What's on
The first event of the month is the much-awaited Giorni della Merla (Days of the Blackbird) rally, the Alto Lario (northern part of Lake Como) Winter Challenge.  It is organised by the evergreen Luciano Belloni on the weekend of the 2-3 February, making sure of a paddle in the coldest days of the year!

On the 9 and 10 February all aboard for the Venice Carnival! By kayak of course!
Keeping with tradition, Tatiyak is promoting and organising a two-day excursion along the canals of La Serenissima. Taking place during the most important two days of this traditional event, it is characterised by the masked and costumed revellers converging on the piazze, providing a colourful spectacle to tourists and locals alike.
Paddling the canals in a kayak is the perfect way to discover Venice and its Carnival!
The rendezvous is set, as it is annually, at the Campeggio di Fusina landing place at 10 am on Saturday 9th February. We would be grateful for early confirmation in order to better organise the paddlers attending: already quite numerous!
In keeping with the Carnival spirit we would ask participants to turn with the appropriate accoutrements: a colourful wig or a zany hat!

Other paddling events planned for the coldest month of the year:  as usual on Lake Maggiore and of course in good company. We always go out on a Sunday, whatever the weather!

Prepare your Spanish phrasebook for March as we will be attending the international kayak symposium PAGAIA organized by our Catalan friends from the Cap de Creus club at Llança... more below...

Kayaking snippets
Being in mid-winter is no reason to stop paddling, nor is it justified to hang up your paddle
just because it’s raining, snowing or blowing hard. Instead, winter paddling can be
fulfilling and satisfying and this is from somebody who’s always feeling cold!

You should, however, adopt simple stratagems to improve your technical gear:

it should be appropriate both to the air as well as the sea temperature.

Winter is the best time of the year to keep in shape and share those memorable

moments with friends, such as opening a thermos of piping hot caffè corretto!

Call of the Inuit
Even though the time of presents is over, a good book is always an excellent gift both for the young and old. Our book-worm skills have resulted in discovering quite a few children’s books about the life of the Inuit people. What are missing are similar books in Italian or by Italian authors or even simply translated into Italian. One cannot say the same about the French language: the choice of titles is more than satisfactory with various topics and a joy to read!

Let us know if you know of any children’s books about the Inuit, whether bought or

sighted on a library shelf. We would be more than welcome to source this book

and include a synopsis of it on our reading web-page...

Over the horizon

The PAGAIA international kayak symposium is organised on alternate years by our Catalan colleagues from the Pagaia Club de Caiac Cap de Creus located in the municipality of Llançà in Catalonia, Spain. This year the symposium will take place from the 23 to the 25 March with a week of paddling up to the 30th. The list of notable guests is quite long from Jeff Allen,

Nigel Dennis and Phil Hadley to Manolo Pastoriza and Greg Stamer, the latter one of the last to confirm his attendance. The symposium is awash with all types of courses and you’re spoilt for choice for instructors. Talking of which, includes four outstanding females,

one of whom is yours truly! Don’t miss it, hasta luego!