Greenland Video

I've created a 5 minute video of the Greenland trip. Not an easy task, since I must have over 7 hours of video from the trip! I was also struggling a bit using Windows Live Movie Maker, so I tried and purchased Sony Vegas Movie Studio. This package seems to be popular over on the gopro forums.

Sony Vegas studio has features that makes it easy to overlay voice commentary, include images and then crop/pan over them and fairly intuitive editting of the video itself.

Here's the Youtube version:

Macclesfield Canal - 19th September 2012

Clarke Lane to bridge 18.
Out in 37:51, back in 38:37.
Dark by 8pm now.

Fleetwood Seaquest - 15th September 2012

High winds the day before made the holding of the event from the Marine Hall look unlikely, but luckily the winds had dropped sufficiently to make conditions on the beach not too rough.

I got a reasonable start and was the first boat to checkpoint 1, but I was soon overtaken by the K2 of Ned Price and John Kavanagh who went on to take the overall prize.

Alastair Hornsby tracked me around the course all the way - I seemed to make the clips at the checkpoints and get going again slightly quicker, but he had speed to keep catching me up again. I was still ahead of him after the last checkpoint, but coming back into the rougher conditions on the beach I couldn't match his speed and I came in second K1.

As usual the event was well organised by the OAG, and the post race barbeque and cups of tea were most welcome (not sure about some of the raffle prizes though!). Over £250 was raised for the Leukaemia Busters charity.

22km paddled, time 2:21.

Macclesfield Canal - 12th September 2012

Clarke Lane to Bridge 18 (Adlington Marina)
Out and back in about the same time of 38:41.
GPS showed average speed of 9.3 kph.

Great Orme - 9th September 2012

Paddle from West Beach Llandudno to Rhos on Sea, via Great Orme and Little Orme. Accompanied by 3 members of Macclesfield and District Canoe Club.

I drove Rachael to Llandudno, and we met Alan and Alan at West Beach. We unloaded the boats and performed the shuttle to leave my car at Rhos on Sea.

We left the beach just after low tide and paddled into a squally SW/W wind that was kicking up some reasonable sized waves on the shallow water as we started to round the Great Orme. After that excitement things calmed down a bit as we were more sheltered on the N side of the Orme and we were able to explore the rock features and small caves.

Little Orme

After a paddle through Llandudno pier we stopped for lunch and had a cup of tea at the Pool Cafe on the main Llandudno beach and then headed for the Little Orme. The spectacular cliffs had a colony of cormorants with many young birds looking slightly awkward, but the guillemots and razorbills had all gone.

Reversing in to a Little Orme cave

We left the shelter of Little Orme and again picked up the wind that seemed quite variable and this made the paddle round to Rhos On Sea a bit more of a slog with the occasional splash from the choppy waves.

Rachael paddles her Shoreline on its maiden voyage

We landed at the large slip in the middle of the beach but had to hurriedly clear a way for the inshore lifeboat to be launched for a shout. A jetski had been reported to be in trouble after running out of fuel, but the lifeboat didn't seem to find any one in difficulty and was soon back on the slip.

Just under 16km paddled.

The photos are stills from some gopro footage. The gopro cover is a bit scratched hence the blurry area around my head, but I was mainly trying out the new suction mount which seemed to work quite well. I'll try to remember to use a new unscratched case I have next time!

Macclesfield Canal - 5th September 2012

Launched at Clarke Lane but turned around at Bridge 18 (Adlington Marina). Not feeling too energetic, out in about 46:15, back in 47:30. "Cruising" speed. Getting pretty dark by 8:15 now.

Macclesfield Canal - 20th August 2012

Monday session on the canal spent with Rachael trying out different boats - she'd rented a North Shore Shoreline LV and Polar from Brookbank and was trying them out. Not impressed compared to my Xplore S!