On the 7th Day of Christmas...

Summit to Sea offered me, a rescue kit for swimming.

Throwline, River Krab, River Knife & Rescue Tape

Later today we'll be paddling the Menai Straits, despite the weather just to make sure that we bag another day on the water BEFORE the year ends.

On the sixth day of Christmas...

Summit to Sea offered me, a short boat for playing,

Five Shiny things

a guidebook full of words

a Powerstretch fleece (mens)

women's are also available here

Peak Neoprene Gloves

and a Petzl Tikka XP

On the third day of Christmas...

Summit to Sea offered me, a powerstretch fleece mens*

* the womens fleece is also available on the same deal, but mens, rhymes with hens, we're trying to keep to the meter of the song!

Peak Neoprene Gloves

and a Petzl Tikka XP

On the Second Day of Christmas...

Summit to Sea offered me, Peak UK Neoprene Gloves.

Of course there's also the deal of the day to consider, the Sea to Summit Bilge Pump.

Happy Boxing Day!

Happy Christmas & Welcome to "The 12 Deals of Christmas"

Happy Christmas or Nadolig Llawen if you're closer to us.

From today we begin our Twelve Deals of Christmas Promotion, a new deal every day for the next twelve days, but rather than running for a single day, we add to it until twelfth night when we close the offer. Watch this space for updates on the offers.

On the first day of Christmas, Summit to Sea offered me, a Petzl Tikka XP

Of course , we're still running our popular deal of the day alongside this offer.

Have a great holiday and I hope you get out paddling.


Pete

Fairy Glen

Local Activist, Andy Butler and a couple of chums ripping it up on the Fairy Glen, North Wales. ENJOY!

glen run fun from ROOT DOWN productions on Vimeo.

Last Chance for Christmas...

well almost, todays the last chance for "First Class Post" according to Royal Mail, but there's still 2 days left if you want to pay more and get it posted by Special Delivery.

We've got some great gifts in stock:

What do you give the man who has everything? How about a s**tbag??

The Podsacs Waste Management Sack is a bag for those who really follow the leave nothing but footprints ethos when in the outdoors.

If the person you're buying for like's a tipple when out overnight, then there's the 0.24 litre Stanley Hip Flask
suitable for most beverages, it won't keep your tea warm, but the contents may well warm the cockles of your heart.

If you don't fancy the Sound of Music again on Christmas afternoon, then how about an inspirational DVD, Into The Wind. Showing the hardships endured by Jeff Allen & Harry Whelan on their record breaking circumnavigation of Ireland in the Spring? It'll certainly make the post christmas dinner wash up seem less of a mammoth undertaking.

With corks popping all over the place, then the serious outdoor types would love to be reaching for the Gerber Crucial Multi-tool with Corkscrew. It has a bundle of uses, but at this time of year, it's "Crucial" use would be to open the next bottle of Merlot.

Christmas is a time for giving and it's a time when you give gifts that people might not buy themselves, but would find incredibly useful. The Folding X Bowl from Sea to Summit (no relation) is just one of those gifts.

Finally, it's all too easy to let yourself go and stop training over Christmas, so why not spend some time at least working on the theoretical aspects of sea kayak rescues by watching this well produced DVD, Sea Kayak Rescues, looking at Fast, Simple & Effective techniques.

Happy Christmas from Pete and the team here at Summit to Sea

Twelve Deals of Christmas

On Christmas Day, we begin the "12 Deals of Christmas". We're going to be giving you the chance to stack up our deals, these will be in addition to our usual "Deal of the Day", which will still be a limited offer. Between Christmas Day & Midnight on 12th Night, we'll be making some awesome offers, that you'll be able to combine into a delivery as a single consignment.

Just watch this space.

Next Accompanied Paddle -11/12/11

Less than a week until our next accompanied paddle, "The Mince Pie Paddle", so called because you can come back here for a cup of coffee (or tea) and a Mince Pie after you've paddled.

