariaq rolling is natural - soloing E7 is no different. Be a master of whatever you do, from learning to paddle in a straight line to advanced rolling. Never compromise yourself.

Brrr...

2008-02-28T14:17:00.008Z

Shivering, sweating, coughing & puking. Add constricted throat & lungs feeling like they've been filled with concrete. Niiiice! This virus has been hellish. Add random total loss of balance when walking & burning leg muscles like I'd been running the Cuillin ridge again... All that time the collie sat on the end of the bed piling up toys, balls, random socks, empty mineral water bottles & with interrogating eyes, asking Why are we not playing outside? The gales & the rain & the dog circumnavigated my bed through each night as company & it invariably helped me sleep in patches, the sound of wind through a slightly open window, the dogs patrolling growl. By Wednesday 27 I had neared 98 hours of nil-by-mouth infliction, but had at last started to think about trying to get something by my lips other than occasional warm tea....a whole cracker maybe. I was also able to sit on the floor by the pc, wearing the downy like a giant shroud or cloak, eyes streaming, head swimming & feeling like some sort of wierd Jedi master who's main ability in using The Force, is to constantly spawn hundreds of paper Chrysanthemums out of cheap Coop boggie roll wherever he goes. I'll get back to work on the Rolling With Dubside dvd review when I can also figure out how to capture stills of the movie on desktop in jpeg form...

Today is Thursday & after a night & half a days sleep I feel incrementally more back on form, although, I think this virus has partially eaten my brain as well. Maybe I've been rewired & kayaking backwards will be the norm...

As an aside, I dont go down easy, & I don't do man flu, but this felt malarial. I never pop pills or drown in tonics for things like this becuase I believe in letting the body muster it's own army against infection whenever possible. What good is an immune system when it's turned into a local chemist junkie? You might pay the price while you're going through the worst of it, but it sets your system up strongly for the year.

Coincidence? Exactly 24 hours before this hit, I was visiting a dear old friend of mine in the local hospital...

The Tao Of Being Upside Down

2008-02-12T04:01:00.015Z

In The Tao of Pooh, Benjamin Hoff explains the meaning of Wu Wei to be without doing, causing, or making. In other words, without being meddlesome, combative, or egotistical—not going against the nature of things. Chuang-Tze tells a story about Confucius walking along the Gorge of Lu where a great waterfall plunges for thousands of feet. The waters churn violenlty below. He & his students had seen a man leap from the top into the foaming river below. They thought the man must be committing suicide, & Confucius’ students hurried to the river’s edge. When they arrived, the man was standing, shaking off the water, & beginning to sing. Confucius approached the man & asked him:

How did you manage to swim through such dangerous waters?
The man answered: I have no particular method of swimming, except that when I am in the water, I do not fight the water’s superior power. I float with it & sink with it instead of trying to force my way through it. I started my learning with what was given to me at birth, continued with what was natural for me to do, & completed by trusting what was meant to be.

Non-ado, no action, wu-wei. It means following the natural course of things and trusting what is meant to be. No effort. Control without control, coersion by letting go. A fight without a punch being thrown is nothing more than a dance afterall. Thus the confidence of rolling in storm surges & force winds will take you on a natural & extensive path of exploration, whatever the seas may throw at you. For me, it's a simple case of trusting & reading that enviroment, then calmly going with it. Oh I'm upside down, oh I'm the right way up, are just consequential elements of that process. Well, as the tuiliq drip dries by the burner & my shoulder recovers, I'm busy writing a wee review of Dubside's instructional dvd, which he simply entitled Rolling With Dubside, & it will be posted on here soon. It's also nearing planning time for the Fugloy/Faroe solo circ nav, which will doubtless see some upside down moments in the giant swell that patrols those outer reaches. First though, some more of this, over at Traigh na Beirigh... Take the box says Amy...

Black knives & white scythes - playing in the North Hebridean reeks. Rolling practise in gale driven swell.

How can you know what the edge looks like, if you don't look over it, if you're no prepared to jump or at least feel what it is to jump? - Dan Osman

Snowak

2008-02-02T08:27:00.000Z

Getting up as the dawn spread low across open ground, after storm force winds tearing up the far Northern tips of the Hebrides subside, we were faced with blizzards & subsequently cancellation of guiding the adult group over to Barra in kayaks. I also now have additional students, one aged 13 & female, the other 14, & male, brother & sister & being that age, they have a totally cool trampoline, but these recent baltic conditions & giant reeks of swell are no place for the novice at sea, adult or child. Tomorrow I will give them a solo demonstration of big surf rolling & handling skills, whatever conditions come this way. To amuse them for today, & in part, myself, I took to producing a comedy demo, & it so happens, that -

Today there was a chance to perform some Greenlandic Snow'aking skills. In figure 01, notice the aloof yet balanced mental state of the Greenlandic snow'aker as he performs a reverse sweeping stroke with half a shitty euro paddle. Good at clearing paths. Facial poise is everything in this tricky manoeuvre. Please note, when in this position, it is virtually impossible to sneak up on the Greenlandic snow'aker:

Fig 01: Aloof yet spatially aware...

Figure 02 shows the graceful finishing position after a snow'aking hand roll. Note how there is no snowball held in the forward gauntlet. Having made a complete roll without dropping the snowball, two-step deftly avoiding a random henge in the background, our Greenlandic snow'aker has tossed it exuberantly into the air & is waiting to catch it in his teeth. Our Greenlandic snow'aker is a veritable ballerina of grace, as the photo clearly shows beyond contestation. Do not try to perform this stunt without first wearing a substantial porn tash.

Fig 02: The reluctant ballerina

Figure 03. Of course, no matter how proficient the Greenlandic snow'aker becomes, no matter how in tune & zen'd up with his enviroment & oneness....there is always, always, the need for speed. A determined grimace will add at least half a knot to his performance, resulting an unprecedented turn of speed. This phenomena is not solely exclusive to Greenlandic snow'aking, indeed, riding supermarket trollies out of, or around the Coop at break-neck speed is merely a hybrid variation of this ancient art. As is anything to do with Nuuk airport.

Fig 03: Last to the beef stewpot? I don't think so...

Well that's all folks, & it simply falls to our Greenlandic snow'aker to quote a fine wisdom from the mind of Björn Thomasson: In Greenlandic snow'aking, it pays not to be to elitist, just so long as you understand that we are better at it than you.

That's all folks...

Now Playing...

2008-01-27T23:15:00.000Z

Transatlantic Sessions 3, & huddled in by the fire, just out of range of those gale driven Harris beaches, & the rolling thunder. I just had time to drop a note on Murdie Campbell about doubling up to do another unassisted St.Kilda trip before scooting out the door & island hopping North to do another rolling workshop. A day of frantic travelling through snow peppering the Clisham, only to be stormbound. Sometimes sea kayaking is a waiting game involving cabin fever antics. These antics can mean drinking ALL the Trawler rum...by accident. This leads you to believe wholeheartedly, that you are better than Hendrix, or Pat Metheny or any other celebrated guitar maestro for that matter, thus you embark on endless bouts of wobbly plinking...very badly...
Of course, through the duration, you are blind to any screeching, bum notes or loose strings. Aye, those smiles on the faces of the others gathered in the said cabin, are not forced at all & as such, are further confirmation your nimble chordsmanship. The weather has to clear up soon...for everyone's sake.

Lunar Tide

2008-01-21T23:10:00.001Z

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun...

Taken through my sizeable Schmidt Cass telescope with a low powered Baader Orthoscopic eyepiece, the moon floating over the snow toothed Cuillin & the glittering straits of a million Eldila, out toward Torridon. Tonight our unseen sled dog of kayaking tides is nearly full. The races were streaming down through Kyle, unstoppable in their march. A free ride in the right direction for the kayaker with the wisdom of timing on his side, an uphill thrash in the SoF if you are blind to the direction of stampede & the jellyfish rave.

Earlier this evening I caught sight of headtorches & figures scampering across the ridge toward Sligachan. In the small hours, as the sky rotates, I will get coffee on the boil & gaze into Zeta Orionis, Alnitak, Alnilam & the horse latitudes. Only 2 days until I can hit the water again. Night kayaking is an underrated adventure, crossing open inland seas & straits, blacked out & cutting smooth water with stealth, I carry minimilist equipment, no nav aids or electronics, no BA, flares or any light that hinders my ability to make use of spectral range limitations. Dive strobe & an Underwater Kinetic Mini aside. That is a night run, the Skye bridge blinking green & red at it's gaping apex; a far distant orange flicker of streetlights dot the black edges where only a few hours before, shrill screams & echoes of laughter drifted across the water from emptying bars.

