Southern Exposure, by Chris Duff - some serious paddling!

I saw Mick's Garage on line - they would have been the next choice, a decent looking set of bars with 100kg limit was about £75 posted.

The Roof Box Company:- For very helpful and quick advice without obligation when I needed to change the roof bar fittings for my new car. Much less impressed with Thule. Yes they have some excellent products, albeit at a significant price but they have made some annoying (and expensive) changes. My ...

My boat has its hatches attached with a thin external cord that threads through a small eyelet moulded in to the recessed curve on the outside rim of the hatch. I noticed one day that the cord had almost but not quite sawn its way through the eyelet. Not at all obvious on inspection, it looked secur...

It looks like it has a water detection sensor, so maybe the Override is to switch it on when there's no water. Installation instructions on Whale website here . The instructions do say that allowing it to freeze with water in it may damage it. Presumably then the overide is to a) switch it on if th...

Just a guess but could the overide + lead be to override an automatic sensor somewhere?

I've seen some SUPs in worrying looking places and situations. But if you saw the Adventure Show on BBC Scotland last night there was a piece about a partially sighted guy who paddled one to St Kilda. It was mostly about him doing other stuff last night (Wing Foil anyone? Looks cool but nowhere to p...

If you haven't already read them (not that you seem to be in need of inspiration, quite the opposite) can I recommend Dances with Waves and Blazing Paddles, both by Brian Wilson, and in particular the classic The Canoe Boys by Sir Alistair Dunnet. The last one is what really inspired me to take up s...

although I’m yet to venture on a night trip or stray far from the coast due to a lack of near by coast guard Bertie, welcome to UKRGB. I note your experience so far, and your rolling ability (and your judgement on your own attitude to risk) but presence or absence of coast guard or RNLI stations is...

I know sea kayak Arisaig have some perception essence 16 and 17s. Apart from being plastic they would be worth trying if you haven't paddled one of those with them. I used to have one, it was a good beginner/intermediate boat and was big and serious enough for some decent trips. It was much more of ...

Might it work as successfully for you if you were just able to increase the blade area? I'm thinking that might assist rolling without any need for any actual extra buoyancy. If so you could possibly construct a simple flat blade profile to strap on to the existing paddle. It would store more easily...

Not wood but I just noticed Lomo are advertising a split carbon GP for £199.
Confusingly the blurb talks about it having adjustable feather for left or right handed use....?
I suppose you could feather one if you wanted but I don't think I've heard of it being done on a GP.

I did some practicing with a friend who was using a small perception. The absence of a front bulkhead made it much harder to empty than a full size kayak. Self rescues were even more difficult - took a lot of pumping out and the high seat back didn't help rear deck re-entry and made the spraydeck si...

I normally paddle a composite Necky Chatham 16 which is a perfect fit for me and a good compromise between manoeuvrability and speed as well as handling nicely. It's a fairly low volume kayak with more than a hint of some Greenland lines in it. On a course with Glenmore Lodge a few years ago I used ...

A cheap option is a LED bike light - reasonably weatherproof and can be set to constant mode instead of flashing.

My wife and I have both had cags from Wetsuit Outlet - they often have last year's models at good prices.

Thanks for the link, this looks useful but I'm not sure how the payment works. Are they free to view online but you pay to download for offline viewing?

Hello and welcome. You are by no means daft to be taking up sea kayaking at 61, it's adventure sitting down! Re your choice of kayak - I suggest booking some lessons and trying a few different kayaks to see what suits you. Have a serious think about what you want to do with it - if you plan on doing...

As an ex diver I am puzzled as to why the neck seals on dive suits are different to kayaking suits - dive suits have the smooth neoprene surface on the outside of the seal and are worn folded over internally on themselves (or at least they were, might have changed by now). Diving I always accepted t...

I have come across a fellow who has 15 kayaks Canoes & kayaks, I can match that. I did have more but I'm rationalising them. Borrowed from cycling, the correct number of boats is given by the formula n+1, where n is the number of boats one currently has. It's actually X-1, where X is the number at ...

I seriously considered ordering one of these but in the end I took a deep breath and got a Kajaksport Inuksuk via Reed. At the time they were giving away one of their own make bothy cags with each paddle. I wanted one of those anyway and if I accounted for that, then allowed for import duties, posta...

Speaking as a runner many of us avoid the commercial energy drinks, they are high in sugar, expensive, and use single use plastic bottles. A much cheaper and more sustainable alternative is a mix of 50/50 pure fruit juice and water, perhaps with a pinch of salt. You can make it up at home and refill...

the top edge of the blade would naturally be canted forward - to have it vertical or canted backwards would mean cocking your wrist Mark, I'm trying to understand that. I think it depends on how you hold the paddle. Unless you have a rectangular loom (mine is round) there's nothing to say the blade...

I'm by no means an expert, being a relatively recent convert but thinking about it, if you sit in your kayak holding your paddle with arms and wrists straight and the paddle across the deck the top edge of the blade would naturally be canted forward - to have it vertical or canted backwards would me...

But until comparatively very recently when new materials became available has much development really taken place? Maybe 3900 years ago after a bit of fiddling about and trial and error they got it right. Then nothing much happened for another 3800 years or so (because why fix what isn't broken?). T...

Sincere thanks for all the replies, some very practical points. I hadn't thought about needing to press a button on one of the power packs so one like that would be a non starter (!) Sorry.... I'm coming down firmly in favour of battery option, seems cheaper and simpler. Once I've got all the bits t...

Thanks for the quick replies. Yes, I suppose it's a bit like camper van batteries - the vehicle starter battery is designed to give a powerful boost of short duration a number of times while the leisure battery gives a lower power over a longer period. But you can still run a light from the vehicle ...

Has anyone tried one of the new compact car jump starter packs for the above? Or is there an obvious reason I'm missing why they aren't suitable? 12v, sealed, plenty of amp hours, rechargeable, about the size of a paperback book and some have USB ports for charging other devices. From not much more ...

It the week just gone, Monday or Tuesday night I think. I saw it, the lifeboat crew had rough time of it.

I suspect that there is a big difference between being able to swim a decent distance in open water and being able to do it in the conditions that might make it necessary.