Sunday 11th 09:00 meet for an 09:30 start. don't miss it, it'll be clear, windless and sunny, I've booked the weather for the weekend!

As busy as July!!

We've had a hugely busy day over here on the Island today, demo boats out, boats sold, boats ordered, drysuits, paddles and more.

I was also busy finishing the racking for the new boats. It was a good job I went in early with so much to do today.

Today's "Deal of the Day" is the Rab Silk Sleeping Bag Liner at just £30, but the offer only lasts 24 hours. Mummy shape camping

and if you're interested in the weather, it's still really windy.

One Day, One Boat....

Our best deal of the day yet, the P & H Cetus Classic, today only just £1,750. There's just one of these available, so get in quick.

It's still windy here on the island.

Racking my brains.

We've been busy for the last couple of days, refurbishing tables (well times are hard!) and building a new rack for displaying and storing sea kayaks. Why?


Well the tables are for the impending Paddlers Cafe we're opening and the racks are for the new boats that we have coming in now that we're a North Shore dealer.

It's a work in progress and we'll post more pics when it's finished, but we thought that if you're bothering to read the blog regularly, you might like to read something other than "here's some more kit we'd like to flog you!". Oh and the weather hasn't improved since our last post either!!

*the link is to the "Deal of the Day", in case you missed it. X

Wild & Windy on Anglesey

Well after a few days of strong winds, the sea state has picked up. The forecast for tomorrow looks like the best day of the coming week, winds dropping down to just force 4 late afternoon and through the night, before picking up to a peak of 41mph on Monday. An interesting week ahead for paddlers on Anglesey.

 

Porthdafarch this afternoon.

While taking photos, we noticed that the ebb tide was still being blown UP the beach, as you can see in this short video.

It's certainly not a day for the faint hearted to be on the water. We've had a surprisingly high number of callers in store today though.

New Feature in the Webshop - Deal Of The Day

Deal of the Day

Every day we'll bring you a great new deal, some will be limited by quantity, others purely by time.

Each deal will last for a maximum of 24 hours, those which have a limited quantity available will obviously last for less if they sell out.

It might be one that's worth adding to your favourites, just click the link below to see what's on offer today.

Deal of the Day

Crazy Pete's Kayak Shack

or the Summit to Sea Promotional Podcast as it's officially known.

I wanted to wear a chicken suit or a stetson, but had to be sensible. However it was a great opportunity to showcase some of the products we have in store and the services we offer.

Accompanied Paddle - 13/11/11

Once a month we run an accompanied paddle from the shop. It's an opportunity for people to meet other paddlers outside of the usual club settings and just paddle.

The weather was fine, the winds lighter than in recent months and we had a good turnout.

There was a little swell in places.

 

Which was enjoyed by a few.

 

But only a few!!

 

They paddled past cliffs.

 

 

As they paddled on they saw wildlife, including climbers.

 

These guys were on "A Dream of White Horses", an absolute classic of North Wales climbing.

 

 They paddled out to stacks.

Around them.

 And back again.

As you can see the weather was really quite pleasant for November.

Thanks to David for the pictures.

Wrapping Paper

We've just received a delivery of quality wrapping paper from Justine Curgenven of Cackle TV & This is the Sea fame. The design was produced by Shawna Franklin of Body Boat Blade. It's beautiful, have a look below.

Each sheet measures 70cm wide x 50cm high.

It's available here in our webshop, £1.50 per sheet or 5 for £6.00

Don't try wrapping your loved ones new sea kayak in it though, it'll cost you a fortune and they'll still guess what it is!

Just in, and already flying out of the door.

The new Explorer One Piece Suit from Peak UK has hit the rails here in Valley, we had stock delivered on Wednesday and they're flying out the door already, so much so that we're just placing our second order.

A slight modification to the Peak UK Adventurer One Piece Suit, it has a neoprene AO* neck seal, making it better suited to prolonged periods of wet work than the original design.