I listen motionless, far out on the water surface, & moving North my eyes catch occasional white beam traces of cars snaking through the Cuillin at 3am, those barbaric teeth fading into cloud peaks & flattened lines as I meander up along Rona & through the z-berth. Cutting in through Garbh Eilean for the slingshot & swinging momentarily alongside the rocks, black wire haired fingers of seaweed stroke the hull & something spooks violently on the shoreline. I find my hand has already checked my Seal knife but quickly dismiss my foolish reaction. A sea otter? possibly... Occasional bats will blip the kayak with sonar & for all I know they could be subcontracted by QinetiQ, & I stroke away fluidly through the Inner Sound & turn for Portree, performing a few roll variations in the black depths of a mid way no mans land. I hear a whale blowholing out in the darkness NW of my course & cutting my rythm to an all stop, I lay my torso onto the forward deck, lowering my silhouette but more importantly, adjusting my sightline along the vague horizon to pick out any shape in the darklight, but I am unable to make visual contact. We are each lit by only the singular awarness of eachothers presence, & each under the pull of that watchful lunar eye, both sharing for a moment, a seperated existance, we pindots say our farewells & coast away within the shadow cast by an entire planet...

Now that's a night out.

Pelagic Bastion

2008-01-17T15:35:00.000Z

This is the harbour wall up at Port on Lewis, that turns the sea into a safe rolling pool on its lee-side for novice classes when I visit from Skye to teach. Often battered by huge swell, we have each, in our fashion, stood atop of the precipice carrying individual reasons for being there, rubbered or tired, through full moons & storms, midnight screaming at the sky, or on days of peace or days of rage, craning down into the Drums 30ft drop off churning abyss bottled-necked rollers & rock, & clung to the edges in a hail of rain marvelling with laughter inside Atlantic sonic booms of spray. We have made running dives off here between the rocks, equally, sat & done nothing more adventurous than talk... Like an old tree, this otherwise ordinary wall has seen a lot, & as an aside, provided in it's time -

Fireworks for the pelagic.

Come to the edge,

No. we are afraid, it is too high.

Come to the edge.

& they came.

& he pushed them & they flew.

Rolling Debate

2008-01-11T15:59:00.000Z

There is an excellent rolling discussion developing on UKRGB called •≈ Rolling in Anger, & linked here.

So far I've stayed out of it, & had to bite my tongue a few times already, but it's interesting the ideas kayakers have about spacial awarness, the hip snap myth & difficulties & relevancies of rolls &/or rolling ability within sea or white water kayaking. The comparison of a Euro rhetoric to Greenlandic approaches is equally interesting. If I, & other practitioners of the art, can perform nearly all roll sets with a broom handle & in harsh sea conditions, how relevant is the paddle, kayak, PFD, hairstyle, versus technique & fluidity...

Try to think of a roll as having no beginning or end; more, an integral part of a sea kayaking journey. Do you remember those circular stencil drawing toys that were around in the 70's? Spirographs. You never knew how the pattern would turn out, but you immersed yourself in the game.The discovery. Think of the hands, paddle, or broomstick drawing a pattern inside that as the outer completes one circle of rotation. Everything happens becuase of the force on the internal bar, no muscling, just roll over. Another example: A roundabout in a childs playground can be stopped in jerked grabs from the outer edge, but becuase of the momentum it will rip the stopee along with it. A roll executed from the centre is similar. Try grabbing the middle of the roundabout in the centre & stopping it. Impossible. So if the execution of the roll is strong from the axis, everything else will follow. I have demonstrated this with two heavy people bear hugging either end of the kayak & managed to hand roll without hindrance.
The kayak wants to self right, & that in short, is the truth. The only time rolling should hurt is when you bang yer heid on the the stones in the sea or riverbed becuase it's to shallow, Qajaasaarneq training aside. :o)
The passenger who misinterprets these physics is the one who stops it happening. Analysis beyond the lesson of physical application is just that. It complicates any execution of the roll you are attempting, thus you are doing it wrong.
The first job of the novice then, when sat in a sea kayak, is not get in the way of a perfectly natural process. His second, is to compliment or move with & aid that process. It's all in the approach. It's an odd thing that a kayak will roll perfectly without a person aboard, yet many kayakers when learning, seem to be intent on stopping it from doing so. :o) Just as we must become the change we want see in the world. The qajaq wants to self right.

Ergo

You cannot organize freedom

Days of Rage...

2008-01-06T19:54:00.000Z

...& wild surf.

Coming in after an extensive session in the wild cold expanses & towering rollers beyond the sand bars toward The Eye. We went armed with all the toys we could find. Kayaks, boogie boards & surf boards. Doorsteps of Stollen cake, flasks of kickstart & yards of black tailored neoprene. All of us were numb from the head down, drained & aching with satisfaction by the time the light started to fade. I took to going up against 15-20ft waves, getting broadsided on purpose, & following the arc of current to a point of invertion. This is a rollercoaster for the soul. One swift & fluid movement of the blade & you're up, righting onto the backside of a leviathan, blocking out land as it rolls towards it's final destination. You feel yourself glide downhill into a trough & become aware of another shadow forming overhead, the rush of air & bellowing noise lifting you into the tube...roll & repeat until exhausted.
For those without a bombroof repertoire of rolls, high seas like these carry a clearly marked no entry sign. They are stuck to paddling small waves inside the forward seclusion of the sandbars. There's nothing wrong with it, I just couldn't live like that. People walking dogs, & themselves, along the beach stood & gawped & when I came ashore, they hurried over in excited chatter.
Are you totally insane?
Apparently. I replied with a lop-sided grin.
Days of peaceful rage like these certainly have their moments...
The second best thing, is that you really appreciate a hot brew & a fireside in the evening, after dancing with the mid-winter Atlantic. In the top picture, the 2 surfers are as gay as they come, together for 12 years & one is a presenter on Radio NaGael, with his own show, the other is fluent in god knows how many languages. Despite their talents, I have to say they are arguably the crappest surfers on the planet, but I love them both. Sorry boys, but that's what you get for making me paint 16 acres of harl in the middle of firking summer. :o)

Alone & breathless

When life offers great adventure, you don't refuse it.

Physeter Macrocephalus

2008-01-03T15:18:00.000Z

Another dead whale comes ashore in the Hebrides. This one came to rest on the beach at the foot of a pals croft. A juvenile sperm whale, some 20-24ft in length, probably around 15-20 tons, with a tear along the last quarter of it's torso, exposing the intestinal tract. It also had extensive body scarring, possibly due to the rocks rather than pelagic brawling or marine fishery net entrapment. This male must have only recently, in terms of a possible 80 year life span, left the nursery to venture the planets oceans in solitude.
It's always better to come across them alive, diving & breaching - always sadder when it comes down to recording any distinct markings, looking for a WRP tag & reporting it in as deceased. But natures natural cycle of life, is inclusive of death, discerning of weakness, strength & progression, like it or not.

As children we held a simplistic & inquisitive fascination with dead things. We would walk the burns, waist deep until the source, ham & marmalade sangwies above our heads, & examine all creatures, dead fish, dead polecats, dead woozles, seals, gulls & once, a whale carcass...
Put yer hand in its fanny!
That's no it's fanny, that's it's hole to breathe with..
So it's got teeth, put yer hand in...dare ya
Nobody did it. It was stupid. Nobody wanted to lose a hand. We put sticks in instead. To test it.
I remember its opaque eye being as large as my fist. I wanted to dig it out & keep it, but just as you learn that taking the goldfish out it's bowl & giving it hot water to swim around in, is not good, no matter the intention, I realized that the eye would not, overall, make an impressive marble ala jewel to present on the school playground. It had confused me for a moment & I'd found myself saddened at the giant carcass, yet wanting to climb inside it's mouth & explore. To dare it to eat me. I'd have died a hero. Jonah. I'd have been spat out on Barra & had to get home on my own. Yet, probably, to also impress the girl from the next village who was, in her flowered dress & wellies, also present at the gathering. As children living inside the land we were often coldly matter of fact about the birth & extinction of animals, just as summer meant playing out into the dark & rolling in smelling of soil & wood smoke, winter meant no leaves & long yarns, turning turf by the fireside wrapped in towels, with clattering teeth. Each winter brings death. Each year is a new life. One without the other? That's a dessert.

Eoropaidh Surf

2008-01-01T16:41:00.000Z

New Years Day...& something strange had happened... :o)

Oops

2007-12-28T18:40:00.000Z

The toolbox takes a knock

Well that's when you know your using it aye, when stone meets kevlar & gel coat. Oddly enough, after scrabbling around amongst the stones for an hour, I found the tiny black fragment & was able to epoxy it back in later. This is life & if you live in the currents & challenge the elements, you will develop the odd scar here & there, the odd abrasion & bruise. One day this new addition to the kayak family will resemble its brethren, each in turn, vying to resemble my own physical appearance in totality. Best viewed with a half squint at distance.
.

Stone Wave

2007-12-26T19:18:00.000Z

Hebridean geology is wrought with bends in the earths skin - torn through like fractured bone open to the air. The longevity of shift, the subsonic murmur of tectonic plates, time & erosion. I feared once, that if I had put my hand upon it, I would have felt the heartbeaten scream of the very leviathan that carries us.

