In April we will be going to Genoa to hold another BCU 3-star course (fully booked!), to the Argentario for the Easter long weekend (can you join?) and once again to Wales for the second part of the training course, (after concluding part one in February), towards the Level 3 Coaching Award.

In May we’re planning to circumnavigate the Isle of Anglesey with Trenk, prior to participating in the international symposium that takes place there every year (we will be returning home on 10 May, which is why
there won’t be a May newsletter… sorry).

We will then return to Palermo for the FICK (Federazione Italiana Canoa Kayak) instructor course, organised in partnership with Vincenzo Stuppia
and Gianni Montagner (more on this in a special-issue Italian Newsletter).

The BCU 3-star course to be held from the 23 to the 25 May at Circeo - Rome
(fully booked for some time now) precedes by a few days the event everyone has been waiting for: the Venice Lagoon International Symposium.
Organised by the FICK in collaboration with the Altamarea aquatic sports club, it will be held from 31 May to 2 June. We have been invited there to hold some courses together with other guests from Spain, UK, Denmark and Germany… it’s going to be a great international meeting!

In June we will first be going to Naples from the 13 to the 15, to hold the third BCU 3-star course and then once again to Genoa for this year’s edition of the National Rolling Competition, on the 28 and 29. This time it will be held on the calm and tranquil waters of the Nervi yacht marina:

in brief an update of yet another day of learning and fun!

Kayaking snippets
 In one of our early newsletters we had talked about contact-tows:

in common with all things connected to kayaking, the tow-rope can be adjusted and improved upon to enhance technique. The variation of a “lengthened” contact-tow was developed by Gordon Brown, who

demonstrates its use and advantages in one of his short training videos.
It can be deployed in two different ways depending on the circumstances and its use is suggested when you need to assist a paddler in difficulty.  There are no commercially available contact-tow rigs in Italy but you can make one quite easily. All you need are two snap-hooks, a length of 5mm rope and electrical or duct tape... it can make a good present too!

Call of the Inuit
"The Arctic Ocean can seem utterly silent on a summer day to an observer standing from above. If you lowered a hydrophone, however, you would discover a sphere of “noise” that only spectrum analyzers and tape recorders could unravel. The tremolo moans of bearded seals. The electric crackling of shrimp. The baritone boom of walrus. The high-pitched bark and yelp of ringed seals. The clicks, pure tone, birdlike trills, and armonic of belukhas and narwhals. The elephantine trumpeting of bowhead whales. Added to these animal noises would be the sounds of shifting sediments on the sea floor, the whine and fracture of sea ice, and the sound of deep-keeled ice grounding in shallow water". […]
From Arctic Dreams written by Barry Lopez

Over the horizon
Reading the on-line version of Adventure Kayak magazine, I came across this thrilling news item: two Canadian firemen from Quebec, Sébastien Lapierre and Olivier Giasson, completed, in a doubles kayak, the legendary

North-West Passage from Tuktoyaktut, in the North-West Territories

to Igloolik, in the Nunavut region of Greenland. They covered the 3500 kilometre distance in 80 days in July 2013, completing what they

rightfully called the "Rêve de Glace" – The Dream on Ice”.

They fell in love with the Arctic whilst on a 30-day skiing expedition to Greenland in 2010. The two friends revealed in the interview that they left their dreams “up there” and plan to return to the Arctic to follow them…