The original is still a fantastic piece of kit offering a suit that will provide great protection during a period of time in the water, but maintaining the ability to vent the suit that can prove so necessary on long days of paddling where the weather is so changeable.

Of course both suits feature the Fleece lined collar with stowaway hood, one of my favourite features of the suit for this time of year, you can really hunker down into it when a squall blows through.

Expedition DVD

We've just seen this video for the upcoming "Expedition Skills" DVD by Olly Sanders of Rock & Sea and Nige Robinson of Sea Kayak Guides.

It looks like an interesting DVD and based on the presentation that Olly gave here recently on his 25 years of expeditioning, will contain a wealth of information.We'll certainly be stocking it when it becomes available in January. Keep an eye on Olly's Blog for more updates.

Something for the weekend sir?

We're selling the following the first two boats on behalf of two local coaches.

There's a Carbon Kevlar Valley Nordkapp LV, which has just undergone an overhaul at Valley and had a new keel strip fitted.

It's a red deck over a clear carbon/kevlar hull. £1850 ovno.

We've also got a Tiderace Xcite, 4 years old, but in excellent condition apart from two VERY small cracks on the keel line, easily concealed and remedied by the addition of a keel strip (we can arrange this for you £95). Again this boat has a carbon kevlar hull. £1450 ovno

Penultimately, one of our own bargains, a Cetus Classic, brand new with a keel strip, normally this should cost £2429, we'd normally be offering it at £1943 which is a saving of 20%, but until the end of November (or until it's sold, whichever is the sooner) we're slashing the price to over 25% off at £1,820.

Finally, we've also got a used Scorpio in excellent condition, less than a year old for £995, you'd barely now it's been on the water.

Catching up

Well the last two months have been rather busy, we went to Germany & did PADDLEexpo (formerly Kanumesse), where we sat and drank beer with Eric Jackson , a genuinely nice guy who asked me if I'd seen the movie "The Hangover", repeatedly. Aaron & Rhona from Square Rock  some of the most helpful distributors you could hope to meet. We nibbled gnocchi  with the team from Nookie in the great hall at the Messezentrum. Where we also wet our whistles with weissbier with the guys & girls from Pyranha  and then the following evening partook of Pizza with the lovely folk from Peak UK. However, it wasn't all eating and drinking and being merry, we spent a lot of time looking at what's going to be the new products we'll be bringing you over the winter of 2011 and into 2012, some are here, some we can tell you about and others we'll have to keep under wraps for now.


We've finally got our own web shop up & running, you can check that out here www.summittosea.co.uk

We're now stocking boats from North Shore Sea Kayaks , including the great value Aspect, just £800 for a Rotomoulded Sea Kayak and the Atlantic a composite sea kayak for just £1,850.

We've recently taken delivery of the Rockstar from Jackson Kayaks

This weekend, the Shiva from Pyranha landed in store, we have a demo boat available. £10 per day and every time it goes out on a demo, the price for the demo boat drops by £10. So if it's been out 30 times, it will cost you £649, if you can wait until it's been out 40 times it's down to £549, but you have to hold your nerve, 'cos once it goes, we start all over again with a new demo boat and it starts out at £949 all over again.

We've got some great deals on Peak One Piece suits, cags and more on our Sale Rail where we'll have our bargains all year round.

We've also got a new section for Used and Ex-Demo kayaks in the webshop.

It was over a week ago, but....

.... I got out paddling on my Birthday, a very early start (up for 05:00) saw us on the water at 06:50 to make the most of the big tide and attempt the Menai Challenge.

It was very dark at the start.

A stong squall blew through with a lot of hail, I couldn't even see the mussel crates that had been on the slipway as I launched. The wind was cold and the hail stung as it hit your exposed skin.

Once the squall had passed and John was back from parking the car and on the water, I set off. After about 15 minutes, as we approached Y Felinheli, John suddenly appeared 20-30 metres to my right (he always gets a better line on this thing) singing "Happy Birthday to you!". Clearly he wasn't putting as much effort in as he usually would, or the man has phenomenal reserves of lung capacity. I'm not sure which it is? It was still pretty dark.