These curves make a great volcanic seat for about 15 or 20 people in a storm, & often becomes the spectator area when kayakers, surfers & kite surfers gather to fling their skills against giant Atlantic swell. Even if I'm not there with the qajaq, teaching rolls & wave combat, it's a great walk to the stone wave with the collie, made better in storm surges & high winds somehow; & throughout winter, the seat is empty, save for a lone figure with a woolly hat & a spinning dug chasing empty plastic bottles through a gale...

Hebridean Squall

2007-12-23T19:42:00.001Z

Hebrides, Faeroe, Bailey: Northerly violent storm force 11, backing southwest, gale 8 later.. Seas high or very high decreasing, very rough, occasionally severe gale 10...becoming psychotic...

I think I'll sit this one out. Well I wouldn't want to loose my hat aye... The seas around Rubha Robhanais, aka the Butt of Lewis, & the drum are shown above. The only way to get these shots was to lay down at the very edge of the abyss, under the lighthouse with it's pulsed light scanning in set clicks out toward the growing dark, 100ft plumes of spray screaming into the atmosphere, white lava streaking black volcanic incisors, the communication rig wires droning in the midst of an endless onslaught. Just inland, the active kayak is held down by 4 large gneissian boulders & 2 ballistic straps. The chimneys are rattling & the collie has gone into hiding. Squalls like these go some way in justifying why I have a woolly sock collection of gargantuan proportions, a bomb proof jacket & boots, & more often than not, a pot of hot coffee chattering to itself on the stove.

Whezzit?...

2007-12-17T20:11:00.000Z

Every blog needs a whezzit moment. This will be instantly recognizable to some of you, but whezzit? Obviously I know exactly wezzitiz & once spent a night bivvied up on it with an unnerving swell growling at my feet. It's a good paddle out for a whiz round the whezzit with hoozzit & whatsit. That's not cloud formation in the far distance, but a range of mountains. I'm sure I can get old Donald to donate one of his ancient wellies & a healthy pinch of chewing tobaccie as a prize to the one who guesses right...

Harbour Rings

2007-12-14T16:16:00.000Z

Metamorphic shipping chain - Reminders of Portrees history as Europes busiest 19th© Herring port, are just below the black basalt sand & pelagic weed - The blood of an islands survival dilutes these waters...It may sound like a bit of a generalization, but I can't help believing that some people arrive & they take photos of some pink house, a seagull, eat a bag of chips & fall back on the coach, herded, labotomized, seeing nothing on a macro scale, & they say, that was a good day, as I bury a cigarette butt, one of them idly flicked over a century of history...

I'll put on inadvertant rolling shows for the tourists in summer, tow some local waifs out to the lifeboat & back, & I'm often heckled from the shore, & roll to cries from kids wrapped around the harbour railings like so many Stretch Armstrongs. Watchout, it's the SBS! Or if I'm close enough in: Hey mister, can I clap yer dug? The collie does well on chips & sausages down there. Or as one wee Norwegian girl asked, pulling on the corner of my tuiliq after I slid onto the sands:

Are you a bad Eskimo?

Had I of been mentally on-guard for such a line of questioning, my retort may well have been: 'Fraid not, but I do know where Evil Santa lives.

Ancient harbour rings, clattering trawlers, & ropes & marker bouys & mistral gannets, nets & weeds & clouds & things that move in rings, like light...I'll be down there...resting days before the next kayaking expedition across the Minch, visualizing the next rolling scenarios, rigging the prawner with Fraser. Gaff-cutter-rigged that one is...gaff-cutter-rigged; & I've got one eye on the Cuillin one eye on the straits up along Rona - one hand on the winch. Hot village coffee in chipped enamel mugs, sore shoulders, a grinding knee, kids turning shells & shrieks on the mud slithering tide, shadowed by dark dank & dripping green joists. They move along the shore ahead of the shadow, almost subconsciously...not much changes in generations of play. Packing trays, hose pipes & boning knives. Extended sessions of street blether, leaves drafted along guttered yellow lines, free mackerel, lost change in drains & the pie shop ovens on the breeze. There is a feeling of snow in the air...the kayak is being licked by a creeping tide...I'll have a roll in at 3pm...a cows knee from old Doni Matheson for they dug & using his cleaver as an expression of full-stop, he extends to me in Gaelic, the whole historical village heyday, & his youth in hard shoes, & I'm hurried along inside great vivacious swirls of laughing ghosts...of herring port clammer, salmon fishery finery & bustle, swept into my grandfathers days, when women had beards & men kept worms on Iniseer...Sump oil for the soul boy. Sump oil for the soul.

With the Strait of Shadows beyond the hunter mast - you roll with an eye on the open water beyond & if you're balanced & fast on your feet, you can run a jump reverse somersault clean off the highest yard-arm into the winter sea, clear over double-rafted trawlers below. It's an HSD - Health & Safety Dismount aye....well ok it's no a HSD but it's hell-of-a quicker, just don't take thee paint pot & spanners as well, cuase they clatter a bit on touchdown.

Into the Flower Garden..

2007-12-10T04:58:00.000Z

ۀ别

十面埋伏洋

The Banjaxed & The Clay Jug

2007-12-04T23:51:00.000Z

'S iad sin mo Eachraidh Allaidh

Inside this clay jug are canyons & pine mountains, & the makers of canyons & pine mountains...All the seven oceans are inside, & hundreds of millions of stars. The acid that tests gold is there & the one who judges jewels, & the music from the strings that no one touches, & the source of all water. If you want the truth, I will tell you the truth; Friend, listen: The god whom I love - is inside.

Kabir [1398-1518]

[Act I]

Sitting amongst the storms, Jackie Leven on repeat, his smokey tones drifting into the emptiness & the joyless box I loosely excuse as home... Faerie Tales For Hard Men, Peace Comes Dropping Slow, the beautiful & extraordinary Ian Rankin tapes, a glass of rum, a jar of pain, numb hands all warmed, the black knife held to the ground with straps & boulders, out in the dark somewhere. I don't know why I don't put the heating on here, why the window is adrift amongst a parade of cold stars...why I wait for one voice to call out below. Should I burn the fiddlers who would unmask strength & strip away the paint on her face? Should I sweep up the machair & tear down this oil painted sky canvas. Chase these vast sweeps of rain to the cliff edge., swinging at them like a madman wi a hurley stick...it's a stupid gesture anyway. A cartoon going up against a classic. Bart going up against Marlene Dietrich. Cyrano de Begerac vs a Dundonian sashay... Tell me I'm an idiot child of the Gael, dreaming of horses on the range... & send through your Parthian Shot. Wee me, father to a murderd aubergine, shagger of the neighbours cat, & I will have my wheelie-bin back...in this life or the next. It was an island rant, & the award for daftest Gladiator impersonation, fell to myself, & as my accolade landed in my lap, as we unrolled the Skeabost track back, a black carpet tracked, by Don's hellish clattering taxi through darklight & rain, Archie snoring on the left, as the rest of us locked into a desperate round of elbow boxing - I thought I'd stumbled across enlightenment - then promptly lost it. The lights on the dial drifted us into the village...

I dinnea ken how Don drives so fast...we're gonnea die man...

No, you're looking onto they rev counter there Alec, we're barely tagging 30.

Aye, we'd be better off in a Coop trolley...

Boys, would ye like to run behind they trolley & check the brake lights are workin'?

No Don, sorry Don...

And the helter-skelter ends with a low drone & the shuffling of dross, hand to hand, & like a jettisoned child subject to the prolonged sufference of secret indoor violence, I find myself alone...reluctant to enter my own front door & embrace the void. And it's coming round Christmas again, & it's just another Monday, or what ever day it falls on, & I'll probably have a can o' they beans wi sausages in that day...Executive, & my teeth are going wrong, & my soul has no longer all the strength of stone, more the holding knit of Lego, & within this freedom with all it's arms flung open, I have become little more than a prisoner. And some fucker in telecommunications will press the sofa advert avalanche button in a few days, -thats no a SAAB boy- initiating a 4 week avalanche of perfect people flinging themselves through patio windows, in an attempt to relate how good the sofa truly is... but hey, in 2 weeks & a few more days, all the tinsel will smell of pish & international debt & kings & queens will still sleep on the streets... & I'll still be sitting on the floor, scared of laying things out. I mumble to myself that, Stars are constant, that they don't run & shift in the weather... & I swing my eyes toward Pleiades, Maia Oureias, up through breaking cloud, & it feels like I'm falling through my own body, through another cold exit wound, & an old African wisdom steps through my mind, its hand on my shoulder... & I think of my pals that have laid down forever in the dust kicked up by war, & the leopard that shared my bed as an adolescent, back on the Côte d'Ivoire ...

Do not, seek to much fame.

Or do not, seek obscurity - be proud.

But do not, remind the world of your days.

Excell, when you must.

