What's on
After a rather long sojourn in Wales and a bustling month of May - committed to the Anglesey Symposium as well as the assessment for Level 3 Coach - I returned to Italy to apply my efforts to coaching once again.
First at Sabaudia for an advanced course and then to Cagliari where old friendships were revived and new ones made. The course was a double one and an all-female one to boot, or nearly so! Last weekend we had lots of fun on lake Maggiore where we held a rolling course, during which we must have rolled in a thousand different ways! 

Next Sunday sees the start of our expedition to Sicily, where we will attempt to complete the circumnavigation of the island in 5 weeks:  if you like, you can follow us on the voyage blog!

Before departing, we’ve prepared next season’s courses. In the first week of September I’m flying to Helsinki for a refresher course and to take part in two “mentoring days” and then once again to Minorca in the second week of October to participate in the  X Jornadas as well as holding another BCU 3* course.  I’ll surely be  returning with lots of new ideas, watch this space!
In September we will resume our courses on lake Maggiore:
Basic course: Saturday & Sunday 19-20 September at Cerro di Laveno.
Advanced course: Saturday & Sunday 26-27 September at Cerro di Laveno.
Autumn will continue with other interesting BCU courses:
3 star: 16-18 October at Vietri sul Mare (Salerno)
3 star: 6-8 November at Cannigione (Palau - Sardegna)
4 star: 23-25 October at Vietri sul Mare with Phil Hadley
4 star: 5-7 November at Cannigione with N.Dennis & E.Wilkinson
Participation is still available but don’t delay to book your place!

Meanwhile, I wish you all happy paddling and a wonderful summer kayaking!!!

Kayaking snippets
We’re (nearly) ready to depart on our summer season kayak voyage.
Each occasion is a race against time to have all our kit and equipment organised. Every year, on each expedition, we update the list of the things we need to take and this is a task that always captivates us.
It is an exercise both of memory and kit management: every voyage is different and so each list is modified and updated according to the latest nautical experience. For example, this time we have stockpiled sunblock, camel-bags, lemons, fresh fruit, cous-cous and… fishing line.
We’ll let you know the outcome!

Call of the Inuit
Nathalie and Alain Antognelli’s DVD about their time spent in Greenland has been available from their website for some time now but you can get your own copy by clicking here!
Thanks to a successful crowdfunding campaign they managed to raise just over €7000 in a few weeks, enabling them to go ahead and publish their book.
They have been already been mentioned on Tatiyak's blog after I met the two explorers - and photographers - at the Anglesey International Symposium where they launched their Greenland DVD during a presentation. 

We only need to wait a few weeks to get the book and I’m sure that it will be an interesting read to share!

Over the horizon

Some kayakers voyage for a week or so whilst some paddle for a few years!  Sandy Robson is a paddler recreating, as closely as possible, the epic voyage undertaken by Oskar Speck in 1932. Speck paddled and travelled for seven years covering 50,000 kilometres to arrive in Northern Australia having left from… Germany! Sandy has, in 2011, covered the distance between Germany and Cyprus, and, in 2013 paddled along the western coast of India. In 2014 she completed the circumnavigation of Sri Lanka (a world first!) and for 2015 she reprised the route through Burma and Indonesia.  An incredible voyage! If you go to her website you can read all about the previous legs of her expedition whilst a blog keeps you updated on her progress… Ad majora!