A little later, I passed Plas Newydd I was rewarded with a really breathtaking view of the low winter sun slowly rising over the Britannia Bridge. The picture below really doesn't do it justice, as it was taken on my phone through a waterproof case, but hopefully you'll get the idea.

Despite having got up so early and having had a busy week (so being completely knackered after a weekend of Storm Gathering) and busting a gut trying to paddle as quickly as I could to improve on my time, I realised as I was alone on the water. John was a good eight or nine hundred metres ahead by now. I had this little moment to contemplate what life's really all about as I sat in my boat watching the world go by and witnessing the dawn of another day. It put things into perspective for me a little. Work is just that, work, but life, well that's for living and you really should make the most of every moment. There are things that happen everyday, but amongst those things are the opportunities to experience little miracles and moments that you will treasure for ever. The last time I'd felt a sense of awe & wonder like this in the outdoors was 11 years earlier, on Mt. Meru, again knackered. However, watching the sunrise over Kilimanjaro and the African plain was breathtaking, but then I'd been able to share the experience with my wife (who was suffering with the altitude, bless her, as she shared in one of my ambitions). I took my phone out and snapped it, after all there was no-one else in the world experiencing exactly what I was at that time and from my perspective and I felt I wanted to share it. It was a special moment, but it also made me think about the fact that after 6 months hard graft getting the shop up & running, I've missed a lot of special moments with my wife, my kids (who are growing up so quickly and those special moments will NEVER be repeated) and time that should be spent with friends (you never now how long you have to spend with the people that really matter in your life). There's more to life than work!

That sunrise brought my tired and clapped out body a little splash of invigoration and I decided that I really needed to dig a little deeper if I was going to beat my previous personal best, I tucked the phone away and dug in.

I checked my time at Britannia Bridge, I was about the same as my previous effort, I kept paddling hard through the Swellies and reached Menai Bridge, a quick glance at the clock showed me that I had the edge on my previous best and could beat it if I could keep going at that pace.

As I passed Bangor Pier, I was blowing hard and working really hard, pressing hard on my footpegs with every paddle stroke, rotating to increase the power in the catch phase of each paddle stroke and noticing the restriction caused by my PFD* gripping my "rounded abdomen**". As the sea was so glassy, I made a conscious decision to lose a few seconds removing my PFD to improve my ability to breathe and rotate. I stowed it under the deck elastics so it was within easy reach should I capsize, but began padling as hard as I could, I was going to beat my time, the question was by how much?


Considering the late night I'd had the night before helping a diesel-less damsel in distress on the A55 (didn't get to bed until 01:00) and the foul weather immediately before starting (I was sitting in my boat as a strong squall of hail blew through, I couldn't see the front of my boat at one point) and the fact that I had now reached the ripe old age of 43, I was pretty pleased with my performance and shaved 2:40 off my previous personal best. I went for a light breakfast with John (I'd only had a StarBar and a muesli bar for fuel prior to paddling), just a bacon roll and a coffee. Then we headed back to complete the shuttle and went our seperate ways, I was returning home to spend the day with my family (my Mum was up visiting), the kids were on half-term and we were going to have a proper birthday tea with Jelly & Ice Cream.

SMASHING!!


*PFD - Personal Flotation Device (also known as a Bouyancy Aid or Lifejacket, although the latter is slightly different in construction & performance)

**Rounded Abdomen - a more polite way of saying "fat gut", but more Menai Challenge times should see this reduced.

A Great Success

Marcus Demuth gave his first lecture in the UK on Saturday evening, here at our store in Valley, Anglesey.
It was a presentation about his attempt to Circumnavigate Tierra del Fuego in 2010. There was a reasonable turnout with folk coming from as far afield as Tregarth, Llanberis, Liverpool & Chicago, illustrating once again what a world class paddling location Anglesey is.