But do not, excell the world.

Many heroes are not yet born.

Many have already died.

To be alive, to hear these words - is a victory.

I remember the smell of that mans arm on my head, testosterone fuelled black magnificent skin, sweat & wisdom, & while standing there on the wet tarmac, musing at how magnificently romanticized the orange glow seems to make drain water appear, I know I'd swap a million of these pointless nights of laden trash, for just one with a girl hiding from her own scars, & becuase I don't see her life as a rehersal, or as a cheap 5 minute comedy sketch, it's a punishment by proxy of sorts, a karma wrought from distant past events that suffocates forwardness in the present, & then I realize, we should be pushing forward, getting stronger, not scattering like supernovae, her, us, this race, but my grace, & usefulness leans pelagic or high into the stone ariel boundaries. Beyond here, I know I'm surplus & bypassed, shelved & overwritten by the glamorous & the glitterballed & the ordinary alike. And then I realize, there are no photos of me as a child, anywhere, & nobody searching for any. That the label on the vacuum packed fish in the fridge still reads Use by 01/07, & there is dust in the bath & on the tops of these decayed candles...& these walls are become the skin of a drum, that no longer resonates with or remembers the frequencies of laughter. That this roof is loveless & serves only to keep the rain off a few toys that carry no great purpose or meaning anymore, & the compass by which the soul navigates, is defaced. And the decades pace up & down & leave without glancing back, & people out there are killing eachother & decieving eachother & I want to split the world with a sword. Is this why I've taken to sleeping the day & walking with they dug, my unwavering escort, down through qiuet streets, along the loch & onto the summits at 2 or 3am?...Is this why I'm prone to sit qiuetly with the stags in the hills through such seasons? Is this it? Banjaxed & marginal in the eyes of the race like some lone radio operator in Antarctic storms, calling for contact, & only coming through in waves.

And she says, How I wish I could fly, where none can see me, behind the ray of light. I'm giving you to the rain little one, in whispers.

But we should be discussing how big the fireplace will be right now, where the cement mixer is gonnea live...trawling junk shops for an old piano, a sofa good at refereeing cushion fights, ultimate bling, & a Pogues cd...

And a scythe moon cuts & the doors on the snip & I turn the handle...

I also, while fighting my boot laces, in a who the fuck tied this moment, make an oath, never to try Aretha Franklin's - I Say A Little Prayer in public, ever again. -less cheek darlin', it's no as bad as Michael Ball & Skittles- But unlike many, I hope my victims have recovered, that there is no lasting damage, & slither down the wall in an unavoidable resignation, of the fact that I would have been better placed on the speeding, reeling & blurred Glasgow armco intersection with a bottle of buckie given that performance...overall.

Stings deed I'm tellin ya!... & I only work on philosphy darlin'. - Jackie always makes me laugh.

Aye Jackie, you do. But no from the belly, like her...

[Act II]

Upside I guess, I have 2 new students of rolling coming on board for the new year, who are seperate from this existance. Students to whom of course, I will only impart joy & positivity. I have been explaining the dance to them, some simple workable theory based in Aikido principles, wherein you do not defeat a situation head on, but use it's own momentum to pass through it. We will start with some unique rolling exercises, best performed on a lawn with no kayak. I've never seen anyone else use this as an instructional device to the degree, & in the style that I do - they should. You'd have to turn up to see what I mean. In the realms of Aikido, the purpose of training in a dojo is for discovery & for growth, not for performance of what you already know. It's the same when you start rolling kayaks Greenlandic style. It's the same with a group on a dojo of grass. My 2 new students are already comfortable saying they don't know & in that acceptance, they are set for a great learning experience. There is a natural process involved in learning & growing, whether you're an Aikidoka or kayaker learning technical combat rolls - there should be no straight punches, but systems of defence that curl around an external assualt. We will begin by undoing these crass braces that come from what I see as a backward SCU/BCU format, the uneccessary almost thuggish, yet profoundly weak Euro rhetoric, by practicing small parts of techniques & principles, then putting some of the parts together & try to make them work smoothly as a whole movement, from the centre outward, fluid & strong without muscling a single roll. We usd to call them paddle thrashers on account of them looking like a bag of fighting cats clawing their way upright. The paddle in truth, is the last thing you need to use in rolling effectively, with grace & power. It does give your hands something to do while you go through sets though...So, often the parts work well but fall apart when the whole technique is attempted. Gradually, their understanding of the parts & of the whole will merge. Such a focus does not only improve the roll, but questions the style of the individuals paddling & asks them to conform to or expand his/her personal ability. Also, & in the passing of time, I have learned that I am a far more competent roller of said kayaks than I am practioner of said Aikido, but the teaching device & ethic carries with me into today. We will have fun.

Aside, I'll probably generate a few laughs trying an idea I have for performing an out of the water, mid-air Storm Roll. Does it sound as though I'm conceptualizing? I'm confident it's possible to perform multiple controlled & clean 360° twist mid-air exits off the back of roller sets. When I nail that. I'll try it with the paddle held under the kayak. Mid-air Qaanap Ataatigut Ipilaarlugu then. Qaannap from qajaq, kayak - Ataa meaning its underside - Qaannap Ataatigut meaning to push up against & under the kayak -Ipilaarlugu meaning to turn or rotating the whole thing as one entity - paddle reseting the roll balance, not the person. When you perform such rolls, the mechanics of the roll should not be at the front of your mind, you should not be putting mecano together, taking notes upside down, more, you should capsize & just find yourself upright again, effortlessly, fluidly, as if all the parts of the engine are working in unison with a subconscious ease...Well we all know the car doesn't start some mornings...that's why I'm here. Big swell becomes not a threat - more a playground. In technical climbing, you only need to climb HVS to be able to climb all over the world, in kayaking, you only need a few bombproof survival techniques for the oceans to open up. The ability of the kayaker to self-right is the climbers ability to tackle a crux sequence. Within reason, anything is rollable with confidence, open canadians & SoTs included. When I try to empower someone with the ability to roll, I also attempt to help them lose the them & us, the it against me attitude they so often carry to the shoreline. They so often stand there seeing the ocean as being a confrontational entity, something to be beaten into submission, rather than part of the joy, part of the toolbox. Kabir attempts to tell us that all the faith we need, is inside ourselves, that we have no seperation from our enviroment, that behind the mystic there is physical structure, that does not always need acute analysis, that the most complex answers are held within simplicity, that there are no foes, save for the ones that we conjure.

Use the fork Luke.

Ice Kap मौसम

2007-11-10T19:47:00.001Z

Now here's a thing, Dubsides new •≈Ice Kap≈• ...phwooooaar. Nearly as sexy as my Anas Acuta. I like what they did in lowering the coaming as well for technical layback rolls, but how is he ever gonnea get that on a bus or over his shoulder on a bicycle? Also, his Ice Kap is an unprecedented ¼" wider than my composite Acuta. It'll be like trying to roll a sheiks yacht, I'm telling ya. -People will tell you my bottom lip usually comes out quickly if I have to play in anything wider than a pencil- The Acuta is also 11.5" deep... thus 1"shallower than the LV Ice Kap & its 12½". The Ice Kap beats the Acuta on weight by a few pounds but that said, I've never strapped either to my head in readiness for hoofing it in a road race, so any relevancy there, falls away when it comes to acrobatic dances across the skin of the ocean. At the moment I can perform 85% of roll sets in my Acuta composite without faltering, compared to 100% repertoire in the Sgian Dubh SoF. I'm sure I'll keep a quiet eye on how the black brother does in his transition. Great looking qajariaq though Dubs. All this has somehow reminded me to practise more bizzare rolls. Broomstick, done it...deckchair, done it...juggling clubs, 4, 2 in each hand resembling a double Norsaq roll, done it.....frying pan, of course! Now if I managed it with a pigs leg would that be a bacon roll or a ham roll? Don't even think about it. Just pass the ketchup.

Now for comedy, how about a rolling set performed on a •≈sit-on-top≈• . The excellent Leon Somme along with the black brother have a roll-off using a variety of bath tubs...Beyond the technical rolls, what is great about this movie is that it is also, & moreover, a display of community, fun & togetherness, integrity & humility, it is overrun with mischievous humour - ergo, it is a place where the ego & the willy waver have no place. This is how the world should always be, & this, to my mind, goes some way in helping to explain, why we do what we do..

Well, this morning when I peaked out the window, there was a dusting of snow in the Cuillin & the leaves were all but gone from the trees. I'm away to teach a roll or three in some near Baltic conditions. Sadly, no beautiful brilliant Maylee to share this one with since she's away to scare fish in Jersey...but hey, now I have digital camera waterproofing, I'll try to get some shots, maybe some film, of how it all goes. Stay safe out there ladles & jellyspoons. Now... where did I put that frying pan...

