Wow, Andrea - absolutely superb!
You have really brightened up my day no end - what amazing pics - my favourite places on the planet - thank you! Real inspiration to go there much much more often!

Lucy

Hi, I have filled in your questionnaire, but have some suggestions you should include in your Discussion of your thesis. Several of the A versus B questions I didn't at first fill in, because they were not mutually exclusive and neither statement even vaguely fit my point of view. However, to submit...

Some great ideas here - I think I'll buy one of those little tables, and drill Trangia-draining holes in a wooden fish slice! Talking of pillows - I never go camping (even in "Summer" (huh!)) without a down jacket. Apart from lovely warm evening wear that scrunches up to nothing in a dry bag, it mak...

HI Mary, Nice pic, and gorgeous bird(s)! It looks like a bar-headed goose to me from those photos. Not a native, they breed in high altitude central Asia (e.g. Tibet) and winter in S Asia (e.g. India), and are reknowned for their incredible high altitude migration routes over the Himalaya. Either yo...

Another biggie, if it counts as a wave...


and then things got even more insane:

And another Ahhh.....
Hope you can see this link from Shetland Wildlife:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid= ... =1&theater

In case anyone is interested, I've just come across this fascinating website, which has various pages on the "Finmen" (i.e. sealskin clad men in kayaks) including descriptions of sightings in Orkney, and how Finmen, selkies and mermaids may merge into one and the same thing. http://www.orkneyjar.com...

Wow, thanks for alerting us to this book! I have seen the kayak in question, and have researched (online) as much as I can about this bloke in his kayak that landed nr Aberdeen, and also scanned the literature for records of the "Finn men" that occasionally turned up in Orkney and also Shetland and ...

Sorry no kayaker seal-landing on this particular wave -

I couldn't agree more. They look right into your eyes. In fact, they are my favourite British seabird. Apparently they can live well into their 40s and I love to think that the fulmar that's studying me could be older (and probably wiser) than me.

Hi Mark, I'm not sure why "our" shark had 2 big notches in her dorsal fin - it looks to me like the sort of wound a propeller would make - any other suggestions? (I say "her" as the underwater video shows no sign of the claspers that males have, so I assume she's a she). This shark was in NW Mainlan...

Thanks Mary. I'd forgotten I also have this vid of the same shark, possibly better underwater view...

We had an incredible basking shark encounter in Shetland - it was a big one (longer than the kayak) and kept circling us and swimming right underneath our kayaks several times. For the first time ever it occurred to me to use video and actually put my camera under the water - I had no idea if it wou...

Kayaks'N'Beer wrote: I didn't realise they culled seals because of fish farms.

I'm afraid so. Many. e.g.:
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_r ... _year.html

Another one from Fantastic Freya The Hoff from her South America voyage - obvious improvement from her Australian method as it seems she's found a "she-wee" type thing that actually works - This I've just copied and pasted from her blog: "I saw a small animal we call in Germany “Wiesel”, kind of a m...

I have paddled (well, demo'd) a Rockpool Alaw Bach and Tiderace Xplore S, but can't comment on the Cetus - supposed to be quite a voluminous expedition boat(?). The first 2 are quite different - it is the Tiderace Xcite that is most similar to the Rockpool Alaw Bach I think - they (Xcite and Alaw Ba...

... - that nature doesn't care, and that man is no better or worse than anything else in nature. The thing is that for every decent person in the world, there seems to be 100 that actually don't care. That's perception of course not fact, the ratio could be opposite but only the latter draw attenti...

This thread is a great excuse for trawling YouTube! Here's a rather disturbing video on several levels (walrus are dangerous too!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zJ5ovuf6X0 And this one of kayakers scaring off a bear with gun shots show that bears can be reluctant to be scared away - https://www....

When I was working in Svalbard on a small island in the NW (Danskoya), a couple of sea kayakers turned up on the island. (My memory thinks one of them was the prince of Norway, but my brain is generally addled and this was back in 1993, so don't trust me on that one!). Anyway, they had started off t...

This is a really interesting thread. I wish I was more like Mary, then I could relax and perhaps enjoy my paddling more. But some gremlin within me keeps telling me to "progress" (in inverted commas for a reason!) by (not very often admittedly) leaving my comfort zone. I think leaving the comfort zo...

One two three AHhhhhhh!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-n ... d-16158762

(and there was me thinking a white-coated pup was strange being 100 miles out at sea, but in a field of sheep...?!

Since this thread has turned into lots of gorgeous pics of very cute seals, I thought this news item might be appropriate: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-15940058 Sammy the seal rescued! But what on earth was a white-coat doing 100 miles out to sea?! I was tempted t...

Then I end up with maps, charts and books all over the floor and suddenly find I've lost several hours when I should be doing housework. Ha haaa, yes, exactly - that is actually one of my favourite hobbies! I have planned, in great detail, many wonderful paddling trips, including one similar to you...

Absolutely wonderful - there is nothing better than a trip report and photos like that to whet the appetite for future adventure-planning (especially in winter, as a gale rages outside and the house is hammered by hail stones!) - thank you!
Lucy

The article does mention a winkle picker out in her canoe needing a rescue: "Boats could not reach the woman, who had been in a canoe to go winkle picking, due to the rough sea. She was winched onboard the helicopter." I'm in Shetland at the moment, and the wind is really building now - all the gaps...

What a superb rescue, it must have been incredibly difficult. Well done to everyone involved.

Wow, I hadn't seen that before - absolutely fantastic, and filmed from a canoe to boot!
Thanks for posting, that has improved my day!
Lucy

While it may be frustrating for some Glasgow/Clyde/Edinburgh/Central belt folk having to go all the way to Perth, it is after all surely not much more than about 1-1.5hr drive/train (or half an hour from Stirling), and aren't there other kayak-wear outlets in the big cities/central belt to buy thing...

Mark, if you're going there at this time of year to hope to see gannets, they will have long left the cliffs for the winter.
But from May-Aug it is easy to get good views of the gannets just from the normal cliff path in the RSPB reserve, and obviously from kayak too around Bempton cliffs.

If you can't kayak do you mean? the North York Moors is your oyster! Also quite nice coastal walks, although not a patch on Dorset (unless it's seabird season (when Bempton cliffs come into their own), which it isn't). Staithes is cute to visit. Whitby a must (especially for Goths). Quite nice to ge...