It was an interesting and informative lecture, I genuinely hadn't realised quite what a serious undertaking the expedition at the end of the earth had been and just how much commitment had been required by Marcus and his partner for the trip Biff Wruszek.

I'd like to thank Marcus for giving of his time so generously and inspiring both the audience and myself with his informative and amusing presentation and his quiz with prizes that he supplied himself, he made me feel a bit of a tightwad.

Olly Sanders has agreed to give the next presentation on his exploits in Greenland, a lecture entitled the "Bear Necessities" on Saturday 29th October, same format 18:30 for 19:00 start, which ties in very nicely if you've stayed on for the week following the Storm Gathering apparently there are just 5 places left for this wonderful "late season" gathering.

Some great looking new kit from Peak UK

Ok, so it's designed for slalom, but if you're a "park & play" playboater, then I can see this working well for you as well.

It's definitely worth a second look when it hit's the shops.

Innovative gear from Peak UK as they hit their 21st Birthday. Good work fellas!


You can read more here

Aries Action

Just a quick video of Ben out playing in the Aries from P&H at Penrhynmawr. Video courtesy of our friend Olly Sanders of Rock & Sea.

Carpe Paddlarum

I got a text message asking if I wanted to go out and play with some of the usual suspects who have been putting up the fastest times on the Menai Challenge in recent weeks. It was an "après travail" paddle, so the last 30 minutes in the shop were spent loading a couple of boats on the roof as Ben was joining us.

This one wasn't an attempt on the aformentioned challenge, but simply a bimble up the straits around Ynys Seiriol (or Puffin Island for those who don't speak Cymraeg) and back down to Porth Penmon. Puffin Island is the 9th largest island off the coast of Wales.

It all started well, I texted to say that we'd arrived and we had, just not in the same lay-by as the other four. So we moved around the corner, got changed and carried our boats down to the waters edge. It was a big tide and a long carry.

We launched our boats and just paddled along at a leisurely pace, enjoying the scenery, inspecting the wreck of the 471 ton sand dredger Hoveringham, which is revealed at low water and on low springs easily accessed by kayak. It's teeming with marine life.

And on this occasion even had a few of the "redactum maculosus salsus mare canis"  in residence.

As we passed between Penmon Point and Perch Rock, a small pod of porpoise passed us, but alas I was too slow in snatching my camera from the deck bag and so their passing went unrecorded. We paddled up the east side of Puffin Island, named after the now much reduced colony of Fratercula arctica (Puffins to you and I), rather than the Puffinus puffinus which is the latin name for the Manx Shearwater and a completely unrelated species. The puffins numbers were greatly reduced following the accidental introduction of the Rattus norvegicus (Brown rat and coincidentally the title of one my favourite albums in my teens, by the popular beat combo, The Stranglers). Strangely, the largest bird population found on the island now is Phalacrocorax carbo, the Great Cormorant.

We continued to the North Eastern corner and found an abundance of Halichoerus grypus, Atlantic Grey Seal. Although we approached quietly a number of them still took to the water, but they soon became their usual inquisitive selves.

We sat with the seals, watching them watching us, watching them watching us for a short while before we moved on.

We paddled back past the lighthouse as the sun was setting.

The plan was to be back in time for pysgod a sglodion, fish & chips for the non Cymraeg speakers, in Menai Bridge, but we dawdled and enjoyed the scenery as we passed the wreck of the Hoveringham again.

The title of todays post, well, I'd used Carpe Diem just over a year ago, and I don't want to be too repetitive, so I cobbled together some of the pidgin latin I could remember from my alma amater, Eastbrook Comprehensive I've used the feminine genitive plural, "Carpe paddlarum", "Sieze the paddles". I'm happy to be corrected & educated by any latin scholars out there.

Thanks to John, Pascale, Aled, Marcus & Ben for their company. If paddlings not your thing and carpe paddlarum doesn't apply for you, still Carpe diem, sieze the day and make every second count. You're a long time dead!!