-you have to read the One On One post below to make sense of the frying pan aye-

मौसम

One on One

2007-11-09T18:50:00.000Z

Well. Go home, pay bills, chase the collie around a wee bit, fight a rubber chicken & then think. What am I doing here, I need the sea. It takes hours rather days for a fix need to start attacking my senses. Sometimes, often, those fixes lean selflessly towards others. When teaching it's two-step. I get to get wet & pass on knowledge. What is knowledge but stale bread unless you share it amongst a community. It's almost payment in itself, a complete contract by default that enhances the days of those who satellite through my life. Next week I will set off in the sea taxi -that's the Calmac ferry to you lot- back up through winding Harris roads & onto the streaking Northern Lewissian tip to teach a long standing pal, the art of the hand roll. GASP! Wee arty farty •≈Helen≈• is a classic novice...full of expectation, questions excitement & trepidation.

We will use a thin black knife to roll her & I will use the harbour at Port. It's a perfect place, high walled from a raging ocean 30ft away, it provides gentle rolling swell as well as stillness & security. She has never made a complete unassisted roll...ever, so these issues are important to address. Towards the back of the harbour, freed of fishing vessels & towing tractors over winter, a peat burn cascades out of long grass into the clear seas, turning the whole arena into dark brown bathwater.

She says: Oooh, I love waterfalls.

I say: I'm sorry...but I'm seeing a cows ass here.

Either way the resultant waters will do wonders for her spacial awarness. When you invert, you can taste the transition from fresh to saline water. You can feel the temperature barrier. It's one of those things you never mind doing, standing chest deep, building confidence in someone who generally, hides from maruading waves. I'm confident I will be able to get her to balance brace quickly...hand roll as well. Bendy females aye. She did well on her first session at the Stornoway pool - Tim & Murdies local haunt. The lads allowed her to focus on play, which is excellent. Play & familiarization with a strange enviroment is an underrated teaching device. One on one clinics are special, in that they allow you to direct so much more focus & input toward the novice. You can gesture to them directly, & indeed, some of them gesture back. It allows them to focus their frustration directly at you when they can't grapple a sequence directly into submission. Maybe that's a downside but minimalst workshops allow you to address brilliant questions like:

What will happen to my nose when I roll?

With a greater presence & clarity. We'll move onto using a paddle maybe one day soon. In contrast, the things others find awesome, my ability to perform straight jacket rolls & solos out to far flung dangerous & pelagic rocks are almost day-to-day for me. I have my own celebrations in life which they find humorous, like buying a frying pan. I will happily stalk people in the village for 3 days until they fully understand that I have indeed, bought my own frying pan. We each have steps in life that make us feel as though we are progressing, & none of them are wrong. Well ok, maybe the stalking bit....So these rolling clinics with friends...what do I get out of it besides getting wet? Chicken dinners & floors by wood burners normally. Payment in full aye.

One silent arc, swept through one spineflow,

thread me, torn complete along a knife edge.

& I have displaced the priest within.

My body is born of stone mountains, my blood is run over with sea.

An avalanche of a million green boulders,

Tumbling in my ears, the suspension of state,

Rotating over existance surfacing into silence.

Now I am become death & Shiva, destroyer of worlds, my anthem immigrant,

a soul harbourered just offshore - & I can no longer speak, carrying a mouthful of stars.

Follow...or walk away.

Sunday...

2007-10-28T12:25:00.001Z

...& rain in the Valley, so to speak - & rain in the sky. Streaks of sun & white scratches across the seas. It can be a tough existence on the islands, make no mistake. Executive decisions often plague us, decisions far tougher than those that plague the white settlers, such as which direction to point the damn kayak in, or which one to take...Should I wear black...or black? Which untouched coral beach should I set off from... So sometimes you just sit in the machaired garden & take shots of rain on your black Acuta & get a wee bit distressed by it all, in woolly socks... wi a cup of tea... It's Sunday afterall.

This evening I'll maybe start writing up an amusing draft for OP of the Sgor na Lice & Sulasgeir solo - basically paddling out to a large distant gannet skerry full of poo, & back, pursued on occasion, by insane Nisich. I will also deftly weave into this, a relevant historical Norwegian handover in 1266, of a group of islands later to become known as the Na h-Innse Gall & later still, the Hebrides.

Flames...

2007-10-21T18:49:00.000+01:00

...18 seconds before sunrise, & fire in the trees & along the creeping paths - & shedding a million paper streams down through her mountains & towns, when I returned home, Autumn was waiting, dressed like a Geisha, weaving ahead of the light & a world in flames...

The ensuing days will be spent stripping the crass decals from my otherwise perfectly jet black new Anas Acuta with a heatgun. The nylon deck lines will also be replaced with traditional Taqqat & Qoorutit using bone & antler. The silver bolts will be blackened down & the task of making a laceable storage sock out of ballistic nylon will begin. The newest black knife needs to look good for the Fugloy solo from hell aye, even if it won't last, & that rock covered in snow is a 3 course sight for the soul. Well, ballistic nylon is my material of choice when skinning framed boats & being a versatile material, it could arguably be used to fashion some seriously hardcore underpants. It's also a great winter storage bivvy for sea kayak asleep under the leaves. -& wave pilots who are over the limit for hill walking-

A big handy shaky thanky moment as well to •≈Doug Wilcox≈• for his invaluable help in getting the latest slinky black beast onto the islands in time for some wave & roll demolition. For now, Qajariaq VII is in pre-match isolation...Soon we will, let the boxing begin. One distant day, when time is cursed with more folds than a sword, we will meet in The House of the Trousers & not care for boxing, but for now, it's time to practise more Qajaasaarneq in the tall trees, with Sigur Rós.

The West is Best...

2007-10-17T16:48:00.001+01:00

Playtime warm-up for the Seven Hunters -58°17'N 7°35'W- solo sprint

...& rolling through chasms with Storm Petrel...& wind waves, & the wild wild knife parties & this black streaked with silver & these snot lines down our faces & this laughter ache in our eyes, jumping waves like standing stones, skinless blizzard bleached bones & dressed in rags...Some glitterball, this life, its currents & its ways beyond contestation, all paraded over & lit up. These narratives of navigation, by foot, or water drop. Push the stove door closed with your toes -We should go out into the rain again - just like we said we always would...

Time for a jolly out across a horizon cut with swell again.

Stormy Weather Ahead

2007-10-03T15:28:00.000+01:00

Just a wee reminder to everyone that the 2nd UK Storm Gathering is closing in This year it's being held on the Isle of Lewis from the 18th through to October 20th. An update of swell is forming at the website link below. Last time I spoke with Freya she said she probably wouldn't make it this year, & was on about NZ, so we'll roll together some other time. Mike is also stuck over in Dunning Glen...I say stuck...wi a pint more likely & May-Lee is away to the clear warm waters of Toikey -Toikey being the Bronx twang version aye- on her big deep dive master & rescue course. I however, get to sit on a seaweed rock & throw stones at shopping trolleys in a grey harbour...hmm anyway, Boyles Law miss!

p¹V¹/ p²V²
pV = k

Well, New Zealand or Stornoway harbour?...hmmm that's a hard choice. Either way it should be a great gathering with plenty of locals on the island hoolie hop & grabbing sea taxis here & there...Thursday morning I'll be meeting Doug Wilcox off the ferry at Harris - Soon I'll be starting work on the black & white kayak rolling film. Stormy weather ahead?...aye, a ghillie in the mist can hope.

Waiting for the storm..

≈2nd UK Storm Gathering≈

≈An Lanntair ≈

Fladda Chúain, Na Hearadh...

2007-09-26T17:48:00.000+01:00

Ru Idrigill - guard to the Southern Minch .

Pelagic heading set for Fladda Chúain, Harris, Scalp & the Uists, West-Nor-West. An eagre Fulmar escort stands-by, throwing arced warm up laps overhead, while the radio crackles out dutiful prose in my right ear, familiarity over strengthening wind...

Malin Hebrides: Northerly 5 or 6, veering easterly 3 or 4. Moderate or rough, occasionally very rough at first. Fair. Good.

You bang out the coffee mug on clattering black basalt, & breathing in the sky, everything is how it should be - just as it is either way, & you're good to go. You listen to that poetic timbre sliding further North along the hips of the current, letting the loch decide temperament.

Fair Isle, Cromarty: Variable 3 or 4. Moderate or rough...

Remembered days way back, finding Finisterre to be a Latin corruption of Finis Terre....end of earth. Radio 4 & Sailing By - almost...womb music for adults, or children of the Gael; those of us who sprouted up like weeds beyond range of the TV signal. Curled warm at night by a creaking storm window with the Long Ranger placing markers in the soul, & those markers, like pipe smoke, somehow force a stronger navigational bearing than the lone black starting gun of Ru Idrigill.

The drone of a mad forging prawner herd becomes nothing more than an occasional flicker of green & red on the horizon. The wake of LRSF drifts out behind, becoming silent & Harris forms a distant shape across open territory.

Good to go.

Tha Torunn a' Chuain..

