Sponsorship from Ocean Safety

I had the pleasure of meeting Claire from Ocean Safety and it was like Christmas. Ocean safety has supplied us with their latest product of personal safety flares specifically designed for Kayakers. A cracking piece of kit if I may say so. They also provided us with other flares, smoke and personal buoyancy aid lights! I cannot thank them enough and looking at the photo above they certainly know their business. I hope we don't need to use the flares but I am confident we will be seen if we need to be. Thanks for your support and for looking after us!

Safety Flares, smoke and personal lighting

Helping hand from Cotswold Belfast

Due to inclement wind (nothing I have eaten!) our trip is on hold with copious amounts of time spent checking weather charts, looking for a decent break. This has its own pitfalls and I found myself drifting towards my feminine side and retail therapy kicked in. Having seen the Garmin 60CSx in action with Baz who is pleased with his purchase, I have fallen into the trap of boys and toys and made my way to Cotswold Outdoor Belfast where I was lucky to meet Lyle who was very helpful and informative about the product. On consultation with his boss and my bank manager I am now the proud owner of a Garmin. I hope this bad weather holds so I can learn how to use it!

Sponsorship on the kayak.

Thanks to Chris from Garmin and Russ from Wareham Boat Hire. Stickers placed on my kayak ready to go!

Lift off or we hope so

James has left already and arrived in Anglesey. He has touched base with the Coastguard and they were pleased that he did as he gave an up to date sit rep. The weather is not in our favour as it is blowing SW and 23 mph winds which is a force 5 on the Beaufort scale! Not pleasant.



The forecast is for 29 mph winds tomorrow at 1000 hours again from the south west! I think a drive up and sup a few coffees with my pal Moose will be in order praying to Neptune that the weather and sea's will turn to our favour!

It is disappointing when you plan things and the weather looks unfavourable but we will keep our fingers crossed! If we don't go then as Arnie said, " I'll be back!"

Just to let you know we will be looking for an E/NE or SE for the crossing. SW is pretty much the worse one for us regarding wind direction.

Event Sponsorship by GARMIN world leaders in global positioning systems

Garmin offices in Southampton

James and I had the pleasure of meeting Chris Boyle from their Marine Product and Marketing Management. At very short notice Chris managed to arrange the loan of marine mapping software for my Garmin GPSmap60CSx. This software will prove invaluable on our trip providing details of up to date chart information. We cannot thank Chris and Garmin enough. Like we said Chris if you ever need some sea kayakers for product testing let us know!!

Chris Boyle and Barry outside Garmin's UK offices exchanging the sponsored marine software

James outside Garmin offices Southampton

A welcomed helping hand!

Event Sponsorship from Bagnol camping and caravan site.

http://www.caravan-park-anglesey.co.uk/index.asp

Dear Barry. As you are doing this event for charity it will be our pleasure to let you stay here free of charge for as long as it takes to get the right conditions for your crossing to Ireland. We will look forward to hearing from you and we will see you when you come down.
Your Johnny@Danny

We would like to thank Johnny and Danny for their very kind offer. It is generous help such as above that make arduous trips and planning a lot easier! We look forward to our stay and meeting such generous people.

Rocket Man

Well after receiving some advice from the Captains of the ferry they said it would be wise to take a radar reflector. I have done a bit of research on the Internet and many studies conclude that it is only marginally better to have one than not. I purchased one for the mast of a sailing dinghy and taped it to a garden pole. This was then placed in the drinking pouch on the rear of my buoyancy aid and voila you have a rocket man impression....Now where is the blue touch paper?!

I know it looks a bit silly but I am going to do a trial before next week and see if this comes up on a radar. I will keep you posted.