2007-09-24T23:36:00.000+01:00

Surviving trace elements of Norwegian ice, sleep on my window ledge. These coins, this matrix of coral stone, carry their own memory of black qajariaq, arctic flow & ravine, cut deep & strait as bone. Strike at me from here & I will set fire to your soul...

Hvor er mitt frössen sjel forfører ...

Seobhag fìorghlan na h-ealtainn

2007-09-17T21:45:00.001+01:00

Collie proverb number 1...

Echoes, Silence, Patience, & Grace

2007-09-13T19:40:00.000+01:00

Where Inuksuit come on holiday?...

Inuksuit in the form of Inunnguaq, Tammariikkuti & places of power & the sea vigilant. Following Inuit traditions of navigation, the Niungvaliruluit type of Inuksuk, give windowed alignment, acting as sight lines to places of power & importance beyond the horizon. They still have relevant precise geographical distance marking & direction use that gps is only just figuring out. They also provided doorways between earth & the spirit realm to be used by the shaman & harboured within their patterns are reenactments of ceremonial hunting...tributes to leviathan, shadowed by stone qajaq.
As much as they carry spiritual significance, Inuksuit were once also used to give the illusion of greater Inuit hunter numbers, stone human forms on the barren horizon, forcing paths upon Caribou through terrain of beast migrations far to vast for corraling & circumnavigation by foot.

These Inuksuit mark an immediate wild shoreline with only a few kayak friendly landing zones. They wait amongst sea serpents & stories & stone kayaks, strung like the very sinew of echoes, silence, patience, & grace themselves. They lean into the force winds of winters hemispherical blizzards & brace against storm surge, to lay somehow respite within their construction among tiny Arctic flowers during warmer months. Their mood is often almost mischievous. The stones taste of ocean salt when you lick them. But can anyone guess the exact location...

Umm...free woolly sock wi a hole in they toe, to the winner aye.

Dimming light over natures rolling clinic - 9pm & we retire to stone hearths, stew & warm drams. I will, in my fashion, sleep with the window ajar & reflect on each individuals progress; the last sound across my ears, being wind driven & oceanic, through rough grasses.

After thought: Leaving the ocean to silence & a winter skimmed temperament, today the ice felt as though it had drifted Southward, just an increment, but a drift nonetheless. It's noticeable like that, when you live inside the aerial boundaries & tides, it's somehow more honest to recognize it for yourself, recognize it touching your own skin, than saying, It's December, it's winter...or it's March, therefore it's Spring. Anyways, the combat rolling workshop was refreshing, the straight-jacket roll, an act of tenacity in strong, cold surf. There is nothing like a practical lesson & demo in aiding explanation how each roll develops to handle a variety of different situations & needs & I like to make sure both novice & intermediate benefit from such displays, that both hold eachother up & coach eachothers experiences forward, that they are hands-on, even in a spectating capacity. They have just learned that even the experienced, the masters, practise the basics over & over again. They have just seen & felt the reality of practical & swift rolling application when the main objective becomes simple preservation of that all important instinct to breathe. That's all it is aye. Roll to survive, a tool in the Inuit toolbox of surviving a life inextricably linked to the ocean. The rest of the rolls, the glitter on the girl so to speak, developed from a humorous & playful inter community one-up-man-ship. The group have learned that even the most advanced roller will regress into a basic bombproof repertoire of rolls when survival is on the line, leaving showmanship as a distant absurdity.
Soon we will explore combating the Walrus Pull in strong winds & an exciting surf enviroment & throughout the great strengthener, I'll do my best to guide adjustment of their spatial skills in an inverted & maytagged world, asking for performance where it counts, examination of physcology. Go into the squall & roll, running for the harbour will only make you good at running...for the harbour. To a degree, there's no such thing as bad weather, only bad understanding & interpretation - The 17th will see me back home on Skye, for some clean woolly socks, a fight with a rubber chicken, & a rest.

•≈Slán.

I'm Only Wearing Black Until They Invent Something Darker

2007-09-10T16:51:00.000+01:00

That wee, brilliant raw Amy Winehouse. Her big stone vocals snaking out of a 5ft 2" frame. The girl ain't scary, the girl's raw beauty. A dragged, clattered & upright soul, screaming talent, sleeping in rags, fighting cats, replete, chained & free...intelligent, sultry, funny, vibrant smokey & dismayed. All other women should stop trying to sing, right about now...

Once again, I cracked my head on the Baidarka swung through the boat shed crossbeam, slave to the rhythm of a boiler suit & wellie lantern shuffle in the still of 2am, & once again, she's made me hit my own thumb with a hammer working, skeletal vision. I can't play her on roof tops & chimney pots, since my vigilance toward the resultant sashay lessens...& I fall off.
It's allowed - feeling your way through life. It punches through the mediocrity with greater commitment & presence.
She's allowed to look through cracked glass & gain perfect sight, as we all are, & only the scared will invent a thousand negatives in an attempt to flashbang their own. She has said her biggest fault is being human. Inside that translation, I find the words, fallible, weak, strong, extrovert, & introvert, foolishness & intelligence, amongst others. I would say those qualities are far from being a fault, more, an often undervalued rarity. Keep on keeping on. Invention & originality breed leaps in imagination & fresh perspectives. Just like Amy, & just as my kayaks & tuiliq parade, I am also only wearing black until they invent something darker...yet, there is light eminating from everywhere, & lately, a greater tendancy to reach out into it...

The Washing Machine

2007-09-02T19:45:00.000+01:00

One of the best, if not serious & wild Hebridean sea kayak playgrounds was totally on form for my new camera test today. The area we call The Washing Machine consists of several arch through journeys, often accompanied by giant Atlantic swell. These break down into drums or areas. The most notoriously heathen of these archway areas, are The Eye on the NW tip, & Drum II directly NNE & below the lighthouse, you being a precarious & thin needle threading paths, trying not to get bent. A great & ancient mythology also flows within this arena, back & forth through the sinew & dreams of lost Norse kings.
The photo freefalls 80ft into the rear exit from The Eye, showing the treacherous surf zone combined with thin right hand channel shelving. When these combine with furious currents & swell at the immediate exit, jettisoning the kayaker at a point almost directly under where the blurred foreground ledge can be seen, the game is already in full swing. If it goes wrong, an escape swim can be a horrendous prospect, & should you need to climb out, taking it that you having survived getting shelved, there is of course, an obligatory E8 & an E7 above in the arch. There are 30 words in the Inuit language to describe snow. There only a few recognizable descriptions of currents, that assist in describing this resident maelstrom & its behavioural problems. The main constant is the sub surface gniessian geology & it's effect on each tidal run...through immersion into its ever changing moods, you learn to feel its intention, & its intention is usually malice. Yet malice seems an absurd word to use, when the dreams & kingdoms we lean against our sanitary lifetimes, flicker out like airborne sparks in the fire of planetary evolution. Storm surges, rips & swells of this nature, rolling silently toward shore from distant pelagic cyclones will & do, kill in an instant, if you don't have it in hand...Don't go in over your depth. There is challenging your ability aye, but you have to make honest assessments of that ability. You have to assess how much it will be drained in the fight, how well you perform in prolonged surf rolling situations where orientation often goes out the window, how the reverse overfalls are running, the winds versus the shelves & whether you fully understand your chosen location, also sub sea level to some degree, inside out, & your escapes. Just be realistic - or you may not be around. Tell a responsible adult where you are going, wear clean underpants, use the green cross code....that sorta thing.

Canon Ixus 75 still test - Toul a' Roigh. Hebrides, Bailey, Fair Isle & Faeroes - West or Northwest, gale 8 to 9, occasionally storm 10, becoming psychotic.

The nerve to decline an invite of drumming the circuit is respected as much as the nerve to commit to that invite. Both the North & South machair camps have established vehicle access. More importantly, the North machair base is the most realistic if not only viable drag out escape in the event being overcome by storm surge, before Port at Drum IV. Barely marked on the map as a beach, I've seen this white sand inlet becalmed in an overhead force 9 many times. Being the only one as far as I'm aware to have banged all the drums & make a complete run in weather & seas of that severity, it is invaluable when on the verge of exhaustion. A lifeline offering some recovery of composure can quickly become a safety blanket of warmth, nurturing reluctancy & draining will. The strong temptation to land & call it a day, has never won...yet. Remember though, these drums & wild outcrops can be navigated & enjoyed with equal fulfilment when the equatorial belt of calm drifts North with an autumn sun. As old Domhnaill says - Is fheàrr teicheadh math na droch fhuireach. Uhuh Domhnaill, agus tha fàilte air a h-uile duine aig a bheil ùidh ann an seinn, air chùlaibh a churtair?...

So if I ever ask if you fancy visiting the launderette, you'll have a good idea of what is about to occur aye. Just beyond the thunder point, is the Dry Cleaners...seriously. And the new Canon Ixus 75 intermediate verdict? Excellent so far. It'll be interesting to see how it copes, filming in a waterproof housing when I take the black knife through here towards winter, when rage turns to fury, further upping the ante ...I hope i don't fold.

Geo reference

The golden rule to risky solos like this? - When there is doubt, there is no doubt.

Canon Ixus 75 macro test - even managed to bring out clear dust definition to a thumb print on the carbon blade of my Kinetic split. Good for a wee thing.

I'll try to get all these trips & personal maps into pdf format for download in the left blog column soon. It's an ongoing process that comes 2nd to being out there aye.

The Digital Darkroom

2007-08-28T12:44:00.000+01:00

Yay! A new camera at last with decent film ability. Had to grab a wee Canon Ixus 75. It was literally only a couple of years ago when I got given my first digital camera, weighing in at an unprecedented 3mp! This was to photograph hard climbs in black & white & stop other climbers going on & on about the lack of stills available, of any of my new routes or boulders. I'd never really bothered with photography before then, always working on the premise that since I don't have Alzheimers & the brain records images that convert into tales & myths with age, any digital camera is surplus to the act of being out there, simply living. Kind of a - I have a visual record, because I was there. If you want that as well, get out yer bed- philosophy. I also grew up in an age of film cameras & a vast array of disappointments, that ranged from trying to salvage film from seawater exposure to whole films being out of focus or just plain flat. The most visually stunning apparitions drift across your eye when you are either hanging from a few fingers above a death drop or tubing through a monster rogue wave, nails dug into the skin of your life. Try getting a camera out then. You also can't really just nip back up the Eiger becuase a few photos are naff... With the digital age upon me, the other thing I noticed, was the amount off shots I could waste, bin & retake, which ran into 100s on 100s. The anxious, twitchy, nerve sweated fingery executive decision that comes with pressing a film powered shutter release, & knowing you only have 23 more chances to get that shot & then a week to find out if you did, had suddenly vanished. I remember feeling like the holy incarnation of guilt itself, & can still recall the acute adjustment involved in realizing a wrong frame no longer mattered. A hundred & ten, two hundred & twenty frames, the shackles were off - enter the digital madman. Add that when you are at the peak of enthusiasm for climbing or kayaking, your thoughts are with the next day, or the next bit of kit or scrounging enough money for a ticket to god knows where...I wish we had cared more, taken time with film cameras, that I had kept the slides a year or two, a decade longer, recorded more moments with more intricacy, more Wadis more Himalayan odysseys, more river ascents & more expeditionary sea kayak adventures, more smiles of those who are now missing, but the priorities of youth differ from that & those with a greater longevity.

Film speeds or cameras rarely crossed my trivial mind, barely even registering as essential equipment. I still view it as non-essential, whereas the world beyond seems to have to record itself doing everything, every minute. Here's me, wearing shoes, two in one go...on my feet! Here's me standing up, sitting down, walking, Here's me & a random fence post, Japanese person, kebab, goat, taxi... Get a grip. The Bisy Backsons have records of doing everything & being everywhere without actually seeing or living any of it. Rather than supplementing a life in motion the Bisy Backson uses his camera to stand still & prove he is alive.
Well anyhoos, since converting under duress, my next camera having been a Minolta Dimage 7i, -which broke earlier this year in the Cuillin- it's been said I have an eye for the art, getting top gallery votes from the climbing world, whatever top gallery infers. The header artwork on this blog was put together by myself & again, a couple of years ago, I never knew I could weave light like this. A digital camera in conjunction with something like PSCS can produce some great results & when it's stormy force 10 outside, & the wires & the tiles are droning, & I've got the collie as a foot warmer, I'll tinker all night, sometimes days, by the fire to produce a black & white freeze frame that captures how it felt or how it can feel. The tools are reflective in that sense, almost an introvert meditation & celebration of the recent past - a time-out to recharge for the near future.
I see photography as a soundboard, a tool to express rawness with, a confidence booster & it's certainly become a new addiction. If a photo or digital still makes you want to be out there, if it sparks the soul, then it's a good photo. I'm building a collection on a limited budget. Next another Canon...an EOS 350D maybe, or a Ricoh GR, then a submersible web cam, kayak mounted. I should be able to hide the Ixus 75 in my armpit, under my Tuiliq when rolling! It will also get a DicApac house for deck mounting so I can see the bizarre facial gurns that plague paddling inverted. I'd review some of the pro-sumer underwater cameras by strapping to the belly of the kayak & going for a sea burn, play sandball with them ecetera, but I don't have the funds to buy them all.

The subdivision site will be called The Digital Darkroom & cover sea kayaking, movies of technical rolls, gymnastics, frame building, explorations & some rash decisions. Happiness is a black knife Anas Acuta, or an equivalent skin on frame of the same name after all, not a photograph of one.

Urdhva Dhanurasana

2007-08-21T13:04:00.000+01:00

Now - grab Norsaq &...

Exercises in orientation can become totally bampot from this position. Normal everyday tasks such as pouring water & object stacking within, beyond, left or right of the body arc, rolling the Norsaq or paddle around the torso. When unfamiliar with its surroundings, this motor process is capable of hindering any series of complex & traditional qajaq roll or reverse paddling. It asks us to question subtle coordination engraming. Immersion in a naturally occurring or sequencial change of perception gives a more confident approach to problem solving when you most need it. With enough buffered understanding of your own wiring, you'll get pitted in an opaque sea throwing surf over your head & relax, breathe & self right, rather than stiffen, thrash & scream for rescue. When a kayaker has it in hand, getting flipped & staying under can sometimes be great way to get a bit of peace & quiet from the surface barrage. A way to take a look around, nose to nose with a jellyfish, while an insane orchestra of squabbling bubbles sound off. After a while, work these coordination tests blindfold, then try wet rolling blindfold, or at night, or with a disorientating strobe, using the Norsaq, or just a stick from the forest. In the end, the tool is your body, not the perepheral item - lifes a toolbox, use what works for the job at hand. You don't take a spoon to a knife party aye... Becoming familiar with the inner feel of a roll, the key triggers that tell you where you are within the sequence is all but essential as you adventure into phenomena at your limit - especially if you intend to go it alone.. Training inner gyroscopic balance while starving out visual referencing, will reward a great confidence advantage & core stability. Invent, experiment, & discover joy inside what was alarm.

I have a dynamic version of Urdhva Dhanurasana set up in the tall trees - a great place to practise & a Sgitheanach off-ramp version of the horizontal Qajaasaarnaq, pronounced, kiya-sa-nook. Amongst the leaves & occasional deep beams of sunlight that blind you momentarily on a spin, you forget the world beyond the enclosure & work on momentum, sets, alternatives, & the rope creaks with gentle familiarity on complex sequences, until rain starts to filter through the canopy...There was a faint smell of autumn in there today, the first time it slipped through & I found I had green dust from the trees on my face & under my eroded nails. Time had shifted silently into late morning, the bacon under the grill was cold, & the collie was developing a twitch from staying in one place too long...

This rope arrangment is different from my setup of Qajaasaarnaq horizontal twins, its mimicry is more through a vertical axis, almost forcing the body to accelerate from the hips outward, like an uncoiling whip, while constantly pushing off balancing the exercise & testing your lateral response engramming. I used to apply this knowledge in very technical climbing, with results of physical ingenuity that baffled others high in their field. Experience & doing, is everything. Weakness teaches with an equal veracity to strength & questioning is healthy. If you can swing into Urdhva Dhanurasana on the ropes & exercise some control over the momentum, you are doing well. If you're not doing well, that's ok also. Not everyone has to be an expert at everything. In a world of willy-waving idiots, not enough people tell eachother that what they have achieved, is a success. It's an intense if not funny way to spend the morning anyway, even if it goes wrong. I'm still not sure how I got tea up my nose...twice. Being an insatiable conquistador, I'm doing everything I can to distraction from this insistant itch, clawing me to rodeo the new Quaarsut 550 in an Atlantic storm surge...gimme gimme gimme..

When you do get it wrong though, ropes & storm surge alike, & we all do from time to time, you will find movement & centre mocking Descartes & his wisdom with the phrase: I think - therefore... I am confused about who I am.

Faith - An Iar-Thuath 's a bhi 'n lar

2007-08-16T18:09:00.002+01:00

Enlightenment after Death

What happens to a man of enlightenment after death?
How should I know? the master replied.
Because you are a master...
The master smiled.
Yes that's true -but not a dead one.

Atop of the giant northerly arcing archipelago of Lewissian gniess, there waits a million year old stone wave, carved out at a time when planets shouldered for order across skies we have never seen. Built of stars & the dust from the origins of the stone works, this wave is dynamic inside a long stare, stationary to man's glimpse. What faith we install, to scamper black toothy volcanic incisors such as this. What ludicrous self admiration we bestow upon ourselves, to feed like Egyptian Plover, amongst black boned fractures of the planets own skellington, piercing it's skin & call ourselves conquistador.

I say skellington becuase Molly & her 6 years of vast planetary wisdom, is utterly unyielding in attitude or opinion, despite all my appeals. It's skellington & who am I to argue - She's right, I should learn my place aye..

Faith though is a great thing. Faith in the experience of others to guide you through precipitous overfalls, faith in knowledge & the passing on of that knowledge, & seeing a oneness, an ancient connection to your surrounding elements. The sea for many, the Northern Atlantic rollers, are something to be feared, & fear in turn, is deft at stopping a person living & experiencing. A little is healthy to keep your humility in check, but fear should not have bigger shoulders than the wave in your sights. I have recently been body rolling in some sizeable waves & a fierce rip, demonstrating balance brace, underwater perception, limb position & buoyancy & incremental effects, explaining one on one, the economics of moving with the flow, using that dynamic to aid self-righting rather than forcing a result of out an individual preconception of what may happen or what is about to happen & greeting it with rigidity. Muscling your way through isn't always the best way & trying to constantly pre-empt an invisible or unknown factor can become physically & mentally exhausting to a person before they have rolled or kayaked in joy. It takes faith & often, literal submersion, for an individual to trust their own bouyancy, their own engram reaction to that imminent capsize or wave impact - to have a response so intuitive, it is second nature. Just as in Aikido principles, there are ways to deflect direct impact by rolling it over your hips or inverting your centre of balance. When it gets to much, I shift the focus to play. Playing is an underrated teaching tool. We are covering ground, at the speed we are, although it sometimes frustrates me when people are not instantly, half porpoise...

Kayaking is simple, especially by it's origin of tradition. If the Inuit hunter could not hunt & return home to feed his family, that family would simply die, as would the existence they cut out of the ice & fashioned into a thriving culture, as would myth & generation. When sound principles are tattoed in, the Western white european approach often confounds me with its seemingly endless need to profit from burdening a simplicity with technology. It parades it's equipment, complication, rules, guidelines, qualification, insurance, pre-packaging & sterilized deals with engineered concepts of risk, adventure & discovery, set routes & acceptable quotas designed to run on a time schedule. Thus a falsehood, which attempts to turn the untamable elements into an offshore Butlins for labotomy patients. Do I believe this...or do I have some sort of cabin fever? What the hell do they do to relax? To connect with the rawness of a soul food, the blood seeping out of the earth? What happens to common sense, the human ability to read ahead, develop instinct, the brains inventive solution finding process, when a new generation of kayakers are taught absurd technology reliance? The best equipment you will ever own is your investment in physical & immediate enviromental self awareness, your ability to roll & self rescue effectively. One should no so much invest in Greenlandic sea kayaking skills per say, nor in climbing, & solely the translation or teaching of those skills. Nor should an individual corridor his focus into pre-determined definitions of gymnastics or Aikido or parkour. Rather, an individual should invest in understanding the physics of body geometry & it's universal application. Just as there are consistent laws of gravity, there are consistent laws of physiology. Not that an individual shouldn't specialize, or train intensely, but they should understand the source, the curl, outward from the centre, through the limbs into the finger tips, through the paddle, the kayak, & feel the waters response. There should be no seperation. Difficult water is an illusion in that sense, a fear formed from lack of enforcable understanding & applicable abilty, yet with the body mechanics tuned, a calm physcology in place, core response is underwritten & explosive joy is allowed to stream through attempts at sea going experiences that might otherwise, be retreated from. The individual who understands those core elements & truths of movement, no longer goes out to become a master of climbing, or kayaking, or parkour, or skiing, but simply exercises a profoundly dynamic understanding of the required physics to excel within the arena he/she happens to be frequenting at the time. With those rules in place, he/she will be able to specialize with a great, focused & fluid intensity. This is what the absent minded, the asleep-at-the-wheel, call naturally talented. It's a far more enlightened & less restrictive process, when your speciality is merely dynamic self-effaced application, rather than the constriction of that principle. They should be able to walk softly, but carry a big stick. They should be insatiable.

I think all I meant to say was, an uncarved block has more potential. That movement should notify the intellect but assail the soul, the core of emotion - that the race in bizarre rhetoric, will often try to think out simplicity, over complicating it, & miss key truths on the path to brilliance.

But then, talking about kayaking & rolling is a wheelchair for the brain, after the actual event - keep the faith.

Kayak Abuse

2007-07-30T14:22:00.000+01:00

Some things just make me wince...but right enough, a lot of sea kayakers who have been brought up on modern day myths of kevlar layups being stronger than fg/diolin layups, & fg/diolin being stronger than skin-on-frame, could do worse than sit through this short clip by John Peterson from •≈ Shaman Qajaq.I still find it strangely grating to watch, & somewhat akin to purposefully dangling my own spuds over a rotary sander for the fun of it...

•≈ Kayak Abuse ≈•

NSRS

2007-07-29T13:39:00.002+01:00

The new NSRS - NATO Submarine Rescue System is away out to sea for initial tests & trials, installed for a dip on the Norwegian Coast Guard Vessel, Harstad. This should be a total doozy if succesful & lead to a multi-national, fully functioning & operational project aimed at developing & sustaining a European rescue system capable of world-wide deployment.
Being able to load into an Airbus A400M will solve speed deployment issues & the TUP resource alongside should be a riot. My right to contest the limitations of Boyles will never be the same again.
Clyde based, it will be free swimming imminently in an ocean near you...

Føroyar

2007-07-25T13:11:00.000+01:00

If anyone is up for a 2008 jolly around 62°00'N, 06°47'W, drop me an email or use the mobile on the left. An obligatory bivy at the Fugloy Egyptian face is traditional, & as is the customary procedure, much frenzied ensuing circumnavigation. Since I'm no longer going loaded for hard climbing & soloing either, -locums orders- anyone who turns up, will be spared any bonus exposure in the form of soaring vertical frighteners, although it's unlikely they will escape tales of past exploits, that embed themselves deep inside fire places & crackling logs.
I've missed the Eysturoy Straits, Risin & his pal Kellingin, the Vagar cliffs as well...the new 3 piece will resolve these issues once again - it's decided.
I've missed parking the black knife under huge cascading seaward bound waterfalls, screaming through tidal races, & warming my toes later at the fireside with Lars, in Gásadalur, for too long. If you've never explored out here, amongst the vast micro-climate of cordite charged walls of stone, water & ice, if you've never survived quietly & alone, in a fight against unfettered weather & soaring brilliant horizon, you should. It's really that simple.

Jan Egil Kristiansen who lives, works & kayaks around Føroyar, had concerns about my solo around the Fugloy edge, the need for week tides & subdued or favourable wind. Those concerns are there for good reason & anyone planning a repeat of that should listen in well, bring common sense & a strong intent, but still try it, & not back down until the end. The open water of Fugloy is a vastly different experience to that of the Hebridean coastlines, but again, with the right knowledge & preparation it need not be feared. Like Jan says, he doesn't have to be so tough since he can just wait for goood conditions. My trip was more a roller coaster with a time slot. Feasable but brrrr... Next trip, Jan & myself will journey somewhere together & I will enjoy life, rather than cling to its very threads.

≈•≈
≈•≈

Righty, I'm away to sit on the floor & watch storm fronts build along the Western Atlantic edge of Harris; while more importantly, saving my otherwise nice new black Lendal carbon Kinetic from all those copiously applied advertising stickers, by peeling them off with an onion knife. It vexes me somewhat. Save a tree or sommat fellas, some tinsel maybe...I know who made the thing.

Comharra Stiùirdh ≈•

2007-07-18T16:39:00.000+01:00

•≈ Siud an t-eilean às an t-sealladh ≈•
•≈ mar a shiùbhlas am bàta, ≈•
•≈ mar a chunnaic iomadh bàrd e ≈•
•≈ eadar liunn is iargan, ≈•
•≈ 's fir eile a bha'n teanga fo fiacaill, ≈•
•≈ 's deòir a' dalladh - ≈•
•≈ dubhradh- neo-dhearbht is uinneagan a' fannadh. ≈•
•≈ Ach chan eil a' cheiste cho sìmplidh ≈•
•≈ don allmharach an comhair na bliadhna: ≈•
•≈ a-mach à tilleadh èiridh iargan ≈•
•≈ à roinn a chuir an saoghal an dìmeas. ≈•
•≈ Cuideachd, chan e siud m' eilean-s': ≈•
•≈ chaidh esan fodha o chionn fhada, ≈•
•≈ a' chuid mhòr dheth, ≈•
•≈ fo dheireas is ainneart; ≈•
•≈ 's na chaidh fodha annam fhìn dheth, ≈•
•≈ 'na ghrianan 'S cnoc eighre, ≈•
•≈ tha e a' seòladh na mara anns am bì mi ≈•
•≈ 'na phrìomh chomharr stiùiridh ≈•
•≈ cunnartach, do-sheachaint, gun fhaochadh. ≈•

•≈Freya alone≈•